About Lost Paddle Books, IOBA California, United States
Biblio member since 2018
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This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Founded by an avid collector with 30+ years experience in all facets of the book trade from bookselling and library science to publishing. We believe that books can lead to greater empathy and understanding in the world helping us open ourselves to other lives and experiences.
Additional services offered include appraisals for Bay Area residents and collection development for private individuals and institutions.
Terms of Sale:
Books are unique in their ability to encompass lives, from the lives of their authors, to the characters or subjects they portray. They even have the capacity to take on a life of their own as they pass among us acquiring stories, artifacts and scars along the way. As such, they deserve to be treated with respect. We use only premium packaging materials and every attempt is made to be as accurate as possible in our listings. All books are supplied in protective mylar sleeves if applicable and additional photos are available on request for books offered at $50 at owner's discretion. If the book is not received as described, a return in like condition may be made within 14 days for a full refund. For CA residents: Sales tax will be processed as an additional charge. Please note that shipping rates are for an average sized book, supplemental shipping may apply if the book is heavy and/or oversize, or if there are multiple books in a shipment. Gift wrapping available upon request. PLEASE NOTE: Orders are still shipping quickly, but because of delays with the postal service due to the pandemic, please expect additional time to receive your book(s). Thank you.
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From the publisher
Philip Levine is the author of sixteen collections of poems and two books of essays. He has received many awards for his poetry, including the National Book Award in 1980 for Ashes and again in 1991 for What Work Is, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for The Simple Truth. He divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Fresno, California.
Philip Levine’s The Mercy, New Selected Poems, The Simple Truth, and What Work Is are available in Knopf paperback.
Excerpt
The Lesson
Early in the final industrial century
on the street where I was born lived
a doctor who smoked black shag
and walked his dog each morning
as he muttered to himself in a language
only the dog knew. The doctor had saved
my brother’s life, the story went, reached
two stained fingers down his throat
to extract a chicken bone and then
bowed to kiss the ring--encrusted hand
of my beautiful mother, a young widow
on the lookout for a professional.
Years before, before the invention of smog,
before Fluid Drive, the eight-hour day,
the iron lung, I'd come into the world
in a shower of industrial filth raining
from the bruised sky above Detroit.
Time did not stop. Mother married
a bland wizard in clutch plates
and drive shafts. My uncles went off
to their world wars, and I began a career
in root vegetables. Each morning,
just as the dark expired, the corner church
tolled its bells. Beyond the church
an oily river ran both day and night
and there along its banks I first conversed
with the doctor and Waldo, his dog.
"Young man," he said in words
resembling English, "you would dress
heavy for autumn, scarf, hat, gloves.
Not to smoke," he added, "as I do."
Eleven, small for my age but ambitious,
I took whatever good advice I got,
though I knew then what I know
now: the past, not the future, was mine.
If I told you he and I became pals
even though I barely understood him,
would you doubt me? Wakened before dawn
by Catholic bells, I would dress
in the dark -- remembering scarf, hat, gloves --
to make my way into the deserted streets
to where Waldo and his master ambled
the riverbank. Sixty-four years ago,
and each morning is frozen in memory,
each a lesson in what was to come.
What was to come? you ask. This world
as we have it, utterly unknowable,
utterly unacceptable, utterly unlovable,
the world we waken to each day
with or without bells. The lesson was
in his hands, one holding a cigarette,
the other buried in blond dog fur, and in
his words thick with laughter, hushed,
incomprehensible, words that were sound
only without sense, just as these must be.
Staring into the moist eyes of my maestro,
I heard the lost voices of creation running
over stones as the last darkness sifted upward,
voices saddened by the milky residue
of machine shops and spangled with first light,
discordant, harsh, but voices nonetheless.
