{"product_id":"compositions-of-the-dead-playing-flutes-poems-9781927409237","title":"Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes - Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eBarbara Ellen Sorensen's \u003ci\u003eCompositions of the Dead Playing Flutes\u003c\/i\u003e embraces the many joys of spirit and flesh, while acknowledging that death is an ever-present shadow. Her lyrics sometime sear, sometime soar, and are rooted in nature and her lived environment-arroyos, tundra, riparian forests-and further abroad in Haiti and Milan. These poems sing of the body both beauteous and bountiful, and contrapuntally lament trials of illness and surgery. The spirit of her lost son pervades her musings. Incantatory and mystical, she offers us \"bells and charms\/ that only girls can cast out like handfuls of sugar\/ across any universe, \/ any threshold.\" This collection richly rewards its reader. Its release is an event to celebrate.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePRAISE FOR COMPOSITIONS OF THE DEAD PLAYING FLUTES: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarbara Ellen Sorensen's \u003ci\u003eCompositions of the Dead Playing Flutes\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of stunning wakefulness. For it is a wake, but at the same time a celebration, one that focuses on places where the dead were once most alive, places where we are most acutely seen and heard. Here they are deserts, seascapes, landscapes with families. Like the bird wings that so often lift this stunning debut, Sorensen's flight is full of gravity: \"One day you are as light\/ as a bird, and then\/ you are not.\" We stay aloft by living, by insisting on the protean body of the world. Sorensen's gift is elegy's clear song, how it may conjure grace from serious illness, car crash, the loss of a child. \"The universe bears no flatness. Even its horizon is curved toward repetition. Your death is a horizon. I run to slip over its edge.\" Yet we don't, we stay. By honoring, each to each, our essential complexity, Sorensen reminds us love's true service is survival.\u003cbr\u003e -Matthew Cooperman\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese poems are attentive, scrupulous, and transforming, as they range from the sensuous to the spiritual . . . Opened in body and spirit, the poet embraces her worlds, and she offers back this poetry, which shimmers in its urgent, delicate balance.\u003cbr\u003e -Veronica Patterson (from the foreword)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarbara Ellen Sorensen is a lyric poet in the sense that any fabulist might be called lyric-a modern Ovid offering metamorphoses of the triumphs and ashes of human existence in a voice at once deeply personal and entirely of us all. Mystic, mythographer, trickster and elegiast, Sorensen engages subjects that would be ashes in the mouth of a lesser poet-relief work in Haiti, brain surgery, and most devastatingly, the death of a son-with Orphic transformation and the deep truth of stories we tell ourselves by the fire to keep ourselves alive. From the formal mastery of poems like \"My Lithium, My Heart\" to the exquisite free verse of \"Doubting Cremation\" (\"the beauty of a body\/ torn twice from mine, because all mothers\/ repeat the births of children who die\"), Sorensen gives us, in her \u003ci\u003eCompositions of the Dead Playing Flutes, \u003c\/i\u003e the record of her epic travels, her trips to the underworld, and along with that, the words that will save us.\u003cbr\u003e -Suzanne Paola\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eABOUT THE AUTHOR: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarbara Ellen Sorensen is former senior editor of \u003cem\u003eWinds of Change\u003c\/em\u003e magazine, the flagship publication for the American Indian Science \u0026amp; Engineering Society. She now freelances for \u003cem\u003eThe Tribal College Journal\u003c\/em\u003e and writes for the National Indian Child Welfare Association.\u003cbr\u003e Sorensen's chapbook, \u003cem\u003eSong from the Deep Middle Brain\u003c\/em\u003e (Mainstreet Rag, 2010), was a Colorado Book Award finalist. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her memoir piece, \u003cem\u003eGhostflower \u0026amp; Wind\u003c\/em\u003e (Drunken Boat, 2012). An interview with her can be found in \u003cem\u003eFringe\u003c\/em\u003e magazine (spring, 2012). Her undergraduate degree in English is from the University of Iowa; her graduate degree in creative writing is from Regis University.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=AUTH-5842678\"\u003eBarbara Ellen Sorensen\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Able Muse Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/06\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 132\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.31d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781927409237\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1927409233\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBISAC Categories:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=CAT-POE\"\u003ePoetry\u003c\/a\u003e | \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=BISAC-POE015000\"\u003eAmerican | Native American\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=CAT-POE\"\u003ePoetry\u003c\/a\u003e | \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=BISAC-POE023010\"\u003eSubjects \u0026amp; Themes | Death, Grief, Loss\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=CAT-POE\"\u003ePoetry\u003c\/a\u003e | \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/sureshotbooks-com.myshopify.com\/search?type=product%2Carticle%2Cpage\u0026amp;q=BISAC-POE023040\"\u003eSubjects \u0026amp; Themes | Places\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Able Muse Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44589297991917,"sku":"9781927409237","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0550\/8097\/6621\/products\/img_e7ce62cc-3146-4719-9575-4bbaf090982e.jpg?v=1702238134","url":"https:\/\/sureshotbooks.com\/products\/compositions-of-the-dead-playing-flutes-poems-9781927409237","provider":"SureShot Books Publishing LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}