The Pearl King and Other Poems

Availability:
Ebook in EPUB format. Available for immediate download after we receive your order

DRM:
Watermark

Publication Year:
2004

ISBN-13: 9781926829630

<p><strong>Notable Book in the 2005 Kiriyama Prize and longlisted for the 2005 ReLit Awards</strong></p>

<p>Catherine Greenwood draws on the stories and legends which surround the development of cultured pearls by Mikimoto, the fabulous Pearl King, to engage a rich array of themes, including the clash between an aesthetics of refinement and nuance, and mass manufacture. With discerning wit and a large range of styles and voices, she holds up each subject for contemplation as though it were a pearl, and explores the sometimes bizarre consequences of an overwhelming rage for beauty.</p>

<p>As the seal is strong and breathes air,<br />

As the fish is quick and breathes water,<br />

So make me, a mermaid strong and quick.</p>

<p>Bless me with abalone abundant as mushrooms,<br />

Oysters dropping ripe as plums into my palm.<br />

Let my births keep me ashore a few days only,<br />

Only for a little while let labour make me rest.</p>

<p>from &quot;The Diving Girls’ Prayer&quot;</p>

<p>When, in other sections of the book, Catherine Greenwood turns her attention to such matters as the still birth of a calf, teeth, moles, or the Shetland Island stone, she does so with the same care for the exact fit of style, the same sharply-angled craft.</p>

<p>&quot;The ancient Taoists believed that a pearl was grounded at the soul’s centre, that it took wisdom and clarity to create its essence. Catherine Greenwood’s first collection of poems is proof of that. Here is a new pearl, the beginning of a strand I hope, that will continue to be added to with such depth of field and luminosity.&quot; - Don Domanski</p>