Author: Lydia Harris

Publisher: Blue Diode Press

Published: 2024-03-26

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 1915108195

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“In the magical world of Lydia Harris’s poems, books are transformed into windows, hearts, birds, ghosts - even stars. History, landscape and love are woven together in poems which are celebratory, uplifting, reverential and sublime. Lydia Harris is a poet who brings new meaning to the word unique.” —John Glenday “What better moment than this, on the brink of a digital, screen-facing age, to recover the almost supernatural power of early books – how physical materials, calf skin, pigment, quill pen, ink, could be alive with other times and presences, and all our human feelings, maybe even God? These poems perform that paradox – to be small, alertly at home in particular place, while opening on a wealth of worlds beyond. In them, boundaries dissolve – between the local and the universal, fact and fable, the colloquial and the biblical, the human and non-human, between the 16th century and today. Through the opening Henrietta steps, both grave and playful, with a bright rapt curiosity that feels like praise.” —Philip Gross “What a delight it is to enter Henrietta’s world. Collating an imagined repository of knowledge from, and for, ‘the whole wide world’, she draws manuscripts, stones, seals, herons, boats, the earth and sea into her linguistic inventory. Like a word-farmer, she shepherds, cares for, and cultivates texts. Through Henrietta, Harris explores language and books as containers, explainers, archives, descriptors, and exchange. Her lightness of touch creates joyously airy music, fresh as a ‘newly caulked boat’. Precise, compassionate, and buoyant, Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World reminds us of the hope inherent in the creation and collection of books, and our fundamental quest for shared experience and understanding.” —Heidi Williamson

Download or read book Henrietta's Library of the Whole Wide World written by Lydia Harris and published by Blue Diode Press. This book was released on 2024-03-26 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In the magical world of Lydia Harris’s poems, books are transformed into windows, hearts, birds, ghosts - even stars. History, landscape and love are woven together in poems which are celebratory, uplifting, reverential and sublime. Lydia Harris is a poet who brings new meaning to the word unique.” —John Glenday “What better moment than this, on the brink of a digital, screen-facing age, to recover the almost supernatural power of early books – how physical materials, calf skin, pigment, quill pen, ink, could be alive with other times and presences, and all our human feelings, maybe even God? These poems perform that paradox – to be small, alertly at home in particular place, while opening on a wealth of worlds beyond. In them, boundaries dissolve – between the local and the universal, fact and fable, the colloquial and the biblical, the human and non-human, between the 16th century and today. Through the opening Henrietta steps, both grave and playful, with a bright rapt curiosity that feels like praise.” —Philip Gross “What a delight it is to enter Henrietta’s world. Collating an imagined repository of knowledge from, and for, ‘the whole wide world’, she draws manuscripts, stones, seals, herons, boats, the earth and sea into her linguistic inventory. Like a word-farmer, she shepherds, cares for, and cultivates texts. Through Henrietta, Harris explores language and books as containers, explainers, archives, descriptors, and exchange. Her lightness of touch creates joyously airy music, fresh as a ‘newly caulked boat’. Precise, compassionate, and buoyant, Henrietta’s Library of the Whole Wide World reminds us of the hope inherent in the creation and collection of books, and our fundamental quest for shared experience and understanding.” —Heidi Williamson