Tickets for a prayer wheel: Poems [Paperback]

Annie Dillard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1986

A stunning poetry collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of whom The New Yorker said, "She has the ability to write with enduring grace." The Boston Globe called her "one of the most distinctive voices in American letters today."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"She loves the country below. Like Emerson, she sees the virulence in nature as well as the beauty that entrances her. Annie Dillard is a poet."--Washington Post Book World

"She has a strange and wonderful mind, and the ability to speak it with enduring grace."--The New Yorker

"She is a fine wayfarer, one who travels light, reflective and alert to the shrines and holy places." --New York Times Book Review

"She sees the world with a penetrating eye and presents it to us in a refreshing new dimension.... Masterful."--Smithsonian --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

5 1/2 x 8 1/2 trim. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 127 pages
• Publisher: Perennial Library; 1st Perennial Library ed edition (1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060970146
• ISBN-13: 978-0060970147
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,769,864 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Annie Dillard is the author of ten books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winner Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, as well as An American Childhood, The Living, and Mornings Like This. She is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and has received fellowship grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Dillard attended Hollins College in Virginia. After living for five years in the Pacific Northwest, she returned to the East Coast, where she lives with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prayers for Pilgrims., March 28, 2003

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Annie Dillard's collection of twenty-four poems, TICKETS FOR A PRAYER WHEEL was first published in 1974, the same year Dillard published her Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-known work, PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK. In the thirty years since, she has written nonfiction narratives (HOLY THE FIRM, LIVING BY FICTION, TEACHING A STONE TO TALK, THE WRITING LIFE, FOR THE TIME BEING), a memoir (AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD), and a novel (THE LIVING). By reissuing Dillard's long-out-of-print TICKETS FOR A PRAYER WHEEL, Wesleyan University Press has allowed many grateful readers to finally complete their Annie Dillard collections.

TICKETS FOR A PRAYER WHEEL confirms that Dillard is a poet at heart. In her poetry, like most of her later work, Dillard explores science, nature, time, and theology. Her poetry is related thematically to PILGRIM AT TINKER CREEK in that both books attempt to answer Thoreau's question, "With all your science can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?" Whereas we find the speaker of title poem "looking for someone who knows how to pray" (p. 50)--"Who will teach us to pray, who will pray for us now," he ponders (p. 53)--we find Dillard asking the same question in her most recent book, FOR THE TIME BEING (1999). From her first book to her last, Dillard's answer remains the same, "God teaches us to pray" (p. 60). "He has no edges," Dillard observes, "and the holes in him spin./ He alone is real,/ and all things lie in him/ as fossil shells/ curl in solid shale" (p. 61).

TICKETS FOR A PRAYER WHEEL offers both short, accessible poems ("The Clearing," "Day at the Office," "Puppy in Deep Snow") and longer, more challenging poetic meditations ("Feast Days," "Bivouac," "Tickets for a Prayer Wheel"). Wesleyan's reissue also includes an excellent Foreward by Michael Collier.

G. Merritt

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible and Off Kilter, February 22, 2002

By 

"methnen" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tickets for a Prayer Wheel: Poetry (Paperback)

Very strange stuff is contained in this hard to find book. Annie Dillard is famous for her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek novel. However, I enjoyed this earlier work much more than anything else I have read by her. The poems range from thought provoking, to totally off the wall. Hardly a one of the poems are short of enjoyable. The title poem is worthy of its place on the cover, it struck a chord with me immediately.

Jamie

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Matter-of-fact narrative gives way to descriptive elegance, February 13, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Annie Dillard's Tickets For A Prayer Wheel is an impressive and highly recommended collection of lucid poetry, elegantly written in free verse, concerning the mundane, the natural, and the mystical. Matter-of-fact narrative gives way to descriptive elegance of brevity in this inspirational work. Deciduous trees/have dominion. But look on bark;/molds make fruiting bodies/out of air. Winner/take all. Grab/a handle. Earth/rolls down like dolphins dive,/headlong to dark.