Exile In Paradise
by Pat Nolan
will be available early November, 2017
Order before October 31st, 2017 and get free shipping
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ISBN 978-0-9840310-5-4~ 6×9~ paper~100 pages~$16

The poems of Exile In Paradise are derived from a lifelong appreciation of classical Chinese poetry. This selection by Pat Nolan marks an almost fifty year creative engagement with Asian literature in translation. Chinese poetry is image rich and largely dependent for its overall effect on the juxtaposition of these images in a discontinuous thread that is not unlike the successive frames of a film. Each of the poems finds its origin in a line translated from an ancient Chinese poet. Although removed by degrees of separation from the originals in time and language, their impulse remains the same: to call up the perceptual as a song of celebration in sacred engagement with the world.

Praise for Exile In Paradise

“Nolan has given Solitude, itself, a voice in this rich lyric of nature.  A luminosity of flickering bursts pause and magnify now moments of being alive.  His quotidian soaks us with its presence.  His lines trace the air.”  —Maureen Owen, author of Erosion’s Pull and Edges of Water

“Reading these poems, I feel like I’m walking down a village lane somewhere in China, beyond the reach of the emperor’s minions, and every door I walk by, someone invites me in for a cup of wine. At this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever make it out of here, and why should I?” —Bill Porter (Red Pine), translator, author of Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets from the Past

The Hand of an Old Friend

“Day’s late glazing rays already deep in the yard”

as a bee in amber I’m captured by a rich light

faint breeze rustles bamboo grove half in shadows

that sense of well being so fleeting visits again after

days of feeling like someone’s standing on my heart

that heaviness relieved as Autumn’s orange glare

warms my shoulder like the hand of an old friend