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I LIVE BY THE INVISIBLE
New & Selected Poems
by RAY BRADBURY
Price: | Paperback | 130 x 204mm | 92 pages | ISBN 1-903392-20-9 | Sept 2002 | Currency Convertor
I Live by the Invisible: New & Selected Poems is Ray Bradbury's first poetry collection to be published outside the U.S. First published by Salmon in 2002, this 2008 edition is updated with additional poems. This volume is a gift to generations who have read and loved his remarkable work.

A master of poetic nuance in his prose work, his poetry is at once immediate, subtle, revealing, political, philosophical and magical. The world of Ray Bradbury has always been a special place. Millions of people have shared in it; shared his longing; his insight; his visionary knowledge of things which humanity holds dear.

These poems are haunting, telling, nostalgic, satirical, funny and wise. In his late 80s, Ray Bradbury is still sharing, and giving so much.

 

I have endured much to reach this place in time
Yet I have not been sick, nor mad,
Nor ruined in a wreck.
And yet I feel I have.
There is a thing in me, the walls of cells are thin,
My veins are glass, my heart the merest whim
Of beat and pause and beat,
Deaths in the street are mine. I would not have it so.
I know much more than I would want to know.
The breakfast headlines tell me of a war,
I know they die out there; put down my spoon.
Men land on the moon tonight, I know their joy,
The boy in me goes with them as they tread
Far overhead on dust world beyond reach
They teach my tired blood to love again.
There's rain in downtown Peru tonight,
I wash my face in it. In Indo China, one more massacre,
I run a race in it and lose.
You see?
I cannot choose to be or not to be.
 
 
from I Have Endured Much to Reach This Place
 

 

 
About the Poet
Ray Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter to become a full-time writer in 1943, contributing numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing the collection, Dark Carnival, in 1947. His reputation as a visionary writer was established with The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth men to colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published seventy-two books of short stories, poems, essays, and plays. His new novel, From the Dust Returned, was published by William Morrow at Halloween 2001. Morrow will release One More For the Road, a new collection of Bradbury stories, in April, 2002. Ray Bradbury's work has been included in three Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, and the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award. In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medial for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City. Bradbury has been nominated for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright), and has won an EMMY (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree). He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's Ray Bradbury Theater. Married since 1947, Mr. Bradbury and his late wife Maggie had four daughters together. Mr. Bradbury lives in Los Angeles.
 
Sample Poem
They Have Not Seen The Stars
They have not seen the stars,
Not one, not one
Of all the creatures on this world
In all the ages since the sands first touched the wind
Not one, not one,
No beast of all the beasts has stood
On meadowland or plain or hill
And known the thrill of looking at those fires;
Our soul admires what they, oh, they, have never known.
Five billion years have flown in turnings of the spheres
But not once in all those years
Has lion, dog, or bird that sweeps the air
Looked there, oh, look. Looked there, ah God, the stars;
Oh, look, look there!
It is as if all time had never been,
Or universe or sun or moon or simple morning light.
Their tragedy was mute and blind, and so remains. Our sight?
Yes, ours? To know now what we are.
But think of it, then choose -now, which?
Born to raw Earth, inhabiting a scene
And all of it, no sooner viewed, erased, gone blind
As if these miracles had never been.
Vast circlings of sounding light, of fire and frost,
And all so quickly seen then quickly lost?
Or us, in fragile flesh, with God's new eyes
That lift and comprehend and search the skies?
We watch the seasons drifting in the lunar tide
And know the years, remembering what's died.

Reviews
From Publishers Weekly: Most of the nearly 50 poems in this collection from the unquenchable Bradbury are new, but all have his evergreen touch - accessible, humorous, quietly emotional. Now in his 80s, the master is feeling his age, as shown in "To Ireland...": "I cannot stand that haunted rain/ Where youngness melts away to sea." Rain reappears as a metaphor in "Dublin Sunday," where he and his wife sit glumly in their hotel, all plays sold out, a favourite pub locked. Most expressive is "Once the Years Were Numerous and the Funerals Few" ("Once the hours were years, now years are hours"). For all the gloom, Bradbury can't long restrain his usual luxuriating in the sensual wonder of life. "It's No-Excuses-Needed-For-Living Weather" discovers the beauty of the "storm-cleansed" land. In six economical lines, "Manet/Renoir" celebrates the varying approaches of these painters to depicting the female form ("Rear view or facade?"). "When God in Loins a Beehive Puts" joyfully defines coming-of-age for boys. "Ahab at the Helm" takes Melville on a delicious parody of Thayer's "Casey at the Bat." The Bradbury who treasures memory emerges in "With Love," an account of his father's attempts to teach him to knot a tie, and "Byzantium I Come Not From," a paean to his Midwest origins. Bradbury fans, Hibernophiles, general readers, even some contemporary poetry snobs, will find this a lovely read.

 

Salmon Poetry, Knockeven, Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland
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About this Book
Sample Poem