Customer Reviews

Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania, Second edition, Revised and Expanded

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I was introduced to this book by a fiction writing teacher to whom I'll always be grateful. It's a fresh, ingenious selection of ritual and sacred poetry from around the world, translated with irreverence and raw attitude. If you're used to the vague New Age-isms of what usually gets thought of as "ritual" and "sacred," pick this up and get a jolt--Rothenberg finds incredibly powerful language in places where it wouldn't occur to most people to look, and he's not afraid of crudeness and hilarity. Amazing stuff. A friend of mine has worn out copies of both the first edition and this one, and I don't blame her.

Back in the 1970s I discovered this book. It became my companion. Its rich poetry, its multitudes of rituals and images have inspired my batiks and paintings for the past thirty years. What variety and life!

As we begin to see this earth suffer the effects of our presence here, these poems -with roots in every continent- speak together of this planet as a sacred place. One perhaps we might still come to treat well. Read a few aloud, sit in your garden this spring and read a Navajo corn song, stir, stir ... This is well researched, carefully and lovingly translated; it should accompany any studies of native cultures worldwide.

You need to obtain the First Edition to get the best poetry and commentary. The First Edition is much more radical and shamanistic. I'm not sure why the edition was revised to morph into a much safer and tamer "Great Books version" of the first edition, which was much more Rimbaudian.

Check the first edition out at: Technicians of the Sacred : A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia & Oceania

I have enjoyed this soooooo much! It had opened my eyes to different cultures and traditions! I have read it many times and it is just fun and exciting! Thank you!