Passageways

by Philip Resnick

Overview

Passageways is a major collection of Philip Resnick’s poetry, spanning over 40 years. A number of the poems in the first section of the book, “Of the Greeks and Hebrews,” were in earlier collections, which have long been out of print. The other four sections of the book tackle a wide variety of topics. “Faraway Shores” evokes various places the author has visited or lived in over the course of a long career. “In Troubled Times” contains poems dealing with political themes, some clearly contemporary in character, others more historical in scope. “Meditations and Reflections” contains a wide range of poems with literary, philosophical, as well as autobiographical underpinnings. The final section of the book, “Thanatos’s Shadow,” deals with the challenges of facing the death of a loved one and the bereavement which follows. Greece, and the region of Mount Pelion in particular, has been a major source of inspiration for Resnick’s poetry over the years and this is strongly reflected in many of the poems in this collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781553805243
Publisher:	Ronsdale Press
Publication date:	05/01/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	158
File size:	907 KB

About the Author

Philip Resnick began writing poetry in Montreal, stopping for a time when he embarked on an academic career at the University of British Columbia. His marriage to Andromache (Mahie), who was Greek, resulted in numerous stays in Thessaly, in the city of Volos, and in a village on adjacent Mount Pelion. These stays rekindled his poetic inspiration and resulted in the publication of a number of collections in the late 1970s and 1980s. Philip has continued to write ever since and has published numerous poems in magazines and journals, as well as a 2015 collection Footsteps of the Past and 2018 collection Passageways. As a political scientist at the University of British Columbia for over forty years until his retirement in 2013, Philip has published widely on political topics. He makes his home in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Passageways 1

I Of The Greeks and Hebrews

Jason 5

Phaedra 6

Iphigenia 7

Aslyanax 8

Of the Ancients 9

Narcissus 10

Ariadne's Thread 11

Sappho 12

Of the Muses 13

The Greek Alphabet 14

Matters of Faith 15

Joseph 16

Moses 17

Samson 18

Jonathan 19

Ezekiel 20

In Alexandria 21

The God that Failed 22

Diáspora Sefardí 23

Jerusalem 24

Jewish Intellectuals 25

II Faraway Shores

Unstrung Guitar 29

Habitación 228, Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid 30

Passeig de Gràcia 31

Praza das Prate rías, Santiago de Compostela 32

Metropolitan Museum 33

Kyoto Passage 34

Quarter Moon 35

In Borges's City 36

Cementerio de la Recoleta, 1991 37

In a Provençal Town, circa 1220 Ad 38

Cité Universitaire 39

Maison de Culture, Bobigny 40

Trade Fair Palace, Prague, 1942 41

Olympus 42

Kiki's House 43

Flowers of Pelion 44

The Gentleman Caller 45

Olive Trees 46

The Muse 47

Daybreak over Damouchari 48

Thalassa 49

The Surf 50

Homage to Chiron 51

The Voice 52

III In Troubled Times

Winterschlaf 55

Paradise Lost 56

Le défi 57

Alexandcrplatz 58

Fugue 59

The Better Angels of our Nature 60

Sans Illusions 61

The Paradise Papers 62

Deontology 63

Getting to Denmark 64

Political Cycles 65

In the Balkans 66

Yin and Yang 67

Europa after the Rain 68

In Postmodern Times 69

The Look of Silence 70

Two Images 71

Truth and Consequences 72

Atavisms 73

The Niqab 74

The Age of Justin 75

Paris XI^e 76

Lucky Countries 77

Modernism 78

The Barbarians 79

Far from the Imperial Court 80

Prussia 81

The Lawgivers 82

Vergina 83

The Authoritarian Impulse 84

Brexit 85

The Master 86

History 87

War and Peace 88

On a Passage in Kant 89

After Marx 90

Making America Great Again 91

The Demos 92

Canada at 150 93

Sesquicentenary 94

IV Meditations And Reflections

Iolkos 99

Theomachy 100

Orpheus 101

The Beach 102

Rousseau 103

Salop World 104

Condorcet 105

In Höderlin's Footsteps 106

Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens 107

The Hampels 108

A Poet's Shadow 109

L'Écriture ou la Vie 110

The Pilgrim 111

On Some Lines in Seferis 112

The Alexandria Quartet 113

A Northern Lyre 114

Sentimental Education 115

On Re-reading Neruda's "The Heights of Macchu Picchu" 116

Fidelity 117

Flitter Oranges 118

In the Literary Café 119

Lost Lines 120

The Obscure Hours 121

Land's End 122

The Burden of the Past 123

Ballad of Farewell 124

The City 125

V Thanatos's Shadow

The Triumph of Death 129

In the Archaeological Museum 130

Moonlit Paths 131

The Ferryman 132

On Reading Machado 133

Stabal Mater 134

Night Poem 135

Night Vigil 136

For Mahie 137

Decline 138

You Looked Pretty 139

Last Days 140

Hemodialysis Ward 141

Hospital Vigil 142

Genealogy 143

Intermezzo 144

I Have Become My Country 145

Purdy Pavilion, UBC 146

Euridyce 147

The Swallow 148

On Solitude 149

Ave atque vale 150

The Portrait 151

Gratitude and Grieving 152

Agios Tachiarchis 153

The Enchanted Cove 154

Darkness 155

On Revisiting a Cavafy Poem 156

About the Author 157