Bøger af James R Murphy

within this temporal body composed of a hundred bones and nine holes there resides a spirit which, for lack of an adequate name, i think of as windblown. like delicate drapery, it may be torn away and blown off by the least breeze. it brought me to writing poetry many years ago, initially for its own gratification, but eventually as a way of life. the above is by basho in the beginning of his "knapsack notebook" as translated by sam hamill. they are my sentiments exactly.

a collection of sonnets many of which are acrostics

murphy works with different, simple forms of poetry.

this is murphy's bai ju yi. as i have deepened my studies of chinese poetry my inner murphy has found the need to comment as he will. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind.

this is murphy's wen siang. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind.

an old cherokee poet sorting his piles of paper

this is murphy's bai ju yi. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind.

han yu was a minor tang dynasty poet whose governmsntal service was problematic.

what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. there is no individual voice for the complete du fu and these murphy versions of poems into english are a paltry beginning to such a task. the poems are arranged as did erwin von zach.

what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. but as i said there is no individual english voice for the complete du fu and these murphy versions of poems are a paltry beginning to such an enormous task.

a lifetime's culling of poetic output

there are two sorts of zen adept. the first is someone who sits zazen for thirty years or so and finally achieves satori. the other is the zen fool who breaks out in laughter as a young person and never looks back. satori breaks out all over. murphy came to rumi in his late middle age self and was taken back to his wild youth. the most sacred of all american indian medicines is that of the holy clown. this then is a rubaiyat of the runaway murphy meeting the remnants of rumi in the 21st century.

There was a time when I was privileged to build a small sacred fire on a mound in the sacred circle for new moon ceremonies. The fire was an embodiment of the spirit made manifest for the group who came together to replenish their collective and individual spirits. It was my privilege to make pretty fires which danced as they burned. This task of mine was a sacred task and I took it seriously, but what I enjoyed most about the festivities was the joy and humor which infested all who participated. One of the many things I have experienced in my long life is the joy and laughter I have always associated with Native American activities. When Indians are together they laugh together, much more than I have noticed in gatherings of non-Indians, who have other cultural indicators of spirituality. Many Native traditions hold clowns and tricksters as essential to contact with the sacred. People prayed after they had laughed, because laughter tended to open one's mind and free up rigid preconceptions. So human animals had tricksters within the most sacred ceremonies lest they forget how the sacred comes through upset, reversal, surprise. The trickster in most Native traditions is essential to creation, to birth. And the heyokah, the booger, the clown, the neweekwe, the koshari, the contrary, was the sacred bringer of this laughter. The bringing of laughter to the group was often accomplished with a zany dance of pratfalls or patently absurd physical activities. There is a shared understanding of the need for this aspect of sacred dancing being necessary to open the spirits of the people, to prepare them to participate in the spiritual togetherness of the sacred circle. The sacred clowns of the Native Americans were very often overtly sexual in their "clowning"; so much so that in modern American society they would all be pilloried for sexual aggression. One must remember that these clowns were male, female, and bisexual. Their sexually explicit stance was their way of forcing their audience, the other members of their group, into a place of embarrassment which could be relieved only by laughter. Laughter was the weapon of change in an individual's anti-social behavior. Poking fun was the ultimate weapon of shaming. And because it produced laughter all could share in a release of tension caused by the wrongness involved. So when i finally found a thick, stiff nylon string to make string figures with I began to make dancing figures which became for me a series of "sacred clowns" personifying this crucial part of my cultural upbringing. This book is a partial record of my ongoing passion of creating touchstones of laughter, for reaching the spirituality within us all. inoli

a continuing involvement with bai ju yi, now an old man contemplating his life and the life of his friends.

this is murphy's ruan ji. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. chinese poetry in translation

this is murphy's li tai bo. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind.

what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. but as i said there is no individual english voice for the complete du fu and these murphy versions of poems are a paltry beginning to such an enormous task.

this is an ongoing series of chinese poets i am translating

what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. but as i said there is no individual english vloice for the complete du fu and these murphy versions of poems are a paltry beginning to such an enormous task.

this is murphy's li tai bo. after completing his work on du fu i have moved on to his illustrious contemporary li tai bo. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. these poems are arranged as did erwin von zach.

my father talked to me i was about five years old he said i was cherokee but, he said, your mother decided she wants you to be raised different so i can only tell you this, this once and we'll never talk about it again i hear him now in my old age feet on desk, staring out the window i think i found the way to what he tried to tell me a communal sense of giving is what you are giving the best of what you decide to be i taught, and thought of childhood my own, and what my father gave to me all others, and what they should be my gift to all is this way of learning through craft of hands, through finger's play so i sit at ease to ponder, to maunder on to rest and sum up, to make sense of it all

an ongoing series of translations from the chinese

This is the third volume of li tai bo's poetry translated by james r murphy

this is murphy's li tai bo. after completing my work on du fu i have moved on to his illustrious contemporary li tai bo. what follows are not true translations, more they are reactions in kind. these poems are arranged as did erwin von zach.

I had the privilege early in my writing career to work with a number of Christian ministries. I found the work both challenging and satisfying, delighted to play some small role in the work of transforming lives that was our common goal. And yet, I would often find myself deeply troubled by what I saw. When confronted with personal disaster - and all disasters are personal for someone - the aware believer must sooner or later ask himself or herself the question, "How could a loving God allow this?" In fact, it is the question the unbelieving world throws in the face of the Church as an excuse to discount our claims. It is an honest and disturbing question. Standing in the midst of a developing-world slum, surrounded by cardboard and corrugated shanties, my nose assaulted by open sewers, body and throat covered with the fine dust of unpaved streets and watching nursing mothers with eyes devoid of hope, I ask myself, "How could a loving God permit this? Does He not hear their cry?" Standing on a now-peaceful coastline littered with the evidence of a killer tsunami, is not my God of love touched by the tragedy of whole villages drowned? Lassoed to a halt by the desperate, pleading gaze of a roomful of Romanian orphans, overwhelmed by the need for love of just one, much less a hundred, does not the heart of my God break? At home in Los Angeles, walking down a skid-row street on a balmy summer night, the only shelter the climate itself, does not my Lord remember having no place to lay his head? How many times, in the midst of doing what little I can, have I cried out in anguish, "God, it's too much! How do You stand it? How is it You do not rend the heavens and scatter the stars, reaching out in your awesome power to feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the broken and console the lonely? How can You possibly know all things and yet do nothing? How is it that I, being a man of dust with a heart of stone, find myself brought to my knees in tears at the plight of my brothers and sisters while You, who can do all things, remain untouched? Aloof? Unmoved? How do I answer the unbeliever who challenges my assertion that God is love, that He knows all things and can do all things, and has provided a way out of sin by the death of his Son? What do I say when they look around at the world and say, "If this is what your God is like, I want nothing to do with Him"? With what argument do I refute a child dying of diarrhea, who could have been saved by clean water and a few pennies worth of salts? When my own heart is pierced with impotent compassion, how do I shield my God from the accusatory arrows of suffering? For too many years the answer has been, "I don't know. Someday I will. For now, I stand in faith, believing in a God I cannot see and whom I do not understand, but whom I know to be love." Yes, I've heard the arguments about "someday," about sovereignty, about predestination and sin and the arrogance of man to question the will and motivation of his Maker. I've staunchly defended in public while agonizing in private the answer to what, in my opinion, is one of the most troubling questions of our times. For me, the answer to the question, "How could a loving God ...?" has been a key that has opened a new phase in my relationship with a God who, I am now persuaded, in fact loves the world with a love more amazing than ever before. I must warn you, however, the answer to the title question will usher you into a new responsibility as a child of God because we hold the key, and as we discover it in our hand, we are called to use it to unlock a new and powerful revelation of the love of God demonstrated to a hurting and unbelieving world. We have been given a priceless gift and awesome accountability. May the Spirit of God use this simple book written by a broken and unworthy messenger to challenge us all to walk worthy of the high calling of God in Messiah Yeshua.

han yu was a minor tang dynasty poet whose governmsntal service was problematic.

a handbook for anyone to use while learning string figures

a collection of articles first published in the international string figure association bulletin, printed here with the kind permission of the organization.