In the course of researching dogwood trees, beloved poet and essayist Christopher Merrill realized that a number of formative moments in his life had some connection to the tree named—according to one writer—because its fruit was not fit for a dog. As he approached his sixtieth birthday, Merrill began to compose a self-portrait alongside this tree whose lifespan is comparable to a human’s and that, from an early age, he’s regarded as a talisman. Dogwoods have never been far from Merrill’s view at significant moments throughout his life, helping to shape his understanding of place in the great chain of being; entwined in his experience is the conviction that our relationship to the natural world is central to our walk in the sun. The feeling of a connection to nature has become more acute as his life has taken him to distant corners of the earth, often to war zones where he has witnessed not only humankind’s propensity for violence and evil but also the enduring power of connections that can be forged across languages, borders, and politics. Dogwoods teach us persistence humility and wonder. Self-Portrait with Dogwood is no ordinary memoir, but rather the work of a traveler who has crisscrossed the country and the globe in search of ways to make sense of his time here. Merrill provides new ways of thinking about personal history, the environment, politics, faith, and the power of the written word. In his descriptions of places far and near, many outside of the average American’s purview—a besieged city in Bosnia, a hidden path in a Taiwanese park, Tolstoy’s country house in Russia, a castle in Slovakia, a blossoming dogwood at daybreak in Seattle—the reader’s understanding of the world will flourish as well.
Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars is a chronicle of poet and critic Christopher Merrill's ten war-time journeys to the Balkans from the years 1992 through 1996. At once a travelogue, a book of war reportage, and a biography of the imagination under siege, this beautifully written and personal narrative takes the reader along on the author's journeys to all the provinces and republics of the former Yugoslavia—Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina—as well as to Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Turkey. His journeys provide the narrative structure for an exploration of the roles and responsibility of intellectuals caught up in a decisive historical moment, many of whom either helped to incite the war or else bore eloquent witness to its carnage. What separates this book-the first non-native literary work on the conflict-from other collections of reportage, political analysis, and polemic, is its concern for capturing the texture of particular places in the midst of dramatic change-the sounds and sights and smells, the stories and observations of victim and perpetrator alike, the culture of war. Here is a literary meditation on war, a fascinating portrait of the poetry, politics and the people of the Balkans that will provide insight into the past, present, and future of those war-torn lands. Hear an interview with the author on NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, February 20th, 'Balkan Poets.
Taking several ageless questions--"Where do we come from? Where are we going? What shall we do?"--as his point of departure, award-winning author Christopher Merrill explores the related issues of terror, modernity, tradition, and epochal transformation. In three extended essays, Merrill observes the performance of a banned ritual in the Malaysian province of Kelatan; traces Saint-John Perse's epic voyage from Beijing to Ulan Bator in 1921, and relates it to the China of today; and embarks on a trip across the Levant in 2007 in the wake of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Merrill asserts that it is in this trinity of human actions--ceremony, expedition, and war--that history is formed; and that the political, environmental, and social changes we're witnessing now presage the end of one order and the creation of another.
If I had learned anything during the war, it was that our walk in the sun is brief, and so I resolved to wander from monastery to monastery, a sojourner in the world of last things." So poet and journalist Christopher Merrill tells us near the beginning of this gripping account of the transforming pilgrimages he made to Mount Athos, in Greece, in the aftermath of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. "It was time for me to come to terms with the way my life had turned out: the love I had squandered, the misgivings I had about my vocation and my faith, the dread I felt at every turn." In despair and longing to end his spiritual desolation, Merrill became one of a handful of visitors permitted entry to Mount Athos--a mysterious land that for more than a thousand years has been the secret heart of the Eastern Orthodox Church. There, amid the beautiful terrain, the ancient rhythms, and the spiritual rigor of this holy place, he found a haven. As Merrill's story unfolds, we, too, hike the rough trails of Athos, exploring a place and a way of life scarcely altered since medieval times. We share encounters with monks and spiritual seekers; visit Athos's twenty monasteries, where exquisite art treasures are sequestered; make our way to lonely hermitages that clutch the cliffs above the sea. Like Merrill, we come to consider existence in a new and different light. Part journal of personal discovery, part meditation upon the history and traditions of the contemplative life, Things of the Hidden God takes us where the temporal and the eternal intersect, where community and solitude coexist, and where centuries-old practices offer insight for how to live today.
The richly imagined fables, vignettes, and prose poems of Flares reveal the elementary strangeness of this world. Here is the improvised travel record of a poet haunted by history, who documents what he discovers in foreign lands with an exacting and hallucinatory eye. Composed in transit, on diplomatic missions to scores of countries, Flares will endure in the reader's imagination as a series of signals in the night, illuminating the hidden corners of our time here on earth.
Christopher Merrill is one of the most gifted, audacious, and accomplished poets of an extraordinarily rich generation..... This collection shows a complex talent developing and extending its original high promise."--W.S. Merwin
A striking new collection by a poet W. S. Merwin calls "gifted, audacious, and accomplished." A prolific journalist, Merrill's most recent work, two non-fiction books on the crisis in the Balkans, have received tremendous critical acclaim. With this collection, he returns for the first time in seven years to the form closest to his heart: poetry. "No anxiety of influence prevails here; nor is there evidence of a desire to follow any models too closely. Rather, there is a generosity that names names, offers praise, then contributes something new. Merrill lives in a landscape of names, surrounded by eloquent scraps of language allowing him to chant the senses' progress through the world.--John Elder, The Los Angeles Times Christopher Merrill is Director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.
Centred around three journeys to Mount Athos, one of the most important places in Orthodox Christianity, this is both a travel book and a journey of self-discovery in a world beset by violence and fear. Mount Athos is the spiritual home of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and for more than ten centuries this monastic community in northern Greece has been a centre for contemplative life, a staging ground for mystical visions and teachings, and a watch tower for Byzantium. A world unto itself, which has existed almost unchanged since medieval times, the theocratic state of Athos is a spiritual haven which stands in dramatic counterpoint to the contemporary world. Even time is calculated differently here - Athos rejects the Julian calendar and clocks are reset every day to Byzantine time - midnight falls at sunset. Christopher Merrill travelled to Mount Athos in search of spiritual renewal and a vision of eternity.
Gale Researcher Guide for: William Butler Yeats, Irish Poet is selected from Gale's academic platform Gale Researcher. These study guides provide peer-reviewed articles that allow students early success in finding scholarly materials and to gain the confidence and vocabulary needed to pursue deeper research.
Church worship leaders are more than just musicians. Worship leaders must plan, budget, organize, develop people and stay abreast of technology changes. Gleaned from over 35 years of worship team experience, this book gives the church worship leader practical tips for mastering the elements of the Worship Leader role beyond the musicianship. This toolkit will become an indispensable resource to enhance your congregation's overall worship experience.
Arguing that a continuous genealogy of poetic satire links the writings of Dryden, Pope, Byron, Auden, and Merrill, Christopher Yu makes the case that the shared idiom of Augustanism developed by these satirists sponsors a meritocratic and ultimately radically liberal ideal of culture.
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