The Bower of Nil: A Narrative Poem [Hardcover]

Frederick Glaysher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

Peter Marsh, an academic philosopher, weighs modern life in a conversation with his friend, David Emerson, a businessman. Brought together after long separation by the brutal murder of Mary, Peter s wife, a time of devastating loss and crisis, their friendship inspires a dark night of the soul, during which Peter's meditations range over several hundred years of philosophy, politics, religion, social change, the dilemmas of existence, evoking a vision of the complexities of the 21st Century, the United Nations, and global governance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a doorway into the future . . . the subtleties and complexities of the aforementioned cultures inform his subject matter and his political interests circumscribe the work. THE BOWER OF NIL is an Orwell meets Nietzsche meets C.S. Lewis mélange of despair, madness, and hope. Not lyrical, not tidy and not information-byte-sized, your fingers come away heavy with paint rather than print after reading this. Colored richly and satisfyingly with symbols (e.g., the name Peter, the lily, the lantern) that speak directly to the psyche the way that artwork spoke to the illiterate in the Middle Ages.... --Poems Niederngasse

The Bower of Nil is where we all live. . . . The narrator and academic, Peter, would appear to hate academics, but the 65 page poem is a masterfully executed academic exercise, using the history of western philosophical thought as a metaphorical tool. . . . A thought provoking read for these times! --Pulsar

A poetic reflection on postmodern life, with a particular focus on the limitations of both Eastern and Western thought. Collectively offers a higher path to universality for our future. --Edward Hamilton

About the Author

Frederick Glaysher privately studied writing with the poet Robert Hayden at the University of Michigan, lived for more than fifteen years outside Michigan in Maebashi, Japan, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation in Arizona, and on the Mississippi, ultimately returning to his suburban hometown of Rochester. Glaysher is the editor of both Hayden's Collected Prose (University of Michigan Press) and his Collected Poems (Liveright). Earthrise Press also published his Into the Ruins: Poems (ISBN: 0967042127) in 1999. His collection of literary essays, The Grove of the Eumenides, is forthcoming in October 2007.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 71 pages
• Publisher: Earthrise Press; 1ST edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967042178
• ISBN-13: 978-0967042176
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,726,410 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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I studied writing under a private tutorial, at the University of Michigan, with the poet Robert Hayden and edited both Hayden's Collected Prose (University of Michigan Press) and his Collected Poems (Liveright). I hold a Bachelor's and Master's degree from U of M, the latter in English. At the college and university level, I taught rhetoric, American and non-Western literature, humanities, world religions, etc., for ten years.

I lived for more than fifteen years outside Michigan--in Japan, where I taught at Gunma University in Maebashi; in Arizona, on the Colorado River Indian Tribes Reservation, site of one of the largest internment camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII; in Illinois, on the central farmlands and on the Mississippi; ultimately returning to my suburban hometown of Rochester.

A Fulbright-Hays scholar to China in 1994, I studied at Beijing University, the Buddhist Mogao Caves on the old Silk Road, and elsewhere in China, including Hong Kong and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. While a National Endowment for the Humanities scholar in 1995 on India, I further explored the conflicts between the traditional regional civilizations of Islamic and Hindu cultures and modernity.

I have been an outspoken advocate of the United Nations and was an accredited participant at the UN Millennium Forum (2000).

Website: http://www.fglaysher.com
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