Synopses & Reviews
In
Burning the Midnight Oil, word-wrangler extraordinaire Phil Cousineau has gathered an eclectic and electric collection of soulful poems and prose from great thinkers throughout the ages. Whether beguiling readers with glorious poetry or consoling them with prayers from fellow restless souls, Cousineau can relieve any insomniac's unease. From St. John of the Cross to Annie Dillard, Beethoven to
The Song of Songs, this refreshingly insightful anthology soothes and inspires all who struggle through the dark of the night. These "night thoughts" vividly illustrate Alfred North Whitehead's liberating description of "what we do without solitude" and also evoke Henry David Thoreau's reverie, "Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." These poetic ponderances sing of the falling darkness, revel in dream-time, convey the ache of melancholy, conspire against sleeplessness, vanquish loneliness, contemplate the night sky, rhapsodize on love, and languorously greet the first rays of dawn. Notable night owls include Rabandranath Tagore, Mary Oliver, Manley Hopkins, Jorge Borges and William Blake.
Winner of the Independent Publisher Award Gold Medal in Inspirational/Spiritual
Review
"A holy text." Coleman Barks
"A wonderful anthology." Alberto Manuel, The History of Reading
"The brighter side of darkness- for some the night inspires. It's not just vampires who seek the dark: it's poets, painters, musicians and artists of all kinds. Writer, filmmaker and traveler Phil Cousineau has edited a new anthology that centers on the creative joys of nighttime. The mixture of poetry and prose is called Burning the Midnight Oil: Illuminating Words for the Long Night's Journey Into Day. The book has a forward from a surprising figure: Jeff Dowd, a film producer and political activist who was the inspiration for The Dude in the Coen Brother's film The Big Lebowski."
NPR Weekend Edition
"Sensitively selected, the pieces are moving, haunting, beautiful, leaving the reader with a feeling of quiet pensivity."
City Book Review
"Entertaining and enlightening."
ForeWord Reviews
"This Holy Fool feels fortunate to join you and all the great artists in this book who have entered The Grand Central Station of the Mind and have passed by the tres boring Orient Express on Track #1 to hop on...the Night Express to our Soul, somewhere at the dark end of the station that leads, if perchance we survive, to the light of life--the secret source. No risk/no reward from this nocturnal thrill ride through our subconscious."
--Jeff "The Dude" Dowd, in his foreword
"Calling all insomniacs! This collection of prose and poetry explores every aspect of darkness. From a discussion of Edward Hoppers Nighthawks to Sapphos reveries about nightingales and daybreak, Phil Cousineau leaves no stone unturned as he explores both the realities and the metaphors associated with the night."
Anna Jedrziewski, Retailing Insight
"In this engaging, entertaining and edifying anthology of essays, poems, quotations, prayers, and philosophical ditties, Cousineau probes the multidimensional world of the night with all its treasures, mysteries, and delights [...] Anyone who has savored the pleasures of being a night owl will rejoice in the varied material in this paperback where 'noctivagators' (the night walkers) share their experiences of 'the Long Night's Journey Into Day.'"
Spirituality and Practice
"Phil Cousineaus new collection is cause for rejoicing. He leads us on the long night journey, holding brilliant candles, flashlights, lanterns, spotlights, all made of glorious words, to illumine the hours. Wherever the night carries us, through waking dreams, sweats, worries, or raging sleeplessness, Phil Cousineaus elegant new work provides troubadour songs, thoughtful conversation, and sweet companionship to help us not only make it through the night but to find within its darkness a profound, dazzling beauty."
--Peggy Rubin, author of To Be and How To Be: Transforming Your Life Through the Powers of Sacred Theatre
"My night vision has been trebled! Essentially a day person, I feel vastly enriched journeying this dusk-to-dawn world, guided by those who have mined the dark hours with enthralling courage, curiosity, lyricism, spirituality, eroticism, humor, passion and honesty. No cursing the darkness here. Once again the candle-lighting Cousineau delivers new delights in the familiar, the exotic, the old, the modern, the high, the low--and the deliciously unclassifiable. "
--Arthur Plotnik, author of Better Than Great and The Elements of Expression
This kind of book is the kind you dip into, but I read it cover to cover, not wanting to miss an entry"
--Daniel Goldin, Boswell Books
"Wordcatcher stirs up...the delight that comes with finding the unexpected embedded within the familiar"
--ForeWord Reviews, on Wordcatcher
"All throughout my delightful role as Watson to Cousineau's Holmes (with great panache, of course), I felt the passion, the anticipation of joy and the rhapsody of the chase as I discovered the oftentimes secret origins and meanings of the most bewildering, the most astonishing, the most completely absurd, and even the most sardonic and contemptuous of words, and, finally, the wise and witty."
--Christina Forsythe, Fresno Book Review, on Wordcatcher
"Whether an unabashed wordnerd or a casual reader, a dictionary hound or someone looking to expand your own personal lexicon, there is plenty to interest you in Wordcatcher."
--Glenn Dallas, Sacramento Book Review, on Wordcatcher
"[Cousineau] is continually pushing the envelope in finding interesting topics to scrutinize"
Helene Vachet, New Perspectives Magazine
"Stake out a claim next to the standard dictionary you use for this less pedantic companion. It contains fewer words but sends up Fourth of July skyrockets on all of them. But caveat emptor, readers beware! Cousineau's love affair with words is contagious and you are likely to end up lovesick with words yourself"
--Huston Smith
"Wordcatcher allows us to remember the genius of language--to see, feel and, it seems, even "taste" the living-ness and poetry hidden within these many common and uncommon words. A delicious book."
--Jacob Needleman
Synopsis
Be transported! In
Burning the Midnight Oil,Wordwrangler extraordinaire Phil Cousineau has gathered an eclectic and electric collection of soulful poems and prose from great thinkers through the ages. Whether beguiling readers with glorious poetry or consoling them with prayers from fellow restless souls, Cousineau can relieve any insomniac's unease. From St. John of the Cross to Annie Dillard, Beethoven to The Song of Songs, this refreshingly insightful anthology will soothe and inspire all who struggle through the dark of the night.
These "night thoughts" vividly illustrate Alfred North Whitehead's liberating description of "what we do with out solitude" and also evoke Henry David Thoreau's reverie,"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake." The nightwriters in Cousineau's vesperal collection range from saints, poets, and shamans as well as astronomers, naturalists, and tells of ancient tales along with shining passages from the our most brilliant (albeit insomniac) writers of today. These poetic ponderances sing of the falling darkness, revel in dreamtime, convey the ache of melancholy, conspire against sleeplessness, vanquish loneliness, contemplate the night sky, rhapsodize on love, and langorously greet the first rays of dawn.
Notable night owls include Rabandranath Tagore, Mary Oliver, Manley Hopkins, Jorge Borges, William Blake, Antler, James Agee, Erin Byrne, Galileo Galilee, Georgia Hesse, Miles Davis, Beryl Markham, Nikos Kazantzakis, Li Po, Mahatma Gandhi, Bruce Chatwin, Linda McFerrin, Theodore Roethke, Leonardo da Vinci, Sharon Olds, Thomas de Quincey, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Lindbergh, and many more.
From the book:
So out of the vast night descends a "precarious" power over our souls that inspires us to ask our most vital questions and challenges us to look within and seek without. For night is the time, as Pawnee Indians sing, when "visions travel better." The hour Benedictine monks believe the world needs prayers more than ever. The moment Buddhist monks experience the lowest flame of Kundalini. The dark night of the soul. The dark wall. The midpoint of our nightly soul journey. The black ink from God's pen.
When we're sitting quietly with the great mysteries, doing nothing, the soul deepens, prayers happen all by themselves. Some of the words that emerge out of those meditations are meant to rouse us, others to send us into sweet slumber. Which are which?
Listening to these night voices, we become alert to a world rapidly disappearing under the artificial light of the modern world. Despite our predatory fears, the night is long and full of marvels. By the light of its dark secrets we can make our own way through the shadowworld to the fire at the source of all mystery.
Synopsis
A Creativity Companion for Writers, Artists and Anyone Needing a Jolt of InspirationWhat mysteries might the night hold for you? Join Pico Iyer for his rapturous Night Walk in Manila.” Listen with Flannery OConnor, to her strange and compelling The Night Cry of the Peacock.” Look through John Muirs eyes at the unforgettable beauty of Glaciers by Starlight.” Burning the Midnight Oil is an eclectic and electric collection of soulful poems and prose from great thinkers through the ages. As author and curator Phil Cousineau explains in the introduction to his nocturne, There is a light that we can find only in the dark...that brings about new thoughts and ideas.”
About the Author
Phil Cousineau is an award-winning writer and filmmaker, teacher and editor, independent scholar and travel leader, storyteller and TV host. His fascination with art, literature, and the history of culture has taken him from Michigan to Marrakesh, Iceland to the Amazon, in a worldwide search for what the ancients called "the soul of the world." The author of 26 nonfiction books, he's a freelance writer, filmmaker, and an expert on film and mythology. He lives in San Francisco.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
Prologue: The Darkness that Heals
Part I: The Twilight Zone
Introduction
But I Sleep Alone, Sappho
Fireflies, Rabandranath Tagore
Acquainted with the Night: Robert Frost
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark, Emily Dickinson
Snowy Night, Mary Oliver
Afterwards, Thomas Hardy
The Times Are Nightfall, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Baruch Spinoza: Jorge Borges,
Blue Mosque Reverie, Phil Cousineau
A Hymn to the Night, Novalis
Each Breath of Light, Annie Dillard
Songs of Owl Women
The Last Prince of Thormond, P. J. Curtis
Last Night in Santorini, Edward Tick
The Tiger, William Blake
Mother Nursing Milky Way: Antler
Among the Sounds of the Night: James Agee
Take That Ride, R. B. Morris
Sunset on the Serengeti, Huston Smith
Coltrane Twilight, Erin Byrne
A Little Night Music, Linda Watanabee McFerrin
You Have Opened a Secret Tonight, Mevlana Rumi
Love at the Edge of the Grand Canyon, Jane Winslow Eliot
Their 50th Anniversary, James Botsford
The Story of King Shadyrar and Sheherazada, Richard Burton
Part II: Nighthawks
Introduction
Night Song, Sappho, Willis Barnstone
A Letter from Galileo, Galileo Galilee
A Page from Galileos Journals, Galileo Galilee
Alone with the Stars, Rachel Carson
Glaciers by Starlight, John Muir
Alone in the Arctic Night, Richard E. Byrd
A Night in an Igloo, Georgia Hesse
Edward Hopper: The Nighthawk, Alexander Eliot
Café de Nuit, Erin Byrne
The Domain of Night: The Darkroom: Stuart Balcomb
Light and Shadow, Joanne Warfield
Dead Air / Night Radio, Richard Beban
Night Gigs in Motown, Chris Bakhridge
Miles of Country Roads, Miles Davis
Amsterdam, R. B. Morris
West with the Night, Beryl Markham
Zorbas Fire, Nikos Kazantzakis
Night Train, Georgia Hesse
Drinking Alone by Moonlight: Li Po
Night Game, William Haney
Pitch Dark, Phil Cousineau
Hares at Play, John Clare
The Cry of the Peacock, Flannery OConnor
Every Evening I Stroll, Eugene Delacroix
Walking Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Wandering at Night, Walt Whitman
San Francisco Nights, James Norwood Pratt
Elastic Midnight, MIkkel Aaland
Now as the Ancient Night, R. B. Morris
The Night I Drove Kerouac Home: Phil Cousineau
Walking Manila, Pico Iyer
I Walk the City at Night, Mevlana Rumi
The Library at Night, Alberto Manguel
Part III: A Hard Days Night
Introduction
Curfew: A European Folk Tale
Insomnia, Abu ibn al-Hammarah
All Night I Could Not Sleep: Zi Ye
Winter Night: Yang-ti
Night is Forever:Zi Ye
Untouched by Sleep: Ovid
The Seems: Samuel Coleridge
The Fore-Shift, Matthew Tate
I Can See in the Midst of Darkness: Mahatma Gandhi
The Origins of Our Fear of the Dark: Bruce Chatwin
Silent Night in No Mans Land: Stanley Weintraub
Nhac Sanh, Dr. Edward Tick
In My Own House I am a Stranger at Midnight, Fr. Gary Young
The Dangers of Reading All Night, Phil Cousineau [or to intro]
Noche de Los Muertos: Linda McFerrin
Advancing on the Dark: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trade Noctem: Kent Chadwick
The Pains of Sleep: Samuel Coleridge
In a Dark Time: Theodore Roethke
Do Not Go Gentle Into the Dark Night: Dylan Thomas
He Watched Her While She Slept: James Joyce
Lying Awake, May Sarton
A Victim of Insomnia, Loren Eisley
Greek epitaphs, Michael Wolfe
Drunk at My Fathers Grave, Phil Cousineau
The Night Will Pass: Mevlana Rumi
IV: The Dream Factory
Introduction
I Fell Asleep, Ono no Komachi
Night Song, Sappho
Chanzu Tzus Dream, translated by Sat Hon and Alicia Fox
A Dream of Mountaineering, Po-Chui
Let Not Sleep Come Upon Thine Eyes, Pythagoras
Thoughts for Bed, Epicurus
The Benefits of the Dark, Leonardo da Vinci
Golden Slumbers, Thomas Dekker
Those Who Do Not Feel This Love, Mevlana Rumi
Windows and Doors, Phil Cousineau
The Midnight Guest, Anacreon
Sonnet XXVII, William Shakespeare
Looking at my Children Asleep, Sharon Olds
Kants Critique of Pure Sleeping, Thomas de Quincey
A Dream Within a Dream, Edgar Allan Poe
The Land of Nod, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Sentinel in Love, Farid ud-Din Attar
Postcard from the New Delhi Night, James Botsford
Sonnet 43, William Shakespeare
The Vision to Elektra, Robert Herrick
Last Night, Proserpius
Dreaming of Kubla Khan, Samuel Coleridge
Dreaming While I Drive, R. B. Morris
A Renaissance Remedy for Sleep, Marsilio Ficino
Before Turning Out the Lights, Brother David Steindl-Rast
The Mystery of Jet Lag, Pico Iyer
Part IV: Morning Has Broken
Introduction
Dawn, Sappho
End of the Party, Sappho
An Greeting to the Day, Orpingalik
It Gave Me the Daring, Lalla
To Tan Chiu, Li Po
In the Axe-Time, An Ancient Viking Tale
The Night at Zensho-ji Temple, Basho
Was I Changed by the Night? Lewis Carroll
Wake! Omar Khayyam
The Throat of Dawn, Mark Nepo
My Immortal Beloved, Ludwig von Beethoven
Speak to Us of Beauty, Kahil Gibran
Waking in the Monastery, Fr. Gary Young
Each Soul Must Meet the Morning Sun, Ohiyesa
Zero in the Dark, Verlyn Klinkenborg
The Night View of the World, Howard Thurman
I Have Been Tricked, Mevlana Rumi
Delta Dawn, Dr. Edward Tick
The Spirit of St. Louis in the Coming Dawn, Charles Lindbergh
Lying Single in Bed, Samuel Pepys
Our Lives Are Rounded by Sleep, William Shakespeare
The Old City Before Dawn, Pico Iyer
The Blind Watchmaker, Phil Cousineau