Bøger udgivet af Hidden Brook Press

The Last Stoic is a story about appetite and fear, both modern and ancient. Half of the story's narrative occurs in the time and place of the ancient Roman Empire; the other half occurs in the present-day United States. A central conceit of the novel is that the parallels between the two eras are so strong that the narrative can continue uninterrupted as the setting shifts from historic Rome to modern America, alternating from chapter to chapter. Marcus, a young man from a northern provincial border town, journeys deep into the heart of the empire and witnesses first-hand the excesses that can lead to ruin, both personal and political. His story offers an ancient commentary on the preoccupations of our own turbulent times. Shortly after his arrival, the empire is thrown into a panic by an unprecedented barbarian attack on the capital. Suspicion and paranoia abound. A young Roman/American runaway named Patrick, disillusioned with his own life and the state of his country, becomes convinced that Marcus is a dangerous traitor. Culminating in a public accusation made by Patrick, Marcus is wrongfully imprisoned, exiled and tortured as an enemy of the state. In prison, he confronts the many contradictions he has found in his adopted home, and in himself. Throughout the story, in both eras, the writings of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations) insinuate themselves unexpectedly into Marcus' life. In prison, he is saved by a chance meeting with Sextus Condianus, the "last Stoic" of the title, a cell-mate who is able to fully recite Aurelius' words and impart their wisdom. Ultimately, it is this unanticipated and unbidden instruction that gives the young man the strength he requires to survive. It becomes evident that the words of the venerable Stoic emperor have as much relevance to our own era as they did to his.

There is a power emanating from This Grace of Light, and a belief there is something out there that canprovide us comfort, if we let it. This collection is a kiss on the eyes, a debut collection rich with auralmemory. David Clink (author of Eating Fruit Out of Season)

Say this of me, reader, after the voice-vanish of this life. I felt the joy of foolishness and in the muddy shoes of morning saw love.--John B. Lee. 105 pp.

Suffused with light and air, the poems have the clarity of great photography, the feel of wind in the hair, the hushed compassion for everything and everyone seen and heard.There is a rich exuberance underlying all impressions, but not exploited at the expense of deep feelings.There is a subtle basic bass line supporting the sparkling right hand figures of Lee's style--an unerring ear matched to an intensity of vision, and both in the service of heart, mind and soul.More and more, I'm impressed by Lee's wish to communicate in artistic language without compromise--by his steely discipline as he balances the richest of language with spiritual insight, avoiding the cheap plays of irony, frippery vulgarity that tarnishes so much of "People's Poetry".This is subtly conveyed by his kind shading of metaphor with "like'' since similes are less dazzling and therefore more sympathetic to the nerves of the common reader as he sublimely manipulates emotions with all the artistry of the poet aligned with the gravitas of the image.John B. Lee is "the" People's Poet with the hidden agenda of a spiritual adviser, a magician of language whose poems often conclude with an amazing transcendence of intellect confronted by the inexpressible and surrendering to it in a skyrocket of wild imagery and pure poetry.I admire the unselfconscious pride with which Lee propagates his love of literature--its power and its glory--around his town and around the world--an evangelist of truth and beauty. To read Lee's work is to believe in them for the first time all over again. God bless him. by George Whipple

Tara Kainer is a writer who pulls no punches - deeply self-examining, she takes on the natural world, love, war, and poverty, and insists on a human response, a recognition of meaning. From the beauty of the "spun-butter moon" to the rages of the welfare office, from the wide prairie landscape to the many storms of mind and heart, these poems ask essential questions of identity, judgement, and the weight of past experience - "all those versions/of yourself imposed on you by others." Interpreting crows' caws or the cacophony of war coverage, her attempts to "know what things are" are bracing and beautiful. She invokes David Suzuki, Ezra Pound, and "the poets/whose truth seeps through/the cage of the printed word." Kainer's poems articulate a singular, uncompromising voice "measuring the light of my mind/by the light of those stars," a reminder of human decency and the importance of the place of the poet: both "to get at the truth, if it's possible" and "to be such a fool/for beauty."