A stunning collection of highly unusual poems by Lyle Novinski, a renown painter. This collection of poems, written over decades, will appeal to anyone who loves the celebration of small things, sensuously felt by the imagination pouring its perception of places, scents, touch, sounds into the body; world beauty, felt deeply. For years, Lyle Novinkski took yearly trips to Italy and Greece, seeing those landscapes and people with ever more acute and subtle perception. He saw through the artist's eye - open, with wonder and the ability to completely surrender to whatever was present, allowing it all to flow into his soul, without prejudice, judement, or speculation. Then, the matrix of scenes from that year would remain in memory, fermenting and distilling into poems that were written - as love poems to his wife as he would go off on another trip the following year. Each poem gives a sense of a possible future, present as though it had just been happening. The writing elevates the world of time, the tapestry of past, present, and future, now endowed with love. Time intimate, overcoming the yearly space between him and his beloved. The way into this poetry is provided by, Glenn Arbery, astute literary and cultural critic. This introduction is not only instructive, it is in itself a masterful, creative piece, worthy of savoring slowly. Such a reading helps one enter the poems with care, with a sense of how to be with these words in such a way as to allow bodily perception of what Lyle was seeing. The secret lies in letting yourself become enveloped in stillness, the true subject, the bright theme whispering throughout this book. Such poetry educates the soul in how to move from intense but unruly emotion into the spirit-filled presence of feeling.

The works of William Shakespeare vividly represent for our admiration and study a pageant of souls with longing in whose wake we ceaselessly follow. Through some of his most memorable characters, Shakespeare illuminates the nature and character-as well as consequences-of our distinctively human passions and ambition, in particular our desire for and pursuit of both honor and love. The contributors to this collaborative volume (scholars in English Literature, Political Philosophy, and the Humanities) argue that Shakespeare has much to teach us about our longing for honor and love in particular, and thus about who we are, what we desire, and why. Through sustained reflection on the Shakespearean portraits of honor and love, which are the focus of the chapters in Souls With Longing, we become more keenly aware of our own humanity and come to know ourselves more profoundly. As the abiding popularity of his works aptly demonstrates, Shakespeare's unforgettable portraits of souls with longing-his representations of honor and love-continue to exert undeniable sway over our political, moral, and romantic imaginations.