Pacific Light

(Paperback)

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Pacific Light is a book of transformations, history, love, endurance, and unfathomable beauty by a poet 'at the height of his powers'.

David Mason was born in Washington State, forty-odd degrees north latitude, and now lives on the Australian island of Tasmania, forty-odd degrees south latitude. That Pacific crossing is the work of a lifetime of devotion and change. The rich new poems of Pacific Light explore the implications of the light as well as peace and its opposing forces. What does it mean to be an immigrant and face the ultimate borders of our lives How can we say the word home and mean it These questions have obsessed Mason in his major narrative works, The Country I Remember and Ludlow, as well as his lyric and dramatic writing. Pacific Light is a culmination and a deepening of that work, a book of transformations, history and love, endurance and unfathomable beauty, by a poet 'at the height of his powers'.

Reviews

"A poet known for his narratives, likeLudlow, the acclaimed historical-novel-in-verse turned opera, David Mason curates the archipelago of intensely satisfying lyric poems inPacific Light with the skill of a consummate storyteller." Siham Karami, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Mason is a poet defined by place, if it is Southeast Asia on the Pacific Rim or Northwest America, his poems breathe life of the people around him as well as the nature he observes and partakes in." g emil reutter,North of Oxford

With narrative clarity, . . . the poet manages to convey the tremulous geologic mystery of the whole world, and the smallness of our place within it. . . .Pacific Lightis saturated with a lifetimes worth of reflection, and mature and complex in its expression.Kjerstin Kauffman, Literary Matters

Pacific Lightmay be a summing up, but it is also a new beginning, a book that marvels at the world while confronting loss through the lens of joy. Though individually dazzling, its poems combine to stunning effect, equalingor even surpassingthe very best in Masons superb body of work.Ned Balbo,Think Journal

The sonic pleasures of David MasonsPacific Lightcarried me swiftly through this stunningly crafted collection. Each poem is at its best read aloud, the accomplished rhythms emerging as a lilt and ease, a physical pleasure of the human mouth and lungs. These stories, meditations, monologues, and love songs slowly develop an expansive vision of the natural world in which the speaker is observer and participant, a brushstroke in the painting, forever in relationship to memory, to history, and to the Earth. What emerges across these poems is a full life lived in communion; what emerges across these poems is wisdom. Jason Schneiderman, author ofHold Me Tight

As a poet of Americas Pacific Northwest, David Mason has found its mirror reflection in Australias Southeast. Turned upside down by love, he has learned to walk upright under the Southern Cross. Generously, he extends his feeling of renewal to all of us and urges us to let all discovery / teach us to love the globe, that troubled child. In Pacific Light, David Mason, one of our indispensable poets, shares his discovery of a new worldand amazingly, it turns out to be this one. Mark Jarman, author ofDailinessandThe Heronry

In the last stanza of the last poem in David Masons startling and soulful new book of poems, Pacific Light, the poet writes:

The effort of a life, the wasted hour,
the kind word given to a strangers child
are understood as kin and disappear.
Time to be grass again. Ongoing. Wild.

This stanza testifies to last things: the last journey, the last shape shifting, the last immigration in a book filled with such arrivals and departures. The formal rigor of the poemshandled with an easy and almost offhand poiseonly accentuates the sense of almost constant movement, which is at the heart of the book. This book is the story of a life's deepening and reconfiguration. As such, it both inspires and challenges the reader in ways that only poetry can do. What a pleasure to read a book of poems by a poet at the height of his powers, a poet whose life has been transformed and whose poems are the embodiment of that transformation. Jim Moore, author ofUnderground: New and Selected Poems

"Its not a simple book celebrating his new home; nor is it a book of nostalgia.Pacific Lightencompasses the full reach of a life well lived, by any definition." Geoff Page,Australian Book Review

David Mason wrote forLARB

David Mason wrote forThe Woven Table

Author Bio

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, Harpers 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.