Matthew Francis's latest collection celebrates the richness of nature and of our responses to it. The pleasures of summer are emblazoned in the colourful wings and evocative names of butterflies, while a nocturnal encounter with an earwig becomes a joyous incantation to the 'witchy-beetle, forkin-robin' of dialect. His love of history, embodied in his acclaimed Mandeville and The Mabinogi, gives rise to a sequence based on Robert Hooke's microscopic observations. There are tributes to the poets Basho, Dafydd ap Gwilym and W. S. Graham, to fireworks, apple varieties, and hot toddies. And, in a moving elegy for a friend killed in a parachute accident, Francis shows us a vertiginous vision of a world where even the dead 'sleep on the wing'.
Like his acclaimed Mandeville (2008), Matthew Francis's fourth Faber collection explores a world of marvels, real and fantastic. A man takes off for the moon in an engine drawn by geese, a poltergeist moves into a remote Welsh village, and a party of seventeenth-century Englishmen encounter the wonders of Russia - sledges, vodka, skating and Easter eggs. The scientist Robert Boyle basks in the newly discovered radiance of phosphorus (the noctiluca of the title) and the theme of light in darkness is taken up by the more personal poems in the book: phoneboxes, streetlamps, moonlight. The joys of the world and of the imagination find their equivalent in Francis's joy in the possibilities of language: 'A basket of snow for the Empress / with a poem of modest triumph: / I made this out of what does not last.
Here at the turn of the leaf a horseman is ridingthrough the space between one world and another . . .' The Mabinogi is the Welsh national epic, a collection of prose tales of war and enchantment, adventure and romance, which have long fascinated readers all over the world. Matthew Francis's retelling of the first four stories (the Four Branches of the Mabinogi) is the first to situate it in poetry, and captures the magic and strangeness of this medieval Celtic world: a baby is kidnapped by a monstrous claw, a giant wades across the Irish Sea to do battle, a wizard makes a woman out of flowers, only to find she is less biddable than he expected. Permeating the whole sequence is a delight in the power of the imagination to transform human experience into works of tragedy, comedy and wonder.The Mabinogi is an important contribution to the storytelling of the British Isles.'I have waited a life for this book: our ancient British tales re-told, in English, by a poet, as they were in their original Welsh. This is more than translation. It picks up the harp and sings.' Gillian Clarke
In Insignificant Things Matthew Francis Rarey traces the history of the African-associated amulets that enslaved and other marginalized people carried as tools of survival in the Black Atlantic world from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Often considered visually benign by white Europeans, these amulet pouches, commonly known as “mandingas,” were used across Africa, Brazil, and Portugal and contained myriad objects, from herbs and Islamic prayers to shells and coins. Drawing on Arabic-language narratives from the West African Sahel, the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European travel and merchant accounts of the West African Coast, and early nineteenth-century Brazilian police records, Rarey shows how mandingas functioned as portable archives of their makers’ experiences of enslavement, displacement, and diaspora. He presents them as examples of the visual culture of enslavement and critical to conceptualizing Black Atlantic art history. Ultimately, Rarey looks to the archives of transatlantic slavery, which were meant to erase Black life, for objects like the mandingas that were created to protect it.
Depersonalization and Creative Writing: Unreal City explores the common psychological symptom of depersonalization, its influence on literature and the insights it can provide into the writing process. Depersonalization is a distressing symptom in which sufferers feel detached from their own selves and the world. Often associated with psychological disorders, it can also affect healthy people at times of stress. Beginning with a first-hand account of the experience, the book goes on to argue that many well-known literary texts, including Camus’s The Outsider and Sartre’s Nausea, evoke a similar psychological state. It shows how a concept of depersonalized writing can be found in the work of literary theorists from widely different traditions, including T.S. Eliot, Roland Barthes and Viktor Shklovsky. Finally, it maintains that creative writers can make use of the lessons learned from a study of depersonalization to arrive at a deeper understanding of writing. Given this knowledge, the controversial writing teacher’s maxim show, don’t tell, so often misapplied or misunderstood, can be repurposed as a practical instruction for taking students’ writing to a new level of sophistication and wisdom.
Make me an instrument of your peace." St. Francis of Assisi When the curtains were drawn and our new Holy Father stepped out into view of the 150,000 people waiting in St. Peter's Square, it was a humble and gentle man from Argentina who greeted them, not in triumph, but with a gentle wave. He's a pope of "firsts" - the first Jesuit pope, the first pope from the Americas, and the first to choose the name of Italy's most famous saint. He is the son of an immigrant railway worker, and sibling of four. He was an active, social young man who trained to be a chemist before pursuing a religious vocation. He is a Jesuit priest and beloved spiritual director who even as archbishop of Buenos Aires was referred to as Father Jorge. He is an outspoken leader who experienced firsthand the challenges of a society ravaged by war, economic despair and cultural unrest. Pope Francis is still new to us, but in this biography you will get to know the man who became pope: A street priest at heart with a deep love for people and a pastor's touch. He teaches in word and deed the truths of the Church and God's merciful love. Get inside access to the entire history-making event, from the startling resignation of Pope Benedict through the gathering of Cardinals for the Conclave and the installation of this Pope of the people. Examine Pope Francis the man - his background, his ideas, his mission, and his challenges and opportunities as our new pope - including 16 pages of full color photos from Pope Francis' past and present. "I want to ask you to walk together, and take care of one another ...We need to see the light of hope and to be men and women who bring hope to others." Pope Francis
In the 1830s the abolitionist movement in the United States refashioned itself under new leadership which was determined to bring slavery to an immediate end. Too often written off by northern and southern opinion-makers alike as fanatics who threatened the social and economic order in America, they struggled in the face of both secular and religious defenders of the institution of slavery. Into this fray stepped Francis Wayland (1796–1865), a leading educator, noted author of textbooks on moral philosophy and economics, and longtime president of Brown University. Initially a moderate on slavery, Wayland with near equal fervor both denounced slavery as sinful and yet countenanced caution in respecting the laws that protected the institution. Like so many of his generation, the flow of events moved him toward Unionism and forced him to confront the logic of his own moral arguments. If slavery was indeed a violation of natural rights, how then could he not act on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves? This work explores his journey.
How do you honor God? What does it mean to give God honor, or for that matter, to give him glory? Is there something which men add to God? Francis Woodcock explains this most important topic in that, whether God is honored, or dishonored, so God in turn, honors men or dishonors them in judgment. His main text is 1 Samuel 2:30, “For them that honor me, I will honor; and them that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” He shows the benefits of honoring God, and detriments of dishonoring him. If God makes special note of being honored, and above all things is tender of his own honor, then God shows himself to be a jealous God - jealous of his honor and glory, something he will not share or allow to be dishonored. There is nothing else so dear to him which he will not give away. God will part with his only begotten Son. He will give men his Holy Spirit. He will give men his grace. He will give men heaven and happiness. But God will never, ever, give away his “glory and honor.” Also added to this treatise is a second work called, "Christ's Warning to His Church of His Coming," which is a powerful sermon on Rev. 16:15, “Behold I come as a thief: blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” This work is not a scan or facsimile, has been carefully transcribed by hand being made easy to read in modern English, and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.
Who doesn't want to be happy? So ask yourself, "Are you happy?" Rous masterfully explains how man may attain true and eternal happiness. He expounds multiple passages in Scripture in order to be skilled in the “Art of Happiness.” Man must understand God's original intention in happiness, how it was lost, and how man in his fallen condition can attain it once again through Jesus Christ. It is in Christ Jesus that the Christian is able to be happy, and able to see Christ's beauty. It is here that all Christian affections desire and gasp after Christ. The soul is a wide opened door to receive the benefits of Christ by the power of his quickening and sanctifying Spirit. The Christian must desire him as the only happiness, for true happiness is found in Christ alone. Rous teaches the Christian how to discern true happiness, how to gain this happiness, how to keep this happiness, and how to cultivate this happiness; especially by those who may be depressed or despondent. Here the Christian should not only be content to get this happiness, but there must be in them an insatiable desire to forever increase it, and never to lose it. Rous shows that the Spirit of God is the fiery chariot that carries the soul through the way of piety to the country of happiness. Once the Christian finds true happiness, God is theirs, and they are God’s, and in this unity is the fullness of happiness, experienced both now, and the life to come. This is not a scan or facsimile, has been updated in modern English for easy reading and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.
Nofel eithriadol yn cyfuno stori ddifyr gyda themâu dwys, wedi ei gosod yn ystod cyfnod cythryblus yng nghanol yr 17eg pan drôdd y byd ben i waered. Ynddi, mae Arise Evans, teiliwr a chymeriad hanesyddol o sir Feirionnydd sy'n meddu ar ddoniau proffwydo, yn cychwyn ysgrifennu nofel newydd. -- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
“The Francis Effect was about proposing something completely absurd, as absurd as borders are. If Immigrant Movement was for the thousands of people who went there, The The Francis Effect was just for one person, the pope. But the more people that participated, the more personal it became.” –Tania Bruguera Stemming from a performance that originated at the Guggenheim Museum, The Francis Effect explores Tania Bruguera’s work as an artist, activist, and Cuban immigrant to the US engaging the tension between art’s pragmatic, activist, and aesthetic possibilities. The performance of The Francis Effect follows the guise of a political campaign, aiming to request that the Pope grant Vatican City citizenship to all immigrants and refugees. As a conversational, collaborative project, the resulting book mirrors Bruguera’s artistic practice with essays and conversations from the the curators and Bruguera. In addition, the book-project is embiggened by socially-engaged commissioned essays from art historian Our Literal Speed, sociologist Saskia Sassen, and historian Nicolas Terpstra. A groundbreaking interdisciplinary discussion of borders, Pangaea, sociology, and religious studies, The Francis effect offers art as a vehicle for social change, placing this work in the context of its creative and critical reception.
Matthew J. Babcock's Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose is an examination of the life and work of one of America's most intriguing but tragically obscure writers. Babcock uses his own personal relationship Robert Francis's work, which emphasizes conservation and connectedness to our natural surroundings, to illuminate both overtones and nuances that are undoubtedly useful to those interested in poetry and ecology. Babcock begins with a brief biographical section intended to set the tone for readers previously unfamiliar with Robert Francis and then continues into an analysis of the influence of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost on Francis's work. Starting in Chapter Three, Private Fire shifts into the realm of literary analysis and discusses various angles of Francis's work, from representations of gender and sexual identity; prose contributions, both fiction and non-fiction; religion and politics; to themes of conservation, place-making, experimental poetic styles, and asceticism, finishing with a discussion of Francis's only long narrative poem, 'Valhalla.' This poem joins other prophetic works in musing upon environmental apocalypticism. Matthew J. Babcock finishes this detailed and thoughtful volume with concluding meditations that situate Robert Francis with his contemporaries, helping readers to locate him historically and contextually amongst other 20th century writers. By using biography and literary theory as the lens through which one interprets Francis's work, Private Fire: Robert Francis's Ecopoetry and Prose successfully navigates the literary and cultural environment surrounding a poet who himself was so connected with the world around him.
Adapted from the novel by Anthony Hope. This fine imperialist adventure is brought vividly to life in Matthew Francis's stirring adaptation which plunges straight into the heart of the Ruritanian dynastic conflict. Rudolph Rassendyll, young English gallant, is distantly related on the wrong side of the blanket to the Ruritanian royal family. When the Crown Prince is drugged by Black Michael, Rudolph steps in and takes the Prince's place at his coronation.-2 women, 9 men, 4 women or men
This adaptation of Dicken's famous epic novel of the French revolution tells the story of English lawyer Sydney Carton and French aristocrat Charles Darnay, both caught up in the bloodshed of the French Revolution.
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Comedy / Characters: 22 male, 8 female (w/ doubling) Scenery: Unit set Huckleberry Finn's adventurous journey along the Mississippi River is skillfully captured in this exciting approach to the epic story that was first produced at the Greenwich Theatre in England. Minimal set and prop devices illustrate the many locations. This truly imaginative, moral and humorous tale of discovery offers flexible casting opportunities.
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