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Praise for This Open Eye: "Reggie Marra writes with stunning, graphic precision—brutal scenes the American news skips over, scenes of endless sorrow that politicians bury under false phrases like 'total victory.' I read these small but huge poems with a chill of recognition and gratitude—thank goodness for poets like Reggie Marra who look deeply and care even more deeply about telling the truth. These poems are tributes to the nearly-invisible wounded and the honest humanity so many of us yearn for now." | |||||||||||
—Naomi
Shihab Nye, author of You
& Yours; | |||||||||||
"Reggie Marra captures the tragedy of war from all angles. His vision expands beyond gender and race to embrace the humanity of us all. Unafraid to depict the graphic consequences of hate, uninhibited in his words by the politics of aggression, Reggie bravely steps into the epicenter of world conflict and individual suffering. He captures the colors of youth and the mud of death, creating a dichotomous reality that has brought poets and artists to their knees since the dawn of civilization. Reggie is the journalist of our times. His poetic images will be remembered for centuries to come." | |||||||||||
"This Open Eye is a powerful, devastating, and stunningly beautiful book. Reggie Marra has unfalteringly absorbed the images and voices of the war in Iraq, pared them down to the bone, and handed them back to us that we, too, might bear witness to our times. Not in any of these poems, or the essay, has he taken the easy way out. Like Breyten Breytenbach, Nelly Sachs, and Antonio Machado before him, Marra reclaims the essentially human from both the brutal and the brutalized." | |||||||||||
| Now Available | |||||||||||
| ISBN
0-9627828-2-3 Price $12.00 / $14.00 shipped ($14.84 in CT) TO ORDER: See Below. | ||||||||||
"We are pleased and honored to have a poet with us today whose poetry shows exceptional power and insight. In his recent book, This Open Eye, Reggie Marra explores the human tragedy and consequences of war as it affects everyone, especially those civilians who are caught in the violent struggle of governments and individuals vying for power and control of war-torn nations. His poetry ranks among some of the very best verse written on the subject of war, past and present. Through his words, readers' eyes and minds are opened to the human suffering that is the inevitable byproduct of war. We sincerely thank Mr. Marra for giving his time to come to New Milford High School to speak to us and share his work." | |||||||||||
—Mark
Iannucci, Teacher, Introductory Remarks, June 2, 2006 | |||||||||||
The last time I had the feeling I encountered when I first heard Reggie Marra read from his book was when I read Michael Casey's Yale Series of Younger Poets Award-winning, Obscenities, in 1970. Casey, the self-described Dufus of he poems, is a regular guy, an MP in a war-torn country being ripped apart by a huge, monolithic war machine, unsure of its objectives and unclear as to the best way to accomplish whatever objectives there may have been. When Casey says, "If you have a farm in Vietnam/And a house in hell/Sell the farm/ and go home" you get the feeling that he could just as easily be talking about Iraq thirty-five long years later. Marra's poems are unflinching poems of witness. He does not intend to titillate and if he's shocking you, it is to make you look closer at the carnage our country is unleashing upon the people of Iraq. He wants you to actually see, to think, to feel, to become part of the immediate reality of the experience of misery, death and destruction that our leaders are trying to deny, are trying to hide from our eyes. These same leaders know that if we were to witness as Marra has witnessed for us, there would be no more war machine, no more profiteering and self-interest disguised as democracy in action, as purported humanitarian efforts. What could be simpler, more devastating and more now than [the title poem] from this essential collection?" | |||||||||||
—Alan
Catlin, Schenectady, NY, May 2006 | |||||||||||
"Very highly recommended… an intriguing and inspiring collection [that] calls on the reader's attention and intuition..." | |||||||||||
—Midwest
Book Review, April 2006 | |||||||||||
"I couldn't stop reading This Open Eye. It brought me chills, and it made me cry, and laugh too—what a great release to come to 'Shakespeare and Strategy for the New American Century.' All the voices, and the prose—my god, it's so beautifully done. I remember seeing some of the victims the poems bring to light—specifically the little girl shot in the head with her father, the soldier who had to return his Purple Heart—I remember staring at them myself in the paper, and this book does them such deep justice. I want to thank Reggie Marra for noticing the things I noticed. What we're going through is so painful, and it's so hard not to be completely dismayed, but one thing that brings me comfort is to hear how I'm feeling articulated by someone else, and he does it so powerfully. He's gone the distance and noticed everything—and that's just so amazing. His language is so wonderfully concise and straightforward. I think it's so important for artists to reflect back what we're doing, and to do it while it's still contemporary—and Reggie Marra really has." | |||||||||||
—Sarah Young, Millwood, NY, March 2006
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| Note: Above prices and shipping charges apply to single book orders only. TO ORDER: Email title(s), quantity, your name and shipping address to ramintegraljourneys@juno.com, "Book order" in the subject line. We will send you a detailed invoice that you can pay by credit card, Pay Pal or check. OPTION: For single-book orders ONLY, skip the email and send a check for the shipped price (listed above) to: Integral Journeys / 15 Orchard Heights / New Milford CT 06776-3018 Your order will ship within 24 hours of receipt of payment. All books shipped USPS First Class/Priority Mail. If you're accustomed to one-click online shopping, we appreciate your patience, and we're getting there. 6% sales tax will be included to the total of books and shipping for orders shipped within CT.
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Living
Poems, Writing Lives:
Who
Lives Better Than
The
Quality