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Ostensibly
a day-long hike through the Santa Cruz Mountains, The Santa Cruz Mt.
Poems is composed of 56 short poems that trace the interior route toward
spiritual understanding as well as the physical exploration of a place.
The book is divided into two sections.
Each section
records a different time of day as well as a different season, the opening
section moving from dawn to noon during the sunny season, and the second
section from noon to night during the rainy season, so that the hike
through a single day becomes a journey through an entire year. The poems
are divided equally in each section, and the poems of one section contrast
with the poems of the other, creating a counterpoint that reflects the
tensions, dichotomies, and ultimately the harmonies of the life cycle.
This is
the 20th Anniversary Edition of the book , which was originally published
by Capra Press (Santa Barbara).
The
Author
Marcus has read his poetry and conducted poetry workshops in dozens of
universities throughout the country, among them Columbia University, Notre
Dame, The University of Oregon, and several University of California campuses.
He has also been poet-in-residence at several State University of New
York campuses, The University of Arkansas' Graduate Writing Program, and
Providence College.
Morton Marcus taught English and Film at Cabrillo College for thirty
years, until his retirement in l998. His sixteen-part televison history
of film, Movie Milestones, has been shown on many cable television stations,
and is the main visual source of film history at the AFTRS, the Australian
national film school. He has been a longtime co-host of KUSP radio's
"The Poetry Show" and is the co-host of the film review television show
"Cinema Scene" on the AT &T Broadband network in Santa Cruz and San
Francisco. He also leads a film discussion group at Santa Cruz's Nickelodeon
theater on the first and third Saturday of every month. He has curated
film series at various museums and has taken part in several panels
on literature and film at the John Steinbeck Center.
Appropriuate
Readers
The Santa Cruz Mt. Poems will be of interest to anyone who enjoys nature
poetry, especially nature poetry suffused with spirtitual overtones
that tugs startling telluric imagery from the psyche.
Reviews
"Reading The Santa Cruz Mt. Poems, I thought of others who have gone
after the spirit of some place. Marcus makes them look blinded by the
deaf, dumb sufaces of things; he goes beyond them and finds voice for
things of his world....These poems deserve the fine printing they've
been given."
Barton Sutter,
Crazy Horse
"This
carefully put together sequence of poems takes us on a journey into
nature—a journey which sometimes leads beyond the world of things
into the inner region of the self....Marcus' Roethkean kinship with
minimal forms of life....often yields a fresh lucid poetry....solidly
grounded in the physical but also opening into the spiritual. A handsome
book."
Norbert Krapf,
Library Journal
Order
Santa Cruz Mountain Poems Here
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