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Touchstones by GORDON WALMSLEY
| Paperback | 130 x 204 mm | 128 pages | ISBN 978-1-903392-69-0 | October 2007
A touchstone is a stone used to gain insight into the qualities of a sample of gold. Gordon Walmsley develops this theme, the theme of insight, into a many-faceted adumbration of poems. He raises the question: how can we fathom the cold mechanism of an increasingly authoritarian world and be free to think and act as we wish, according to our inner touchstone? Poems and poetic sequences range from lyrical beauty to stark realism of terrifying intensity. A bold honesty permeates the book. Utilizing a variety of poetic expression, he leads us to Poesia, who appears to us in many guises.
GORDON WALMSLEY, born and raised in New Orleans, has lived in Copenhagen (Denmark) for over twenty years. A graduate of Princeton University, he has published four previous books of poetry, including Terebinthos (Salmon, 1999). He was also the editor of Fire and Ice, Nine Poets from Scandanavia and the North (Salmon, 2003). After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, he has returned whenever possible to the home of his birth to give readings and poetry-writing workshops.
Sample Poem
Poesia
Poesia enters the silent room she lifts her veil and folds it on the table a sigh emerges from the threshold sea for who has ever seen her face there is a tumbler of water there and shadows move over it like leaves in a window we are at a place of absolute balance before the hand touches or the rush of swelling voices fills
Poetry is young and full of sad hope with a heart that brims with what is not spoken she raises her head from the stars below and enters into their listening then she melts into many pieces to find the soul’s secret coves the harvesting glades of the mind and within the eyes of those listening round her not a word is spoken yet when poetry draws once more into her own shape they sigh like the rolling grains of the sea for their hearts have found at last a sound
By the water on the table she places a silver cup breathing her liquid thoughts into it and those who are present sigh again though this time their sigh is like rain, like a summer shower and not to be captured and the chalice dissolves into a bowl whose sides lift blue round the circle of men and women and there is singing and singing and just plain singing since a heart that is full can never be quite still and must sing if it is to dance—
Leaving the room in twos and threes in sevens and twelves they try to remember like dazed apostles what was said or spoken or sung some remember words and others phrases and some remember certain resonances and the colours they bring
And when they awaken it is as though the colour of the dawn has tinged the waters of a glass bottle poised on a table an afternoon and they sense the figure of a maiden throwing seeds in a circle and a sigh the colour of
shame
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