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UPCOMING EVENT: Christopher will read with Meena Alexander, Nathalie Handel, and James Ragan at the Rattapallax Poetry and Film Festival. The reading will take place on April 13, 2012, at 7 pm at the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall, New School, 55 W. 13th Street, 2nd Floor, New York. The event is co-sponsored by the New School Writing Department and admission is free. President Barack Obama has appointed Christopher to serve on the National Council on The Humanities. Click to read the full article. Rattapallax Magazine features Christopher in its third issue. Click here to read Merrill's new prose poems and an interview on prose poetry and translation. In the above clip, Ben Kieffer from IPR's "River to River" interviews Christopher about his recent experience in Afghanistan, a timely look at the intermixing of poetry and cultural diplomacy. The current issue of Transom Journal, Transom 3: Šalamun in America is dedicated to the work of the Slovenian poet Tomaz Šalamun, alongside works and interviews of those who translate him, including Christopher. Christopher's new article, "Leaving Afghanistan," published in Granta Magazine, details his latest work in a country growing more politically, socially, and poignantly relevant every day. His "mission," he writes, "was to conduct a seminar, in the capital of Nangarhar Province, for Afghan poets, writers and journalists." On OnePausePoetry.org Christopher reads selected poems from his own work and that of his late friend, Agha Shahid Ali. Molossus has added a suite of Christopher's new poems to its World Poetry Portfolio publication series. Read the portfolio here. In an October airing of Iowa Public Radio's Talk of Iowa, Christopher discussed the personal experiences and political insight that led to the release of his new book, The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War. Listen here for the full broadcast.
"What could not be seen in this mirror before 9/11, what remained in shadow, was the backlash against the forces of dislocation unleashed by globalization..." Read Christopher's alternate take on 9/11 in Granta, "The Other Twin Towers."
Composed in the key of terror, The Tree of the Doves offers an engaging account of Christoper Merrill's travels to distant parts of the world. From jungle to desert to sea, in cities and ruins, he explores how history is shaped by ceremonies, expeditions, and wars. He observes the performance of a banned ritual in Malaysia, retraces Saint-John Perse's epic journey from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar, and tours the Levant in the wake of the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Encountering a wide range of people along the way--artists and politicians, soldiers and refugees--Merrill is as attentive to their individuality as he is attuned to the historical, social, and cultural situations in which they find themselves.
“[T]his philosophically acute amalgam of religious, historical and political reflections will surely incite discussion and lively debate.” --Kirkus Review "Part travelogue, part meditation, part literary pilgrimage, The Tree of the Doves offers an original vision of nation, of art, and of the sacred. Through intimate accounts of harrowing travels, and in the tradition of Lewis Hyde's explorations of gift exchange, Christopher Merrill takes us on an essential quest for sources--for art and for a full humanity." --Mona Simpson, author of My Hollywood "Christoper Merrill is on an ardent lifelong quest and luckily he is taking us along. His three journeys in The Tree of the Doves are deep, wandering investigations where the old world meets the new, where the person becomes politic, and where peace many times has just left the room. His capacious mind is great company and these are essays in the classic style, sojourns outward and inward, powerfully considered ethical wanderings from Malaysia to the Golan Heights. His mind has worlds in it and his thoughts are great company. These embracing lessons in humanity, geography, and poetry make a special book." --Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies "A deeply sympathetic and wide-ranging work of the most artful non-fiction, a splendidly hybrid book of journeys that we need right now." --Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem "One of Merrill's great strengths as a writer has always been his ability to braid the past, present, and future." --Los Angeles Times "Christopher Merrill is one of the most gifted, audacious, and accomplished poets of an extraordinarily rich generation. His range of sympathy, subject, and tone has always been prodigious." --W.S. Merwin, US Poet Laureate |
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