This runaway New York Times bestseller tells the rags-to-riches story of Ralph Emery, a humble Tennessee farm boy who fell in love with radio and made it his life. For 40 years, Emery has brought America's most heartfelt music to millions. Now in a celebrity-studded memoir, he tells of his four marriages, his battle with drugs and alcohol, and the efforts that have made him a true country music legend.
Ralph Culver's is a poetry of great precision, almost delicacy, and of subtle power, deployed in poems that dwell in the ordinary and bring with them a sense of the extraordinary...; what lives between his lines is the shadow that haunts us all. In A Passable Man, he interrogates a life in five parts: "I could not keep from turning / to check, mid-step, / the footprints strung behind / in the climbing snow" (from "Prelude"). This is a life shadowed by loss and regret, moved by "the common fear, the common love/ he fell out of, now into ..." (from "Boy at the Plate"). The man in these pages is "passable," in the sense of being human: flawed, and full of care. The book? It earns my highest marks. -Joan Aleshire Culver's lyrical narratives in A Passable Man unfold elegantly, brilliantly.... [He] pierces his subjects-"the last catamount," misunderstanding, bargainers, camping alone-with self-delighting insights...: "The sounds of water as she rises from her bath / while I slice bread in the kitchen: / How can I still feel sorry for myself?" ... Culver resolves his reveries with universal conclusions. "If we open ourselves to quintessence rather than particulars," he writes in "Resolute," "we gain in clarity, the way a bee does not recall a flower / but does its purposeful gavotte to point the way / to an abundance." -Chard deNiord What to say in short compass of a book so rangy and compelling as A Passable Man? The collection raises so many themes and issues that brief commentary feels futile. At one point, Ralph Culver writes that Grace, despite our meddling, holds doubt in check. May everything be true, and truth direct. His truths, brilliantly revealed, are direct, to be sure, and often stark; but the poet also witnesses to the grace that has favored him with uncommon insight and all but matchless powers of speech. -Sydney Lea
No sooner did the spinning stop, I got a quick glimpse of my surroundings, and what looked like what I was falling into it wasn't a pretty sight. It seemed like I was about to fall into some kind of a junkyard or trash pile. Suddenly everything stopped with a bang, and my body was being consumed with pain. The floor that I fell on was hard Concrete, covered with dirt and trash. Lying right next to where I landed appeared to be some kind of a soft rolled-up rug. Just my luck, instead of falling on a smooth looking carpet, I landed on the trash and hard Concrete. It soon became apparent that it wasn't my only problem. As I tried to breathe instead of air, all I got in my lungs was soot, dust, and the smell that I didn't want to know what it was from. To make matters worse, it was quickly filling my lungs. Out of a desperate need for air, I tried to stand up. Unfortunately, my body didn't want any part in that. I was utterly exhausted with unbearable pain, but I did manage to get my face out of the dirt enough to breathe. The air was not what I expected either. Instead of the sweet smell of the air, what I breathed in was the most putrid smell I had ever smelled. It smelled as if I had landed in a garbage dump filled with long-dead fish. My mind quickly went into its (why me) mode of thinking. I was dumped from a swirling tornado; God only knows why I was in it in the first place. Next, I landed on hard Concrete next to a soft rug and finally landing in this cesspool of smells. I laid there for what must have been hours, waiting for my body to gather enough strength to move. When I finally mustered the strength to stand, I tried to see where I was. All my eyes could see was pitch blackness all around. With vague shapes in the distance, also a strange red light coming from far away. I felt this sticky wet substance on my head; as I reached up to find out what it was, I felt a sharp pain, then everything went black. I must have passed out because I could see a little better the next time, I opened my eyes. The room now looked strangely dark gray instead of full black. From what I could see, it appeared that I had fallen into an area of total disruption with garbage and trash strewn about everywhere. When I looked down, I discovered what that sticky substance was that I felt earlier, it was blood, and I was sure it was mine. I tried to remember what had happened to me to be in this place, but all I could remember besides spinning was some kind of fire that I had to jump from. I just laid there; to me it felt like hours had gone by while I was trying to remember why I was here. Besides fire and jumping, I just couldn't remember anything else. Suddenly I visioned that I was entering a building called the Jefferson museum. I was shocked to see several statues and paintings. What looked like many of my old friends from the past. I asked myself, what the heck are they doing here? There were signs below each painting and statue; I couldn't see what was written because I was being pushed further into the center of the room by a crowd of people. As we got closer to the center, I could see what looked like a glass coffin with a body inside. Suddenly I heard a voice in my head say, "well, it's about time you showed up; now get me the hell out of here.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher he belonged to a wealthy family of the equestrian order, and was carefully educated, especially in Greek literature and philosophy. At the age of twenty-five years he entered upon his public career as a pleader in the Forum, and before he had reached middle life he had become acknowledged to be by far the greatest of Roman orators. His orations, carefully edited, are masterpieces of eloquence. To narrate the public life of Cicero would be in effect to write the history of Roman politics for more than thirty eventful years. He opposed Caesar, but was forgiven by the victor of Pharsalia; he opposed Antony, but was put to death by the hirelings of that trimmer at the door of his villa at the age of sixty-three.
IN THE 1940S, and while in his 30s, Ralph Warburton fell in love with the mountains. He gave up his job of watchmaker and trained as a glacier guide, later becoming official photographer for glacier parties at Franz Josef. His family formed and grew up in the tiny South Westland village, a remote spot before the Haast highway was put through years later. In lucid, laconic prose, Ralph tells of adventurous crossings of the main divide, of mountain ascents, tragedies, miraculous rescues. He offers vignettes of village and family life, stories of the big weather affecting their lives and livelihoods and of colourful local personalities. It's also a story of love, between a man and his dog. Scott, the 'four-footed mountaineer' learned to climb so he need never be parted from his master. He crossed mountain passes and weathered accidents that would have killed a lesser dog. Scott won the hearts of visitors to the glacier with his skills and his determination to be in party photos, always in one position: centre front.
Letters and Social Aims, published in 1875, contains essays originally published early in the 1840s as well as those that were the product of a collaborative effort among Emerson, his daughter Ellen Tucker Emerson, his son Edward Waldo Emerson, and his literary executor James Eliot Cabot. The volume takes up the topics of Poetry and Imagination, Social Aims, Eloquence, Resources, The Comic, Quotation and Originality, Progress of Culture, Persian Poetry, Inspiration, Greatness, and, appropriately for Emerson's last published book, Immortality. The historical introduction demonstrates for the first time the decline in Emerson's creative powers after 1865; the strain caused by the preparation of a poetry anthology and delivery of lectures at Harvard during this time; the devastating effect of a house fire in 1872; and how the Emerson children and Cabot worked together to enable Emerson to complete the book. The textual introduction traces this collaborative process in detail and also provides new information about the genesis of the volume as a response to a proposed unauthorized British edition of Emerson's works. Historical Introduction by Ronald A. BoscoNotes and Parallel Passages by Glen M. JohnsonText Established and Textual Introduction and Apparatus by Joel Myerson
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.