Praise Nothing

Finalist: 2013 Miller Williams Poetry Prize

"Rowland examines Marvell's political poetry and Dryden's Annus Mirabilis, showing how panegyrical writing developed into mock-panegyric and satire, increasingly as much in response to versions of events as to the events themselves. The author then describes how Marvell exploits panegyrical strategies to subvert its conventional deliberative function, as his equal virtuosity at praise and blame actually undermines his ethos and separates his advice from any clear authority capable of implementing it. Moreover, in Marvell the addressee of conventional panegyric, while remaining ostensibly Charles II, is internalized in a series of grotesques resembling, in various ways, the megalomaniacal "Bayes" (Samuel Parker, Bishop of Oxford). Marvell uses variations on the abuse of the conventional panegyrical arrangement of people, poet, and prince as a metaphor for the abuse of the proper relationship between all signifieds and their signifiers." "Writing a generation later, Swift borrows many of the themes and motifs of The Rehearsal Transpros'd for his satire in A Tale of a Tub, in particular the association of the preface with panegyric, as a metaphor of the reversal that occurs between praiser and praised, vehicle and tenor, when proper relationships are abused. Rowland also explores how Swift moves from the unsatisfactory use of analogy in his panegyrical "Odes," to more satisfactory use of it in the Tale and then concentrates on the prefaces of the Tale as "Panegyrical paratext.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Praise is a hidden doorway in the world that enables us to see things outside of the universe.ÊBut it's a doorway that is easily missed; people walk past it, thinking nothing of it, not realizing the value of it.ÊBut God has placed it there for us to walk through and see where he lives. This look at praise takes some surprising turns and gives us insight into heaven, hell, the world we live in, and our own souls. People praise all sorts of things. I find myself praising my wife--or praising children, footballers, or chefs. I even praise my dog. When we praise God, it is a natural extension of what we normally do every day.Ê And praise isn't one way, because God praises us, too. Ê When we are patient, praise will come our way from the most unexpected source, and it will come just when our enemies have turned up to see it.ÊGod intervenes on our behalf when we leave the task of being praised to him. Contrary to popular belief, praise comes to those who wait.ÊWe don't have to fish for it.

As words captivate the soul, take a journey with me into the imaginary. In vision yourself being in love, experiencing hate, and loosing family member, my poetry will take you to the threshing floor of other people lives.