"What makes this grand work of criticism is Mason’s own voice . . . Mason reveals a glorious passion for literature, as well as an almost Whitmanesque openness to the ideas and emotions that inspire creative acts at all levels."—Library Journal (starred review)
“A combination of penetrating considerations of renowned and out-of-fashion poets and keen appreciations of the interplay of landscape and culture . . . Clearly, reading (and writing) is a form of travel and transcendence for the author, who conveys this feeling in erudite, often intoxicating language . . . Attached to the notion that all places are stories and all stories places, Mason . . . draws an illuminating literary cartography with many fascinating ports of call.”—Kirkus Reviews
"Mason expertly weaves the stories of great writers and places both ancient and new together into an imaginative literary odyssey . . . Throughout, Mason reminds the reader that travel writing should not be reduced to a lesser genre, and, from Herodotus to W.H. Auden, has been an important literary tradition that enables us to explore the world through reading. This special collection leaves readers with a sense of wanderlust and a refreshing new lens through which to view literature and travel."—Publishers Weekly
"A collection of literary essays with a personal spin, as enjoyably unpredictable in their subject matter as the poems."—The Times Literary Supplement
"Voices, Places is a collection of essays on travelling and writing, and in every one of them Mason's sentences sing."—The Australian
"Mason finds poetry while exploring the world."—The American Scholar
"Thoughtful and thought-provoking, engaged and engaging."—Midwest Book Review
Praise for David Mason's previous books:
“Only a rare poet can merge the reverence of Thoreau with the irreverence of Zorba the Greek to create something wholly unlike anything else — and that is what Mason accomplishes in Davey McGravy.”—Brain Pickings on Davey McGravy
“In charting this struggle and long awakening against the backdrop of Greece, Mason has made a book of memorable, meditative beauty.”—Katherine Messenger, New Criterion, on News from the Village
“Sometimes, it's in the landscape of grief that the soul is most unmoored. This tender and breathtaking child’s poem—the story of a boy who mourns his mother’s death, told in aching verse by the former poet laureate of Colorado—might illuminate a way toward healing.”—Chicago Tribune on Davey McGravy
“Here is a chapter of our lives in cadences that will resonate with anyone who gives them a chance.” —Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World, on Ludlow
“Narrative poetry at its best.” —Publishers Weekly on The Country I Remember
“Poetry criticism doesn’t get any better than this.” —Booklist on The Poetry of Life
★ 02/01/2018
In this profoundly curious collection, poet Mason (Davey McGravy; Ludlow) has gathered a selection of criticism that attempts to link the importance of place with the development of the poet's voice. Though efforts toward that end are of some interest, what makes this grand work of criticism is Mason's own voice. The former poet laureate of Colorado displays a serious delight in contemplating the importance of geographic place on a poet or author's work. But the book's real value is its curiosity and urgent desire to explore the artist and the art. Mason reveals a glorious passion for literature, as well as an almost Whitmanesque openness to the ideas and emotions that inspire creative acts at all levels. Included in this delightful collection are essays about some of modern literature's more famous exiles: Joseph Conrad, Ezra Pound, and W.H. Auden among them, as well as such travelers as Herodotus, Omar Khayyam, Bruce Chatwin, and writers linked inextricably to place: Ernest Hemingway, Robinson Jeffers, and Wallace Stegner. The most interesting piece is Mason's resurrection of the all but lost poet Belle Turnbull and her verse-novel Goldboat, which he calls an example of "populist modernism," that is "like so many significant poems, an eccentricity." VERDICT Highly recommended for poetry and literary studies collections.—Herman Sutter, St. Agnes Acad., Houston
2017-10-30
A combination of penetrating considerations of renowned and out-of-fashion poets and keen appreciations of the interplay of landscape and culture.Poet and novelist Mason (English/Colorado Coll.; Sea Salt, 2014, etc.), who served as the poet laureate of Colorado from 2010 to 2014, avoids an excess of academic jargon in favor of a straightforward style, though occasionally his descriptions lean toward the overwrought and there is a tendency, largely understandable, to worship at the altar of poetry a little too devoutly. The strengths of this collection are the author's closely reasoned essays and expansive book reviews. Apart from a reminiscence of his years in Greece, which generates thoughtful appreciations of the writers Patrick Leigh Fermor ("a life of inspired insouciance") and Bruce Chatwin, Mason explores the work of a wide range of literary artists. The best of these approach such notables as W.H. Auden, Ezra Pound, Joseph Conrad, and Robinson Jeffers with fresh eyes and bracing prose. At times, Mason mounts a rigorous defense of the artist in question; at others, he offers cleareyed, warts-and-all analyses. Early on he also recalls the interesting story of how TheRubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was rescued by a philologist in a remainder bin in 1861 and the process by which it was published and disseminated and became a sensation. Clearly, reading (and writing) is a form of travel and transcendence for the author, who conveys this feeling in erudite, often intoxicating language—though he does get rather inebriated himself from time to time. Mason wears his liberalism prominently, which is fine when not walking the precipice of preachiness, as he sometimes does, but it is hard to dispute his melancholy assessment that "history can seem a bombardment of human stupidities."Attached to the notion that all places are stories and all stories places, Mason, at his best, draws an illuminating literary cartography with many fascinating ports of call.