A Poet’s (Very) Public Passion

The Poet's Daughter

Reviewed by Joey Madia

This thought-provoking book, subtitled, “Malek O’Shoara of Iran and the Immortal Song of Freedom,” tells the story of Iran’s great political activist and foremost poet of the twentieth century, Malek O’Shoara Bahar, through the eyes and experiences of his daughter. In a time when all the world is focused on the future of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran and the Arab Spring continues to change the course of history in the Middle East, Bahar’s tribute to her father (which doubles as a personal memoir) recalls to the reader not only the circumstances that created the current situation in Iran; it also demonstrates the great power of poetry to help foment change in political activism.

Not unlike Pablo Neruda who said to the Chilean forces sent for him by Pinochet: “Look around—there’s only one thing of danger for you here—poetry” or Federico Garcia Lorca in Spain, Malek O’Shoara Bahar was not only a gifted poet, but a passionate activist and scholar who spent time in prison and exile for his beliefs about democracy and self-government. Parts of his poems, which are now used as songs for the Arab Spring, are strategically placed throughout the book, and although their translations into English render them somewhat less rich than they might be in their native language, one still feels the depth of belief, the commitment to social justice, and the artistic philosophy they contain.

Exploring the Deep Soul of Man

Deep Blues
Human Soundscapes for 
the Archetypal Journey

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Campbell

"All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air. What is evoked in him, then, is of another order, more terrible because it has no words, and triumphant, too, for that same reason. And his triumph, when he triumphs, is ours." --James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”

Trying to define the blues takes you away from the blues.

Mark Winborn acknowledges this dilemma in the introduction to Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey, and then successfully explores the origins, scope, function, themes, performers, healing and imaginal nature of the blues experience. Setting the stage, he quotes from the Reverend Emmett Dickinson’s 1930 recorded sermon “Is There Harm in Singing the Blues?”

There’s so-called preachers all over this land
Are talking about the man or woman who sings the blues
You don’t know the meaning of the blues
The blues is only an outward voice to that inward feeling

“Finding a Way to Grace”

A Review of The Gift of Grace: Awakening to Its Presence, a collection of Paul Brunton’s writings edited by Sam Cohen (Larson Publications, 2011, www.larsonpublications.com)

by Joey Madia

“Grace is received, not achieved.” (p. 134)

Now that we have entered 2012, a year when so many are looking to the Mayan, Tibetan, and Hopi prophecies that have long foretold of a new era of spiritual enlightenment for all people, it is more important than ever to keep our hearts and minds engaged and nourished with the types of insights and guiding lights represented in this collection of writings on Grace culled from The Notebooks of Paul Brunton (compiled and administered by the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation).

The man himself (1898–1981) was, like Joseph Campbell, a student of the world’s sacred wisdom teachings, and he draws on a wide range in the course of his writings on Grace, as well-evidenced in this book. Trying to encapsulate his well and broadly lived life is nearly impossible in a book review, so I encourage the reader to spend some time researching Brunton on his or her own.

Split into 13 subject sections (such as “Grace in Religious Contexts,” “Grace and Ego,” and “Grace and World Crisis”) and bookended by an “Introduction” and an essay entitled “The Progressive Stages of the Quest,” the collection is well-organized and edited by Sam Cohen, a 40-year scholar of Brunton and his works and the director of the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation.

A dazzling coming of age story

The History of My Body

Reviewed by Malcolm R. Campbell

Genoa House, October 15, 2011, 310 pages

“The Bible says that in the beginning was the void, and it hasn’t escaped me how fast the Lord moved to take care of His own particular vacuum—dividing day from night, spitting out vast oceans, carving out competing continents that would one day have the power to blow each other up. What an inspired series of creations to keep the devil of boredom at bay. No wonder God kept seeing that it was good.”

So begins the story of Fleur Robins.

Fleur Robins is called creepy child, poor child, little monster, odd duck, space cadet and assorted other synonyms for “weird” by almost everyone who notices her existence and tries to figure out whether she is gifted, autistic, simply hopeless or hopelessly simple. Fleur’s imagination contains many worlds because—as she explains life as the fifteen-year-old narrator of The History of My Body—positioning her body and mind “just this side of the lurking pit of nothingness” requires constant vigilance and ingenuity.

Whenever the void looms too large for her to handle, Fleur flaps her arms, bangs her head, pinches herself, emits strange noises and makes oddly literal pronouncements that simultaneously appear to miss the point and contain cosmic truths. No school will take her. An alcoholic mother loves her, but spends her days drunk or asleep. A mean-spirited father dislikes her, but fills his days with a pro-life crusade while filling an entire nursery wing of the family’s large house with children rescued from the “devil abortionists.” An odd-duck household/nursery staff cares for her, but is too busy to overtly save her from the void.