Non-Fiction
"Christopher 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..."
--Ron Carlson
"A gem that shows off Merrill-the-poet's gorgeous writing, and Merrill-the-reporter's sharp eye—and introduces a new Merrill, the pilgrim."
--The Spectator
“[T]his book might very well become a modern classic about what once again seems a painful and incomprehensible corner of Europe.”
--Publishers Weekly
Poetry
In the fall of 2008, poet Christopher Merrill hatched a plan: invite six other poets to join him in four days of writing in Iowa City. The poets would write for 30 minutes, creating a poem of 15 lines, and then read it aloud to the group. Then, each poet would take one line from another poet, and create another poem using that line. Those 80 poems are collected in this book, penned by authors who represent some of the best and brightest the world of poetry has to offer.
“
Brilliant Water is written with love, speed and passion. It shines. Makes you fly.”
--Tomaz Salamun
“
Watch Fire” is a remarkably original, ambitious, and unified volume of poetry.”
--Los Angeles Times Book Review
Poetry in Translation
The poems of Heeduck Ra are charged with a friction between image and idea, sound and sense. She glimpses an arc, which may light a path from the visible world to the invisible. Her work occupies the ever-shifting border region between what we know and what we do not know, a zone in which to apprehend the world anew.
Buddhism was introduced to Korea via China in the fifth century and similar to China and Japan a long tradition of Zen poetry developed. This collection spans 1,500 years of this tradition with a selection of the key poets and teachers starting with Great Master Wonhyo the founder of Korean Zen Buddhism.
Journalism
"Not until the helicopter flew away did I realize that I had left on the seat my copy of The Magic Mountain. Whatever demon had led me to think that I might read it on the flight from Kabul to a forward operating base in Jalalabad must have been smiling..." The full article on Merrill's experience teaching poetry in Afghanistan during its occupation can be found in the
February issue of Granta Magazine.
"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..." Published by Granta Magazine on September 12, this essay is yet another showcase of Merrill's consistent blend of timeliness and refreshing insight.
