{"id":2670,"date":"2013-08-22T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T21:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=2670"},"modified":"2022-10-27T11:16:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T15:16:14","slug":"nocturnes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/nocturnes\/","title":{"rendered":"Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"Nocturnes<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 108 pages \u2022 15.95
\nISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-21-5<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em><\/h1>\n

Patrick Donnelly<\/h2>\n

Patrick Donnelly\u2019s masterful Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em> alludes to the Sufi idea of the \u201ctavern of ruin,\u201d a disreputable place where one risks losing reputation and self-identity yet might gain spiritual knowledge by studying human love, in all its forms, and making costly mistakes. These poems explore such ruin in the shape of loneliness, the onset of old age, a sense of mortality, getting sick, infecting loved ones, the loss of cherished possessions. They reflect on the ways love and sex can harm us\u2014our bodies, our contentment, our sense of self\u2014yet grant us an almost spiritual knowledge of the human. From the sexual abandon of the 1980s gay demimonde, to a New England mill town whose mill has closed, to a mother\u2019s decline into mental illness, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em> describes hurt places and people in order to also describe the knowledge and the spirit that comes after loss, the song that responds to the darkest predicaments.<\/p>\n

Including translations (with Stephen D. Miller) from the thousand-year-old Japanese imperial anthologies of poetry, this volume shows how others’ histories might inform our present. The Japanese imperial anthologies offer a structural model for Donnelly\u2019s own book, in which a central speaker is addressed, and often corrected, by several other voices. This speaker, born into a world where love is a fever, a sickness, rushes out of the womb with “the bloody flag of my attachments,” ready to face the agonies of love rather than “remain behind […] like an unlit lamp.” Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em> is the story of that headlong journey, the lessons learned\u2014painfully, joyfully\u2014along its paths. In one poem the speaker addresses himself thirty years younger, warning “if you try to hunger or love more carefully \/ no one from the future will breathe your name”; in a translation, he realizes he mistook” for today’s spring mist \/\/ […] just the smoke of wood\u2026” From parables to elegies, from addresses to poignant vignettes, this far-ranging collection is a celebration of life lived to its fullest, a making peace with “the tight budget of years \/ left me.”<\/p>\n

\n

“Prayer For Immunity in Grand Army Plaza,” from Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin<\/em>:<\/p>\n

At a quarter to dusk
\na moon froze in the groin of an elm,
\nhorses on the arch dragged their bronze wagon
\nthrough Brooklyn toward another war.<\/p>\n

When I was young in the desert they warned
\nnever walk arroyos<\/em> when it rains,
\nwater can crash down those gullies
\nin minutes, from a hundred miles away.<\/p>\n

This street I love
\ncould come apart that fast,
\nlike bread in water.<\/p>\n

But my love
\nis alive in a little town to the west,
\nwhere there\u2019s two more hours of sun,
\nwhere there\u2019s still time.<\/p>\n

Does everyone in danger pray
\nthe same stupid prayer?\u2014
\nstrike the next house, the neighbors
\nwho had their love all along.<\/em><\/p>\n

I found my life so late\u2014
\nleave me a little time
\nto love his grayblue eyes forgiving
\nwhat is unworthy in mine.<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 108 pages \u2022 15.95 ISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-21-5 Add to Cart [\/column] Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin Patrick Donnelly Patrick Donnelly\u2019s masterful Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin alludes to the Sufi idea of the \u201ctavern of ruin,\u201d a disreputable place where one risks losing reputation and self-identity yet might gain spiritual knowledge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2670","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2670"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18322,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2670\/revisions\/18322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}