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    The Alchemy of Happiness
    The Alchemy of Happiness
    The Alchemy of Happiness
    Ebook124 pages48 minutes

    The Alchemy of Happiness

    By Marilyn Bowering

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In her new volume of verse, Bowering continues her rigorous, ambitious path and delivers poems that blend a variety of personalities, times, and places that add up to an overall substance she sees as happiness. Like an alchemist of old, she transmutes experiences, perceptions, and perspectives into something richer and rarer despite the passage of years and the loss and death they have brought.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateDec 16, 2002
    ISBN9781770706231
    The Alchemy of Happiness
    Author

    Marilyn Bowering

    Marilyn Bowering is an award-winning poet and playwright whose first novel, To All Appearances a Lady, was a New York Times Notable Book of 1990. She was born in Winnipeg and grew up in Victoria, British Columbia. She has lived and worked in the United States, Greece, Scotland Spain, and Canada and now makes her home in Sooke British Columbia. Visible Worlds was a finalist for the fourth annual Orange Prize in 1998. One of the most important literary awards in Great Britain, the Orange Prize is given each year to the best novel published there that is written by a woman.

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      Book preview

      The Alchemy of Happiness - Marilyn Bowering

      The Alchemy of Happiness

      Also by Marilyn Bowering

      Poetry

      The Liberation of Newfoundland (1973)

      One Who Became Lost (1976)

      The Killing Room (1977)

      Sleeping with Lambs (1980)

      Giving Back Diamonds (1982)

      The Sunday Before Winter: New and Selected Poetry (1984)

      Anyone Can See I Love You (1987)

      Grandfather Was a Soldier (1987)

      Calling All the World: Laika and Folchakov 1957 (1989)

      Love as Lt Is (1993)

      Autobiography (1996)

      Human Bodies: New and Selected Poems 1987–1999 (1999)

      Fiction

      The Visitors Have All Returned (1979)

      To All Appearances a Lady (1989)

      Visible Worlds (1997)

      The

      Alchemy

      of

      Happiness

      poems by

      Marilyn Bowering

      Copyright © 2003 by Marilyn Bowering

      First Edition

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Toronto, Ontario.

      This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, 226–2040 West 12th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. V6J 2G2. www.beachholme.bc.ca. This is a Porcepic Book.

      The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and of the British Columbia Arts Council. The publisher also acknowledges the financial assistance received from the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for its publishing activities.

      Editor: Michael Carroll

      Design and Production: Jen Hamilton

      Cover art: Almudena de la Peña by Mercedes Carbonell. Oil on infografía. Copyright © 2002.

      Used with permission.

      Author Photograph: Tony Bounsall Photo-Design

      Printed and bound in Canada by Marc Veilleux Imprimeur

      National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Bowering, Marilyn, 1949-

      The alchemy of happiness/Marilyn Bowering.

      Poems.

      A porcépic book.

      ISBN 0-88878-435-X

      I. Title.

      PS8553.09A42 2003           C811’.54           C2002-911090-4

      PR9199.3.B635A42 2003

      For Michael and Xan

      and for my brother, David

      Contents

      I The Father and Mother Poems, The Daughter Poems

      The Father and Mother Poems

      The Daughter Poems

      Love Poem for My Daughter

      II The Alchemy of Happiness

      Concerning Self-Examination and the Recollection of God

      Once

      The Stars

      Night Words

      The Cat Project

      III The Pink City

      The Pink City

      IV Glen Lochay Diary

      Glen Lochay Diary

      V Calendar

      January I

      January II

      February I

      February II

      February Note

      March

      April

      May

      June

      July

      August

      September

      October I

      October II

      November I

      November II

      December

      Midnight

      Acknowledgements

      The faculties rejoice without knowing how

      they rejoice, the soul is enkindled in love

      without understanding how it loves.

           —St. Teresa of Avila, Complete Works

      I

      The Father and Mother Poems, The Daughter Poems

      The Father and Mother Poems

      for David

      1. Father

      Robin, who is dead, says I should write poems,

      I should write about my father,

      who is old,

      just like he wrote about his father…

      A poet writes when looking at death:

      a poet sees the crusted mouth,

      skin like a slaked wall,

      the knobs and veins of dear hands.

      The poet sees that age is poverty,

      and at the same time, feels the roistering breath

      close to the heart of time.

      My father lifts me, a baby, from the floor,

      he sings in the kitchen making breakfast,

      he fetches me home from my broken-down car,

      he fills the cauldron of my failed heart with his love—

      today I looked into his eyes

      and he thanked me.

      A poet would write his rage,

      not talk to the dead at night,

      a poet would understand the great gift

      of being loved

      for so long

      so well,

      and drink deep,

      salute the ghosts, elbow aside a place for himself in bed

      next to his dad.

      2. Mother

      i. Where are the horses

      on our night ride?

      Through the wall

      of golden shower.

      I can follow you to the hill

      but no farther.

      Grief supports me

      to the other world,

      but the distance draws you.

      Remember me:

      the well of your

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