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Ode to My Autumn
“In his latest collection, Ode to My Autumn, Victor Altshul clearly, poignantly, and with great wisdom considers John Keats’ question Where are the songs of Spring? And he answers that question with a collection of poems that blesses the reader with pure accessibility, the joy of splendidly made and welcomed connections, and enormous insight. He brings to mind Dylan Thomas’ ‘Fern Hill’ by reminding us that there was a time when we were all ‘young and easy,’ and by himself singing ‘in his chains like the sea.’ I am reminded too of Robert Frost’s ‘Birches’ –Victor Altshul shares with Frost the thought that ‘Earth’s the right place for love.’ Ode to My Autumn is a lovely and powerful collection. Open it, enjoy it, and as the author writes, ‘let unbidden dreams excite your mind." John Stanizzi To order by mail, send $17 per book plus 6.35% sales tax (CT only), and postage of $5 for 1 book, $7 for 2, $9 for 3-4, $12.00 for 5+ books, international postage $17 US for 1 book, $24 for 2, $32 for 3+, checks payable to Antrim House, 21 Goodrich Rd., Simsbury, CT 06070. You can also order books from the Antrim House website www.antrimhousebooks.com/altshul3.html (all lower case) and from all bookstores. 80 pages, 6” x 9” paperback $17.00 ISBN 978-1-943826-21-6 Cover photograph by Cheryl Picard Author photo by Laura Altshul Singing with Starlings
Joyful and anguished, witty and lyrical, passionate and philosophical, Victor Altshul’s Singing with Starlings is a romp, a descent into the Abyss, a flight into song, an outcry against the willful ways of the world, and a lover’s shout-out. Always, these poems have the utter honesty of one who knows by heart the depths and dancings of the human spirit. Barry Zaret writes, “These poems are constructed with a poet’s heart and a psychiatrist’s mind, hammered on the anvil of joy, exultation, trauma and grief. They draw on lifelong personal experience and love of art, literature, poetry and music. Once begun, Singing with Starlings is hard to discontinue until the end is reached, so intense and pleasurable is the immersion.” And this from Charles Douthat: “Anyone who’s spent much time on a therapist’s couch has wondered what the mostly silent therapist is really thinking. In his second book of poems, Victor Altshul, a practicing psychiatrist for nearly fifty years, breaks the silence and allows us access to his own heart. Singing with Starlings is a book of strong, witty, tender poems. Altshul writes movingly of his own childhood, of family life, of time’s passing, of love and love lost. There is a deep, wisdom-building pleasure in these poems and in what they reveal of one life’s sunlight and ‘what it bathed—the loneliness, the longing, fright and pain'." To Order this book and read samples from it go to: http://antrimhousebooks.com/altshul.html ISBN 978-1-936482-83-2 6" x 9" paperback, 64 pages $15.00 US per book plus 6.35% sales tax (CT only) Shipping & Handling: $4.00 for 1 book, $7 for 2 books, $9 for 3-4 books, and $12 for 5 or more books |