Tony Barnstone – författare

Unmatched in scope and literary quality, The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry spans three thousand years, bringing together more than six hundred poems by more than one hundred thirty poets, in translations–many new and exclusive to the book–by an array of distinguished translators.Here is the grand sweep of Chinese poetry, from the Book of Songs–ancient folk songs said to have been collected by Confucius himself–and Laozi’s Dao De Jing to the vividly pictorial verse of Wang Wei, the romanticism of Li Po, the technical brilliance of Tu Fu, and all the way up to the twentieth-century poetry of Mao Zedong and the post—Cultural Revolution verse of the Misty poets. Encompassing the spiritual, philosophical, political, mystical, and erotic strains that have emerged over millennia, this broadly representative selection also includes a preface on the art of translation, a general introduction to Chinese poetic form, biographical headnotes for each of the poets, and concise essays on the dynasties that structure the book. A landmark anthology, The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry captures with impressive range and depth the essence of China’s illustrious poetic tradition.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Richly painted, at times fantastical, fine art images of plants, animals, and people co-inhabit a dream-like world guiding tarot readers down a radiant path of awakening creativity and personal growth.The creation of The Radiant Tarot deck was born from the author and artist’s years of working with archetypal images, the universal symbolic language. Sentient animal and plant kingdoms animate the artwork, honoring and acknowledging the interconnectedness of all life. The art is inspired by “Gaia mind,” where all creation’s forms—animal, vegetable, mineral—affect our precious planet in life-supporting ways.The words of Rainer Maria Rilke “the animal world?beholds the Open” invite us to understand this renowned poet’s insistence that “one must know animals, must feel how the birds fly, and know the gestures with which small flowers open in the morning.” William Blake speaks of “animal forms of wisdom,” says that “Nature is Imagination itself.” It is the creative energy of these master artists drawn from the natural world that inspire The Radiant Tarot.

The Golem of Los Angeles is the 2006 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award winning poetry collection by Tony Barnstone."Tony Barnstone’s poems are besotted with the world—slot machines in Vegas, ants and centipedes and rivers, fires and beaches and “filtered forest light,” love in its carnal splendor, and the charnel squalor when love dies. Yet the Contents page in The Golem of Los Angeles—full of Psalms, Parables, Testaments, Sermons, Sutras, even the occasional Spell—makes clear that Barnstone’s deepest impulse is religious: to praise and to pray. I praise this book. May it fly, reader, into your hand."—Charles Harper Webb

China has a strong and ancient tradition of erotic poetry by both men and women, and this unique collection includes poems from three thousand years ago to the present day, ranging from the highly literary to the sexually explicit - many of them appearing in English for the first time. While literary poets such as Zi Ye ('Lady Midnight') and Emperor Li Yu of the Tang Dynasty are already known in the West, popular Chinese verse has been largely ignored by translators. Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping mine a richly erotic vein, uncovering ancient Chinese Daoist sex manuals, erotic novels and plays (which contain poems at moment of sexual epiphany); the tradition of erotic prints, which were often accompanied by poems; folksongs and bawdy jokes. The contrast between the discretion and subtlety of classical Chinese erotic poetry and the earthy comedy of its popular counterpart makes for a fascinating and entertaining anthology.