Pacific Light

ISBN-13: 9781636280578

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Red Hen Press

Publication Date: 08-23-2022

Pages: 96

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

David Mason grew up in Bellingham, Washington and has lived in many parts of the world, including Greece and Colorado, where he served as poet laureate for four years. His books of poems began with The Buried Houses, The Country I Remember, and Arrivals. His verse novel, Ludlow, was named best poetry book of the year by the Contemporary Poetry Review and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It was also featured on the PBS NewsHour. He has written a memoir and four collections of essays. His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in such periodicals as the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, Poetry, and the Hudson Review. Anthologies include Best American Poetry, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, and others. He has also written libretti for operas by Lori Laitman and Tom Cipullo, all available on CD from Naxos. In 2015 Mason published two poetry collections: Sea Salt: Poems of a Decade and Davey McGravy: Tales to Be Read Aloud to Children and Adult Children. The Sound: New and Selected Poems and Voices, Places: Essays appeared in 2018. Incarnation and Metamorphosis: Can Literature Change Us? appeared in 2022. He lives with his wife Chrissy (poet Cally Conan-Davies) in Tasmania on the edge of the Southern Ocean.

Table of Contents

On the Shelf 15

The Air in Tasmania 16

The Lion on My Roof 17

Strange Creature That I Am 18

The Storm Coast 20

Crossing the Line 21

The Voices 22

Quantum of Light 24

A Word 26

The Work 27

Long Haul 28

The Lover Making Tea 29

Lives of an Immigrant 30

Pacific Light 32

The Condition of Music 34

Table Mountain 35

The First Sea Was a Sound 36

The Written Snow 37

H. M. S. Discovery 38

The End of Stories 39

Barra de Potosi 40

New Geography 41

Letter to My Right Foot 42

An Anniversary 44

Pine Needles in Snow 45

Salvaged Lines 46

To the Other Planets 48

The Solitude of Work 50

A Cabbie in America 51

Rhapsody in Blue 52

The Birthday Boy 54

His Prison 56

The Widow at 102 57

The Suicide's House 58

From a Russian Proverb 60

A Killing 61

Every Sailor in Homer 62

The Glowing 63

Afternoon Going Nowhere 64

One Day 66

Grandmother Song 68

The Mud Room 70

Are We Still Here? 71

A Wren's Weight 71

Wood 75

Under the Peppermint Gums 76

Love Poem 77

Words for Hermes 78

Painting the Shed 79

The Garden and the Library 80

Starting with Anonymous 82

Written in the Sky 83

Last Flight In 84

From a Passage in Melville 86

New Zealand Letter 87

Antipodes 90

Biographia Literaria 91

Note to Self 92