Ghost Farm

by Pamela Stewart

Overview

Poetry. These are poems about living close to nature on a remote farm, accompanied by large animals, Tibetan Buddhists, and a spouse. The book focuses on relationships—spiritual as well as physical, with nature as well as with other humans. "It's wonderful to have new poems by Jody Stewart, deeply internal and intensely lyrical, while at the same time stitched with the thread of myth, storytelling and country lore. These are sensuous, wise, and consoling poems"—Tony Hoagland.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781929355662
Publisher:	Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press
Publication date:	08/13/2010
Series:	Pleasure Boat Studio Chapbook , #14
Pages:	50
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

Pamela (Jody) Stewart has published several chapbooks and five full-length volumes of poetry, the most recent being The Red Window (University of Georgia Press, 1997). Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies including Dog Music, New York: Poems and two Pushcart Prizes. A Guggenheim Fellowship took her to Cornwall in the U.K. where she lived for seven years. She's happily ended up on a farm in Hawley, Massachusetts.

Read an Excerpt

A TIBETAN MAN IN HAWLEY, MASSACHUSETTS

Just one step off the edge into the deep

wrong place and a shoe pulls off, is lost.

Amidst twigs, leaves, mosses and stones, this shoe

cannot be found by eyes or strong hands.

Even digging into the exact place the shoe exited its foot,

farther down than the shoe could have delved,

there’s no black shoe! What now?

The man stands in thick dry grasses at road’s edge

and decides on the one thing children in his village

were taught to do. Slipping off

his other shoe he flings it over to where the first black shoe

must have gone. How long should he wait

for one shoe to find the other? It’s August,

too hot to stand for long without flies catching in his hair.

The shoes have tongues; they should call to one another.

It’s hot, but the man from Tibet will pace this roadside ditch

waiting for his shoes to rise out of the shadows.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Tansy Wormwood Sage

A Tibetan Man in Hawley, Massachusetts

A Haze on the Hills

From Which Direction

What Marriage Means to Me Today

Sometimes

A Small Window

In Praise

Page by Page

My Grandmother Told Me

Daily

Why I Read

November Suite

Mute

Ars Poetica

Mohair

Midsummer

Bringing Back the Farm

Veterans’ Day

The Lullaby We Never Sang

Long Love

And Yet, Some Days Feel Different

Feather

Parable Dreams

The Meliorist

Old Songs

The Refuse Garden

The Stupa that Lobsang Built

The Ghost Farm

What People are Saying About This

Colette Inez

Pamela Stewart casts her spell in these sharply seen, sometimes dreamlike poems inhabited by worlds of worms, birds, mosses, and stones where “shoes have tongues and rise,” one tastes “an eighth-note of smoke,” and “dogs run silently through dry grass.” Dangers of fire, sickness, war erupt but the poet acknowledges song, and the “mucking out,” the “sorting of fleece” in the seasonal pull of farm life. Nature’s return of “grief with its scrabble of hope at the root” is given its due. This is a luminous book exactly and generously orchestrated. I salute it.--(Colette Inez, poet (with nine books and several other awards))

Tony Hoagland

It's wonderful to have new poems by Jody Stewart, deeply internal and intensely lyrical, while at the same time stitched with the thread of myth, story-telling and country lore. These are sensuous, wise, and consoling poems. --(Tony Hoagland)

Editorial Reviews

Pamela Stewart casts her spell in these sharply seen, sometimes dreamlike poems inhabited by worlds of worms, birds, mosses, and stones where 'shoes have tongues and rise,' one tastes 'an eighth-note of smoke,' and 'dogs run silently through dry grass.' Dangers of fire, sickness, war erupt but the poet acknowledges song, and the 'mucking out,' the 'sorting of fleece' in the seasonal pull of farm life. Nature s return of 'grief with its scrabble of hope at the root' is given its due. This is a luminous book exactly and generously orchestrated. I salute it. --Colette Inez



It's wonderful to have new poems by Jody Stewart, deeply internal and intensely lyrical, while at the same time stitched with the thread of myth, story-telling and country lore. These are sensuous, wise, and consoling poems. --Tony Hoagland



To open Pamela Stewart's The Ghost Farm is to enter another world - invisible but wondrous. There, moonlight shines at noon and when 'sheep jump, their fleeces fall away,' ready for carding. A strange messenger tries to rescue the sun buried in a tree at forest's edge. These poems have the crystalline elegance of folklore, yet Stewart also meticulously details the dailiness of life on a farm. The Ghost Farm embodies a profound wisdom drawn from working closely with animals, surviving cancer, and living 'more flesh.' Stewart's poetic ear dazzles - and, oh, the glorious vision! Pamela Stewart is among our finest living poets. --Cynthia Hogue

From the Publisher