Joan Murray - Böcker

She then turns inward to examine herself as an artist and a woman. In the final section she celebrates the courage that allows us to be death's great opponents.

One of the first women artists in Canada to receive international recognition, Laura Muntz's evocative paintings of children and childhood have been exhibited worldwide. In this overview of Muntz's life and work, Joan Murray captures the breadth and sophistication of Muntz's oeuvre. Trained in France and inspired by the Impressionists, Laura Muntz (1860-1930) imbued her paintings with a striking, atmospheric treatment of light. Energetic and determined, Muntz created a large number of canvases, watercolours, pastels, and drawings that communicate a deep sympathy with her subjects - most often children or women with children. As she continued her career in Toronto and Montreal, her works revealed flair, inventiveness, and a rich sense of colour and layering. Muntz lived and painted in Canada to the end of her life, exhibiting widely to considerable renown. Laura Muntz Lyall: Impressions of Women and Childhood provides an extensive chronology and exhibition history, as well as the artist's own words in a selection of previously unpublished correspondence. Reproducing more than ninety paintings in colour, this book offers new insight into the work of one of Canada's important artists.

"One of the few poets whose work remains accessible to both scholars of poetry and the casual reader...Her finely wrought free-form verse reads as easily as prose despite its dense, lush imagery."--The Harvard Review "Working in free verse, Murray is a master of the single unforgettable detail. Her accessible image-driven narratives harness the urgency of their moral or social context while staying true to the pacing and music of daily life."--The Poetry Foundation (publisher of Poetry magazine) Swimming for the Ark demonstrates why Joan Murray is praised as one of the leading narrative poets of our time. This career-defining book offers twenty-two new poems along with generous selections from her earlier books: The Same Water (winner of the Wesleyan New Poets Series), Looking for the Parade (winner of the National Poetry Series Open Competition), Queen of the Mist (the Niagara narrative which won her a Broadway commission), and Dancing on the Edge. This highly engaging book vividly dramatizes an urban youth and a rural life, along with deeper concerns about history, art, and injustice.From "Doorway": Of course we said we'd help you-- the cops were after you, you said, and we were rebel girls, weren't we? the four of us fifteen, the same age you said you were, when we crammed together in the doorway of a gated store, the windows full of knives, vibrators, transistor radios. I was the only one who understood: Lemony blond, sweet-voiced for a boy, you hid behind our Tangee lipstick, our teased-up hair-dos, the wispy-angora sweaters I can see in the photo-booth photos I still have here ...Joan Murray is the author of four prize-winning collections (from W. W. Norton, Wesleyan, and Beacon Press). She has been a repeat guest on NPR's Morning Edition and is editor of the Poems to Live By anthologies and The Pushcart Book of Poetry.