Search results for ""Author Sydney Lea""

Sydney Lea says he hopes these columns will continue to be of interest to poetry lovers and students, but above all to the common reader. Seeking at every turn to avoid jargon, he explores how the making of a poet's art resembles the making of any reader's life. For Lea, poetry and everyday life are deeply entangled.

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So good it hurts to read.Annie ProulxSet against a backdrop of the remote northern Maine wilderness, Now, Look is a novel about second chances and missed chances. Fishing, hunting, and the pleasures of outdoor life bring together a mismatched pair of friendsweaving back and forth between past and present, it follows the friendship of ivy-league educated George Mayes and semi-literate woodsman and logger Evan Butcher. George, a drunk from his college days has a critical, life-changing moment of insight, and begins postgraduate life, however improbably, as a reckless school bus driver. After getting clean and sober, he develops a successful school transportation business. Having taken a number of trips to the north woods, he has come to know and revere Evan. At the story's opening, Evan is a store of knowledge, decency, and even of wisdom. But after a series of horrendous family tragedies he begins to succumb to alcohol himself.

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The former poet laureate of Vermont offers a stunning portrait of life up north. 'There is a soulful quality to his words and a strong conviction that a connected life is one to be admired and emulated. A cross between Thoreau and David James Duncan, Lea is a northern treasure.' —BooklistA North Country Life is the story of author Sydney Lea’s powerful connection to his family, friends, and the northern outdoors. Loosely organized by the changing of seasons, different sections feature essays on such topics as childhood family fishing trips in the wilds of Maine, trophy fly-fishing the northern reaches of the Connecticut River, the opening day of turkey hunting season in Vermont, and getting lost in the deep woods while deer hunting. The essays are introspective and dramatic illustrations of the blending of the human and natural worlds; emotion is attached to both spheres and adds texture to the sketches. Readers of varied interests will

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Normal0falsefalsefalseEN-USJAX-NONE Sydney Lea and Fleda Brown, past poets laureate of their respective states and both nationally recognized writers who've given their lives to their art, have conspired to write an unusual book of essays. They've picked a wide variety of topics and headed out as they wished with each, covering a lot of territory, both artistic and memoiristic. Some of the pieces, like "Wild Animals," are downright silly; some, like "Sex," "Music," and "Food," are provocative; some, like "Clothes," "Sports," and "Houses," appear ordinary but are ultimately revealing. The final essay offers, from each, a personal look at how a poet lives and writes in this troubling time. The excitement of this collection is in the details—how lives are lived and poems written over time, and at last, an entire body of work as witness.

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“Singer of stories, lyric raconteur, Sydney Lea has evolved—through a long, rich career—into one of America’s most harrowing and honest poets. Ghost Pain is his most eloquent and wrenching book.”—T.R. Hummer “Ghost Pain is a remarkable book, which takes his work to a new level.”—Stephen Dunn The eighth poetry collection by the founder of New England Review explores addiction, alcoholism, violence and the uses and inadequacies of art.

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