Weapons Against Chaos
Greenwich, Connecticut: Devin-Adair, Publishers, 1986. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. vii, [1], 70 pages. DJ has some wear. spoiling, and a small edge tear. Minor edge soiling. Signed by the author on the front free end paper; signature reads: With very good wishes, Mary Ewald. Preface by Richard Wilbur. The author is a Harvard Ph.D. in English philology, who wrote her thesis on scientific method. Her interest in both the history of words and in science is evident in her verse. Chiefly, Mary Ewald uses verse form, like the concept "word," to contrast with formlessness, and she strives for clarity, convinced that obscurity and profundity are not the same thing. She says she likes to read and to write verse because nothing else creates such a surge and release of emotion while at the same time brandishing so brazen an intellectual weapon against chaos. Against evil and confusion, a poem is not worthless. People need to think, and they must think in words. In this work the author has created a series of poems which illustrate and comment upon contemporary philosophy, in this instance, the modern philosophy of language. Mrs. Ewald taught at the universities of Maryland and New Hampshire and Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She studied and translated 17 languages, including Old English and Old Icelandic. One of the first women awarded a Radcliffe teaching fellowship, poet Mary Ewald first became involved in poetry at the behest of one of her sons who needed help on a school project. In 1987 Ewald published the collection of poetry Weapons against Chaos. Jeffrey Hart, a reviewer in the National Review, described Ewald as "a formidably intelligent and learned poet, adventurous in her themes, but the effect of her learning and reason is to startle us with the power of her emotion." In particular, Hart praised her poem "Enchantment" as "one of the great love poems of the twentieth century." Perhaps the most significant of Ewald's writings was the 1990 letter to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq, requesting the release of her twenty-five-year-old son, Thomas, who had been captured after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to be used as a human shield against potential allied air strikes. In her plea to President Hussein, relayed in a U.S. News & World Report, Ewald expressed compassion for the Arab cause, "hoping [Thomas] could help peace between our cultures." A few days after the receipt of Ewald's letter, Thomas was released. In 1989 Ewald was named Poet of the Year by the Hingham Poetry Society of Massachusetts. Ewald's libretto for the opera The Birthday of the Infanta premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in 1993. Condition: Very good / Good.
Keywords: Poetry, Philology, Verse, Poems, Weapons, Seurat, Baghnakh, Chopin, Sonnet, Mountain Gorilla, Haiku, Crape Myrtle, De Chirico, Piero Della Francesca, Orpheus, Elysium, Odin, Horned Owl
ISBN: 0815972253
[Book #81722]
Price: $85.00