Riding The Wind And Other Tales

This collection of tales represents James Hoggard's nearly thirty-year contribution to Texas literature.

The Liezi is the forgotten classic of Daoism. Along with the Laozi (Daodejing) and the Zhuangzi, it's been considered a Daoist masterwork since the mid-eighth century, yet unlike those well-read works, the Liezi is little known and receives scant scholarly attention. Nevertheless, the Liezi is an important text that sheds valuable light on the early history of Daoism, particularly the formative period of sectarian Daoism. We do not know exactly what shape the original text took, but what remains is replete with fantastic characters, whimsical tales, paradoxical aphorisms, and philosophically sophisticated reflection on the nature of the world and humanity's place within it. Ultimately, the Liezi sees the world as one of change and indeterminacy. Arguing for the Liezi's historical, philosophical, and literary significance, the contributors to this volume offer a fresh look at this text, using contemporary approaches and providing novel insights. The volume is unique in its attention to both philosophical and religious perspectives.

A collection of essays that discuss the evolution of Texas literature from the state's settlement through the twentieth century.

Conjuring the voice of Edward Hopper, this collection of poetry investigates the mind of an iconic American painter. The poems convey both frightening and amusing messages as "Hopper" commentates on his own paintings--from the iconic Nighthawks to his depiction of his wife and himself taking a final bow in Two Comedians--as well as those of other artists. Shocking in their honesty, these poems also provide a window into the American Modernist period due to their biographical nature and evaluations of the visual arts.

This bilingual collection brings together renowned Chilean poet Oscar Hahn's two most recent works, Apariciones profanas (2002; translated here as Profane Apparitions), and En un abrir y cerrar de ojos, the winner of Spain's Casa de America Award (2006; translated here as In the Blink of an Eye) in one stunning volume. Hahn's work has been hailed by Mario Vargas Llosa as "magnificent and truly original... the most personal I've read in the poetry of our language in a long time." And in Ashes in Love, Hahn beautifully affirms his reputation as the premier poet of his generation. In these outstanding poems, Hahn displays an uncompromising intelligence and strength, blending horror and humor with droll inventiveness. A sly craftsman, Hahn has assimilated poetic tradition, but is not a slave to it: he employs a wide range of poetic techniques, opening himself to the possibilities of mystery, song, and story.

"Only one generation away from the pioneers who first broke the soil, Kiowa Falls is surrounded by newly discovered oil fields. Yet the daughter of the town's mayor, Ru-Marie, is a well-read young Romantic and budding artist. Her tastes in love, her parents insist, are not so refined. As they throw off their sham of civil behavior, a bitter family war erupts and with it, frontier justice"--Jacket flap.

James Hoggard's new collection of poems is an elegant, highly energetic volume that takes its readers through a wealth of settings, times, and forms. As versatile a poet as there is, Hoggard time and again turns his attention to forms like pantoum and ghazals that heighten the readers' responses to the stories he tells in verse. In fact, one of the signal pieces in the volume shows Hoggard unearthing an old story about Odysseus' trying through a wealth of trickery to get out of going to the Trojan War. What the tale adds up to, however, is a deeply moving love story that seems genuinely contemporary. Running throughout this collection is a powerful use of environmental collapse as both theme and metaphor.

Set in north Texas, and the Southwest in general, this coming-of-age novel pits a protagonist with a traditional, rural background, against the "sophistication" of Dallas in the late 1960s. The title character, Trotter, falls for a woman about to be married, and must deal with that rejection. He takes to the road to discover himself, and to discover the mysteries of sex -- in some very finely crafted literary love scenes. The precision of Hoggard's writing extends beyond the bedroom to the high plains of Texas and the mountains of New Mexico, with exquisite, poetic landscape descriptions. The novel takes on a mythic tone, making it comparable to the very best American coming-of-age novels.