The Temple on Monday [Paperback]

Tom Crawford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001

Tom Crawford combines the spirituality of the East with his own American working class pragmatism. These poems explore the people, culture, and landscape of Korea through the emotional lens of a compassionate expatriate who gives voice to the mystery and wonder underlying everyday life. Crawford is able to find beauty in a traffic accident, and he can discover the story of a nation in a pair of abandoned shoes. Lyrical at times, he writes in a tone of quiet authority, and his verse is as unhurried as a light snowfall in Kwanju or the waters of the Bean-Paste River. (Distributed by University of Washington Press for Eastern Washington University Press.)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Crawford has a modest poetic talent, but he is also a modest man, and he has been places, teaching three years in mainland China and five in Korea, the setting or subject of most of these poems. His unassuming manner allows him to speak easily though economically in the free verse and prose poems collected here. All the latter are good, whether focusing on the big shoes another American teacher left behind when he went home, a ceramic tea bowl a potter friend gives Crawford to take with him back to Korea, the way modern tourism compromises meditation at some of Korea's great Buddhist temples, General MacArthur's lack of sympathy for the Koreans, or balancing the delectation of dinner at a great Korean restaurant with an embarrassing impromptu "English Lesson." These and such verse poems as the two that bear the book's title and the handful about the poet's Korean love affair beautifully suggest what looking at Korea through American eyes can be at its best. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Tom Crawford's three previous collections of poems include If It Weren't for Trees, China Dancing, and Lauds, which won the Oregon Book Award in 1994. He has lectured and taught at colleges and universities throughout the western United States, the Peoples Republic of China, and Chonnam National University, Korea. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Eastern Washington Univ Pr (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0910055726
• ISBN-13: 978-0910055727
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,016,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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