Mingling Voices Series – serie

Working within a postmodern style, this rhythmic and melodious collection of poems originally written in Slovenian by Cvetka Lipuš and translated here by Tom Priestly, blends the real with the surreal, dull urban lives with dreams. Lipuš, known for the lexical beauty of her work, dwells on topics of time and space which she handles in an almost revolving, irreverent manner. Priestly captures the maze-like characteristic of her verse and carefully reconstructs the sonoric beauty of the work in its original language.

In this inventive collection of poems, McCutcheon engages in sophisticated literary play and deploys the Surrealist practices of juxtaposition. Moving from eroticism to the macabre and from transformative quotation to the individual idiom, Shape Your Eyes by Shutting Them explores intertextuality in poetry by challenging the cultural tradition of seeing quotation as derivative.

In this poignant and meditative collection of short stories, Zubair Ahmad captures the lives and experiences of the people of the Punjab, a region divided between India and Pakistan. In an intimate narrative style, Ahmad writes a world that hovers between memory and imagination, home and abroad. The narrator follows the pull of his subconscious, shifting between past and present, recalling different eras of Lahore's neighbourhoods and the communities. These stories evoke the complex realities of post-colonial Pakistani Punjab. The contradictions and betrayals of this region's history reverberate through the stories, evident in the characters, their circumstances, and sometimes their erasure. Skillfully translated from Punjabi by Anne Murphy, this collection is an essential contribution to the wider recognition of the Punjabi language and its literature.

Musing is a book of sonnets. Working within the frameworkof a classic poetic form, Jonathan Locke Hart embarks on an extendedmeditation on our rootedness in landscape and in the past. As sonnets,some of the poems are traditional, some innovative. Throughout, Hartdeftly imparts a European poetic flavour to a fundamentally NorthAmerican experience.The collection opens with a foreword by noted literary scholarGordon Teskey, who reflects on the themes that have marked theevolution of Hart's poetry. Of Musings, Teskey writes:"These deeply thoughtful poems bring layered historicalconsciousness into the sonnet. They also touch and stir the heartthrough all its levels."

Maurice Yacowar challenges genre and form in Roy & Me,a cross between memoir and fiction, truth and distortion. It is theexploration of Yacowar's relationship with Roy Farran – soldier, politician, author, mentor – and his conflict withFarran's anti-Semitic past.Best known for his service with the Special Air Service during WorldWar II, Roy Farran served as a politician in the Legislative Assemblyof Alberta for Premier Peter Lougheed. During his time as a soldier,Farran allegedly kidnapped and murdered a sixteen-year-old member ofthe Lehi group.Roy & Me is a memoir that edges toward fiction byventuring into Farran's thoughts, based on his writings andYacowar's imagination.

all pale beside my lady whose lovelyface ciò passa la beltate e la valenzaand gentle heart show theunworthiness de la mia donna e 'l su' gentil coraggio,of him who catches a glimpse of herperfection, sì che rasembra vile a chi ciò guarda; for she is an earthly vessel of heaven'sgrace e tanto più d'ogn' altr' ha canoscenza,before whose greatness we are so muchless, quanto lo ciel de la terra è maggio.beyond any redemption or evencorrection. A simil di natura ben non tarda. The fact that Cavalcanti's friend, Dante Alighieri, was asupremely fine poet ought not blind us to Cavalcanti's own, ratherdifferent excellence. His love poetry has more of the tang ofreal-world experience and is as appealing as Dante's, although in amore modern and recognizable way. The two poets both suffer, butCavalcanti is not so sure that his torments are likely to improve hisspirit. He is, therefore, more torn and under greater pressure to findsome meaning in his struggles, and, as translator David R. Slavittdeclares, "more fun."