Among the Enigmas - Softcover

Murphy, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1948017520 ISBN 13: 9781948017527

Publisher: DOS Madres Pr, 2019

Poetry. "To spend time with Robert Murphy's AMONG THE ENIGMAS is to be in the presence of a great soul. At the center of Murphy's visionfor he is, make no mistake, a visionary poet in the line of Blake, in touch with truths that exist far beyond the pageis a battle between stasis and dynamism, between appearance and reality, between Truth and a diversity of truths. In his stunningly bleak psalm, 'As if Cattle, ' Murphy observes the herd in 'bland bowed calm' as long as its 'hunger, thirst, or fear is slaked, 'that is, until it meets its mortal fate. 'Jumping Jehoshaphat!' he exclaims in 'The Appearance of it All, ' one of the volume's finest poems, 'Only a Holy Fool / Would come down here' to attempt to reason with common sense and the world of appearances. While Murphy's poems are animated by a dynamic spirit, they're thoroughly skeptical of received truths. That skepticism breeds a black humor and a wild, Joycean paronomasia. The punning Bursts forth in Murphy's major sequence of nine 'Imp' poems, which importunately explore, in the persona of a Socratic inchling/inkling, various imponderables, impositions, impostures, and a great deal more. Adding to the serious fun is the engrossing artwork of David Golder, which engages with, rather than illustrates, Murphy's verse."David M. K

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About the Author:

Robert Murphy's poems have appeared in the literary periodical Smartish-Pace, as well as the Colorado Review, Notre Dame Review, The Cultural Society, Marsh Hawk Review, Galatea Resurrects, Live Mag!, Prints into Poetry, Merle as Muse--Poetry Inspired by the Art of Merle Rosen, and the Chicago based journal LVNG. He is the author of a chapbook Not for You Alone, (Dos Madres Press, 2004), LIFE IN THE ORDOVICIAN: SELECTED POEMS (Dos Madres Press, 2007), and FROM BEHIND THE BLIND (Dos Madres Press, 2013). He is a 2000 winner of the William Bronk Foundation prize for poetry. Robert Murphy is also executive editor and publisher of Dos Madres Press. He is married to the iconographer and painter Elizabeth Hughes Murphy, who is both book designer and illustrator for Dos Madres Press.
"Over the past few years my focus has been to explore the intersection between intention and chance. Sometimes after making a series of random marks and passages I'm tempted to believe that I can exercise choice by rejecting some and retaining others. Sometimes I see images in the marks and believe I choose to develop them. Sometimes it seems I choose to prefer one painting or drawing over another. Perhaps this is a pointless exploration though when you pause to think about it because even intention is mired in chance. At the very deepest inflection point between one choice and another it's nothing other than chance that flips the switch."--Donald Golder

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