Clouds Of Glory - Softcover

Ken Nye

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0980100348 ISBN 13: 9780980100341

Publisher: TJMF Publishing, 2009

Synopsis

This is a book about a poet's life in his beloved state of Maine. A fourth book, Ken uses his natural ability to write along with an incredible eye for beauty of all kinds; a love of nature, his fellow man, family and words. In Ken's own words he describes his thougts behind his writing and this book. A TRIBUTE William Wordsworth, the great early 19th century British poet and co-founder, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of the Romantic Movement in British literature, has been a significant influence in my life. I first met Wordsworth when I was a senior in high school. Miss Sylvia Kurzon was our senior English teacher who required us to memorize a number of things, many of which I was too young and inexperienced then to appreciate. One of the things we had to memorize was a passage (copied below) from Wordsworth s great Ode on Intimations of Immortality. Over the years that passage stuck in my head, and as I matured into an adult and began to piece together a conception of the world and the universe and my role in it all, Wordsworth s explanation became the framework for my personal and theological philosophy. And no other poet has influenced my own poetic style more than Wordsworth who used vivid imagery from the natural world with which he demonstrated and explained his conception of how the universe worked. To his spirit I will always be grateful. Our birth is but a sleep And a forgetting. The soul that rises with us, our life star, Hath had elsewhere it s setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory Do we come from God Who is our home. William Wordsworth Ode on Intimations of Immortality

About this title

About the Author:

Ken Nye began writing poetry five years ago at the age of 62. His unique writing style quickly got the attention of other poets and critics, and in those five years he has produced four published collections of poems: Searching for the Spring: Poetic Reflections of Maine From the Heart: Poetic Reflections on Growing Old in Maine A Dog Is a Gift: A Poetic Celebration of Living with a Dog Clouds of Glory: Poetic Thoughts from Maine Ken lives in Freeport, Maine, with his wife of 47 years, Ann, in an old New England cape with three fireplaces. His playmates are a ten year old yellow Lab and a three year old Golden Retriever. The Nyes were raised New Yorkers but have lived in Maine for 39 years. They have a son and a daughter (both living in Maine and close to their parents), four grandchildren and two granddogs.

Review:

THE first time I read a Ken Nye poem it was because Ken asked me to, and as I was his minister at the time, how could I say, No ? The second time I read a Ken Nye poem, it was because I asked him I wanted to feel again the magic I d felt the first time. And I started showing Ken s poems to other people because I wanted them to have an opportunity to experience it too. I say experience because you don t simply read Ken s poetry. He doesn t just put words on paper; he takes you places into his memories and the heart of his current experiences. In the poem Woodland Picnic he describes the frustration he felt on seeing a family of deer that his own family had missed as they drove down the highway. His attempts to describe what he d seen weren t the real thing. They got the general idea, he writes, But the general idea is not what I wanted them to see. In Clouds of Glory you ll get the real thing first snowfalls, spring floods, the small lilac bush in the corner where the porch meets the shed. Ken has an eye for detail which brings to life his encounters with the natural world, the people in his life, and the experiences of his living in a way that you see them and feel them too. There is life in these poems and not just the particular life as this particular poet has lived it, but Life itself, the deep universality of it that is always there beneath the surface if you have the patience, and the eye, to see it. The fourteenth century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once said that if he could spend an hour with the smallest of creatures, and he suggested a caterpillar, he would have no need of sermons. Ken, the son of a preacher, shows us the sacredness of life, with no need for preaching. From the tiny fingers with even tinier creases over the knuckles, (just like ours) of his newborn grandson, to recognizing that his own hand on the keyboard has become an old man s hand with wrinkles, as if it had been soaking for hours in the bath tub, to cosmic musing that we come from dust, and end as dust, but we come from the dust of stars, Ken takes us on a journey into and through the world, but the world as seen through the eyes of a man who has the wisdom of an elder, the heart of a big kid, and the eye of a poet. In these pages he shows us birth, death, parenthood, marriage, the natural world, Life, and Love. Always, and in everything, love. I ve since left the parish ministry and pretty much given up preaching sermons. But Ken s still writing poems. That seems right to me. This is his fourth book, and I hope there will be more coming. As I read through the manuscript, scribbling notes for this Introduction, I would suddenly come to and realize that I d put down my pen and let Ken take me on a ride again. --Rev. Erik Walker Wikstrom

WHAT PEOPLE HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT KEN NYE S POETRY Our son was introduced to these beautiful poems. He came home one weekend all excited. You guys have to buy this book! I decided to sit down and read a few pages. I couldn t put it down. I laughed, I cried, I read the whole thing in one sitting. I was at the dentist s office this morning when I came across your book, From the Heart. Once I opened it up, I could not put it down. Reading your poems reminded me of my dad and of great love . . . and I stuffed up from the tears and from blowing my nose. It is always a great joy to discover, in ones life, a writer, a poet who enters one s world at exactly the right moment. . . . Through your words you have become a friend to us. I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your touching poetry book, Searching for the Spring. Words cannot fully capture how it moved me. The poems were ones that I could relate to loving nature, my old farm, farm animals, my family dogs the list goes on and on. I felt like a kindred spirit to you. Thank you so much. I often go to poetry readings. Sometimes I walk away wondering what I was supposed to understand. Today I listened to a poet my heart understood. His words painted pictures of the truths of life. He seemed to know the joys of loving and the sadness of losing. He seemed to know how to manage the paths of life, accepting both the wonder of life as well as the pain and disappointments. Mr. Ken Nye, you are a poet of the people. Thank you for your words of wisdom and sharing it with the world. --Excerpts from a back cover, Jim Furber, Publisher, Author

About this edition

• Publisher: TJMF Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0980100348
• ISBN 13: 9780980100341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 98
• Illustrator: Paul Schreiber