Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage [Paperback]

Robert Hass (Author), Stephen Mitchell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 1994

For brides and grooms who want to give their weddings new depth and meaning, two acclaimed poet-translators have gathered a stunning collection of poems and prose that will add a unique and personal dimension to the ceremony.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Peace: A Wedding Song by Aristophanes
Variation On The Word Sleep by Margaret Atwood
The Dance by Wendell Berry
Bind Me As A Seal Upon Your Heart by Bible
I Have Come Into My Garden by Bible
Psalm 1 by Bible
Psalm 100 by Bible
Psalm 148 by Bible
Wake Up, My Love, My Companion by Bible
The Question Answer'd by William Blake
In The Month Of May by Robert Bly
O, My Luve's Like A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
Roman Epithalamion by Gaius (caius) Valerius Catullus
Epithalamion by Richard Crashaw
50 Poems: 42 by Edward Estlin Cummings
The Love Of God, Unutterable And Perfect by Dante Alighieri
Choice by Emily Dickinson
The Contract by Emily Dickinson
Friendship by Emily Dickinson
It Was A Quiet Way by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights! Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
All Kings, And All Their Favorites by John Donne
An Epithalamion For Lawyers by John Donne
The Good-morrow by John Donne
A Wedding Song On St. Valentine's Day by John Donne
Young Phoenixes, And Yet The Old Shall Love by John Donne
Of Man And Wife by Richard Eedes
Iphigeneia At Aulis, Sels. by Euripides
Song Of The River-god [to Amoret] by John Fletcher
Master Speed by Robert Frost
Everywhere Is Here, Sels. by Robert Ranke Graves
Whole Love by Robert Ranke Graves
Love (3) by George Herbert
Good-morrow by Thomas Heywood
At The Wedding March by Gerard Manley Hopkins
As I Dig For Wild Orchids by Izumi Shikibu
The Minute I Heard My First Love Story by Jalal Ad-din (jalaluddin) Ar-rumi
This Marriage Be Wine With Haalvah, Honey Dissolving In Milk by Jalal Ad-din (jalaluddin) Ar-rumi
Turn Me Like A Waterwheel Turning A Milestone by Jalal Ad-din (jalaluddin) Ar-rumi
You That Love Lovers by Jalal Ad-din (jalaluddin) Ar-rumi
I Unpetalled You, Like A Rose by Juan Ramon Jimenez
To The Bridge Of Love by Juan Ramon Jimenez
Now, Bride And Bridegroom, Help To Sing by Ben Jonson
The Flute Of Interior Time Is Played Whether We Hear It Or Not by Kabir
Married Love by Kuan Tao-sheng
Is It For Now Or For Always by Philip Larkin
Wedding-wind by Philip Larkin
Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply, Sels. by David Herbert Lawrence
Man And Woman Are Like The Earth, That Brings Forth Flowers by David Herbert Lawrence
The Owl And The Pussy Cat by Edward Lear
The Ache Of Marriage by Denise Levertov
Earth by Czeslaw Milosz
Riding Birds, Feeling Under Our Thighs The Soft Feathers by Czeslaw Milosz
The Two Of You by Czeslaw Milosz
Adam And Eve In The Garden by John Milton
Lavender's Blue (2) by Mother Goose
The Sacred Marriage Of Shiva And Parvati, Sels. by Parancoti Munivar
The Knowing by Sharon Olds
The Wedding Vow by Sharon Olds
Into The Enormous Sky Flew by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak
Wreath For A Bridal by Sylvia Plath
If Everything Happens That Can't Eb Done by Ezra Pound
Sonnet: 12, Sels. by Naftali Ricardo Reyes Basuato
Sonnet: 17 by Naftali Ricardo Reyes Basuato
Sonnet: 48, Sels. by Naftali Ricardo Reyes Basuato
Everything That Touches Us, Me And You by Rainer Maria Rilke
Isn't The Secret Intent by Rainer Maria Rilke
Love In A Single Year by Rainer Maria Rilke
Lovers, Gratified In Each Other, I Am Asking You by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Sonnets To Orpheus: First Part, 12 by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Sonnets To Orpheus: First Part, 4 by Rainer Maria Rilke
A Birthday by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Song For The Goddess Of Love by Sappho
Prothalamion For An Autumn Wedding by Eleanor May Sarton
The Tao by Seng-ts'an
Infinite Love by William Shakespeare
Sonnet: 116 by William Shakespeare
Heart And Soul by Philip Sidney
Long Their Coupled Joys Maintain by Philip Sidney
Long Their Coupled Joys Maintain by Philip Sidney
A Pavane For The Nursery by William Jay Smith
Now Is This Love Already Forth To Come by Edmund Spenser
Open The Temple Gates Unto Their Love by Edmund Spenser
The Sacred Ceremonies There Partake, %the Which Do Endless Matrimony by Edmund Spenser
Re-statement Of Romance by Wallace Stevens
The Song Of A Traveller by Robert Louis Stevenson
Wedding Song: Lullaby For Sleepy Lovers by Theocritus
Ancient Egyptian Song by Anonymous
The Book Of Song, Sels. by Anonymous
Butterfly Song by Anonymous
Calling-one's-own by Anonymous
The Courtship Of Inanna And Dumuzi by Anonymous
I Want To Be Your Friend by Anonymous
I'll Give My Love An Apple Without A Core by Anonymous
Now You Will Feel No Rain by Anonymous
Prayer Of First Dancers by Anonymous
Proposals by Anonymous
Six Dream Songs: 3: Sleep by Anonymous
Song by Anonymous
Song by Anonymous
Song by Anonymous
Wedding Song by Anonymous
Bed Of Perfect Health by Walt Whitman
We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd by Walt Whitman
A Wedding Toast by Richard Wilbur
Marriage by William Carlos Williams
The Rewaking by William Carlos Williams
A Blessing by James Wright
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

Robert Hass was born in San Francisco in 1941. He attended St. Mary's College and Stanford University. His books of poetry include Time and Materials, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the National Book Award in 2008; Sun Under Wood, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996; Human Wishes; Praise, for which he received the William Carlos Williams Award in 1979; and Field Guide, which was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series. Hass also worked with Czeslaw Milosz to translate a dozen volumes of Milosz's poetry, including the book-length Treatise on Poetry and, most recently, A Second Space. His translations of the Japanese haiku masters have been collected in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. His books of essays include Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1984, and Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000. From 1995 to 1997 he served as poet laureate of the United States. He lives in northern California with his wife, the poet Brenda Hillman, and teaches English at the University of California at Berkeley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060924691
• ISBN-13: 978-0060924690
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #238,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. His many books include the bestselling Tao Te Ching, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Meetings with the Archangel, Gilgamesh, and the forthcoming The Second Book of the Tao. When he is not writing, he likes to ' in no particular order ' think about writing, think about not writing, not think about writing, and not think about not writing. His favorite color is blue, which happens to be the color of his wife's eyes. You can read extensive excerpts from all his books on his website, www.stephenmitchellbooks.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great, truly *original* wedding readings!, December 28, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage (Paperback)

If I ever hear "Love is patient, love is kind" or "Let me not to a marriage of true minds admit impediments" read at a wedding again, it'll be far too soon. The sentiments are nice, but those texts are so incredibly cliche for weddings! Luckily, this book exists to save you from tired & trite wedding readings. "Into the Garden" has tons of non-religious poetry & prose on the subject of marriage & love, & even 1 or 2 unique biblical passages. This is the single best wedding-related book I've bought -- it really helped make our ceremony unique & meaningful to us (& not like those cookie-cutter ceremonies put together by bored ministers)!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Old, new and borrowed (not much blue), May 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage (Paperback)

This is a fantastic collection of both sacred and secular poems: old (Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert), new (Frost, Larkin, Plath and Stevens) and contemporary (Olds, Milosz, Atwood, Bly). I bought it looking for an intelligently selected group of works, and I certainly found that. What I didn't expect to get in the bargain was an interesting introductory essay on the form and function of marriage in history, and a broad selection of ceremonies, tucked away at the back. In addition to Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and even Zen ceremonies, there was the aptly if somewhat puzzlingly titled, "Non-Theistic Judeo/Christian" ceremony. My fiancee and I had been wondering how to have a ceremony that was formal and traditional, without being either clinical (a civil ceremony) or inappropriate for two agnostics (a religious one). The "Non-theistic" ceremony is adapted from The Book of Common Prayer, but does not refer directly to God or the Church: it's just perfect for us. In summary, a thoughtfully-selected group of poems and ceremonies we'll be glad to have on our shelf, even after all the cake is eaten.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book for those composing their own ceremony, September 16, 1999

By 

Toshi ([e-mail]) (San Francisco, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage (Paperback)

This was the perfect book for me. We borrowed parts of the sample ceremonies to create our own wedding ceremony. The sample ceremonies we used include a Zen Buddhist and a Zen/Unitarian/Humanist wedding which I could not find anywhere else. The Buddhist influence was apparent throughout the book.

Many of the readings were quite wonderful and spiritual. I say spiritual and not religious, since many of the writings appeared to be appropriate for any faith.