1. THE BOOK L, LLL's second full length poetry book fr. Cool Grove consists of journal entries, poems, photos & l essay - for the most part written on Isla Margarita, Venezuela, while on retreat w. NN Rimpoche. Recalling predecessors Philip Whalen & Joanne Kyger, it develops themes of impermanence, romance & the dangers of elitism in the (so-called) 3rd. world as its author inwardly explores the relationship between 'community' (skt – *sanga*) & the private communion which is the poet's domain.
2. The title is taken fr. the ground breaking work of Dutch Dadaist, Bert Schierbeck (HET BOEK IK) whose Zen Gardens, published in Amsterdam (& translated into English by Charles McGeehan) in the 1960´s was a seminal introduction of Buddhist thought & practice to the European Avant Guard.
• The Book L, 2006 selections of which are available online at Otoliths, Tin Luster Mobile & unlikelystories.org:
• http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2006/07/louise-landes-levi-nine-sections-from.html
• http://mtdmagazine.tripod.com/louiselandeslevi.htm
• http//www.ulikelystories.org/levi/0808)
It will be followed, in this generous offering, by excerpts fr. Hotel Gaia, an earlier collection of retreat & other poems, written primarily in Toscana, IT.(1985-1995) & dedicated to poet visive Franco Beltrametti & A Spiritual Autobiography (W.Palm beach – NYC 2000), a short autobiographical essay,
REVIEW
One of the marvels of Louise Landis Levi’s poems is that they exist at all.
She somehow conjures eternity out of ephemera, and seems to breathe out
these poems more than write them. Following the beat of the ever-wandering
seeker-bard and musician-dancer, adhering to her spiritual guide with total
devotion, Louise evokes a Mirabai-like poet, whom she’s translated
gorgeously, with a kind of Ezra Pound’s Cantos (of all things!) scattered
and obscurely referential poetry that may suddenly burst into the most
heart-rending lyricism, as focused as a fossil in amber or a flamingo in
midflight. Arcane, profane and sublime all at once, more in the mode of
Joanne Kyger than Denise Levertov, her fully voiced poems addict you to
their movement from poem to poem as if they were being written before you
in the actual moment of your reading. And these are only a few of their
marvels (just as these are apparently only a few of her thousands of
poems). As with our mutually beloved P. Lamantia, the search for the “touch
of the Marvelous” never ceases, and here lie open to the sky its flowing
results in all their golden glow.
—Abdal-Hayy
MY JOURNALS
My journals travel w. me & are sometimes handwritten & sometimes not. When
the situation is supportive I use my laptop to ‘keep notes’ & to record
important statements, for examples, of others. The classically educated see
my napkins w. Tibetan or Sanskrit or Hebrew calligraphy & say O do not
throw that away. My habit of not throwing away invites the universe to do
so. Countless manuscripts, papers, match boxes, envelopes, discarded. & so
many unsung songs or unscripted poems. But some persist & are rendered in
speech or script.
to read more...
