In this rich, compelling collection of stories, John Repp explores the tensions between belonging and separation, between individuals and their “families”: the communities they are a part of, yet apart from. Repp digs deeply into the intimacy and danger of secrets—-who we tell, who we hide the truth from, and what those decisions reveal about who we are. These are stories firmly located in the American landscape of social class and struggle, stories of people operating on the margins, struggling to get by, struggling to define what “getting by” means. In Heart of Joy, John Repp creates an amazing range of characters, and we care about each and every one of them. We know these people, and through these stories, we know their bruised hearts. —Jim Daniels, Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English, Carnegie Mellon University, author of Mr. Pleasant (stories, Michigan State University Press)
As American as this book is, Proust comes to mind when reading it, time slowed to the tempo of a wide river sweeping all that is mortal toward its inevitable end. As Repp writes, "... how can those days & these & all the others I can't fit/into whatever I'm saying here be lived by one person?" Lucky for us, he's made all "those days and these" fit into this marvelous book. --Lynn Emanuel, author of Noose and Hook How rich the trove of personal, musical, and literary knowledge John Repp brings to this return to the New Jersey of his early years. The warm, adult gaze behind even the angers and disappointments in these poems is what I love in them. --Eric Torgersen, author of Heart.Wood John Repp's poems bear the weight of years as they strip away pretensions of all sorts.
Poetry. If one goes Googling John Repp; one soon learns that he is a native of the Pine Barrens region of New Jersey (a location that often appears in his work); but has since lived many places; attended many universities (picking up an MFA along the way); has worked at seemingly every sort of job from gravedigging to teaching creative writing (so at least some of them useful); and has an eclectic and eccentric list of interests. And that he has; over the past forty years; written many books of poetry and prose; garnering awards and critical recognition along the way. All of which finds its way into THE SOUL OF ROCK & ROLL; which serves as a âeoegreatest hitsâe selection from those four decades of poetry. Such an outsized life has yielded a commensurately wide-ranging body of work; and any attempt to gist it in few words would do it poor service; but a good point of entry is "The Tiny-Montgomery-Mother-Poem" in which Dylan's The Basement Tapes plays in the background while Repp's mother is dying; and his family rails at him for speaking of such things: "They say These things are private. Why do you keep / making these private things public? It's so long ago." Yes; he writes of private things; and of things from long ago; from a time of innocence and the rush to lose it; documenting not merely his life but that of his generation; a generation for which rock & roll provided the soundtrack and the thrum sounding throughout these pages; love and loss amid the worn crackle and hiss. It may be true; as William Carlos Williams observed; that it is hard to get news from poetry; but it's a good source of history; of understanding how we arrived where we are. Repp reports in one poem here that he learned of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in part from a Robert Pinsky poem. Now it is his turn to educate us; to share the lessons from his life and times. Not all may be the sort of things that people die for want of knowing (to complete the Williams quotation); but they can be comforting--and what a needful thing that is for these times. "Who doesn't climb from the mere world" he asks in "Ovaltine"--with the emphasis on mere; lest we take our lives too seriously; reminding us to dream--"to where Ponce de Leon and Wyatt Earp rein their horses / while you spur Silver to column's head? The wind hits you first; / wind unheard before that; nothing ahead but fire and new mountains.
This is a true story about two friends who came across a helpless horseshoe crab that was wedged inside the beam of a wooden fence. The two boys share their feelings about the situation. They communicate and work together to free the helpless animal. They show compassion for the horseshoe crab and free it from the fence. They each have done something out of the kindness of their own hearts. After the horseshoe crab swims freely back into the bay, the two boys feel proud about what they have accomplished together. They feel good about themselves for giving this horseshoe crab a second chance at life. They have achieved something together that they may not have been able to do alone.
A collection of articles and book reviews on human nature, climate change, income inequality, the financial sector, and war and peace by a long-time activist, calling for common sense reforms that will insure a good future for our world. There are also some historical pieces about the 60's, about Cuba, and cooperatives.
What is it that accounts for the differences between musical beginners, advanced music makers, and world class performers? Virtually everyone likes music and has the capacity to be musical in some way (despite what some may say about themselves). Yet far fewer people come to be so involved with it that they identify themselves as musicians, and fewer still become musicians of international class. Psychology for Musicians provides the basis for answering this question. Examining the processes that underlie the acquisition of musical skills, Lehmann, Sloboda, and Woody provide a concise, accessible, and up-to-date introduction to psychological research for musicians.
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