"These poems are the waves emanating from the gravitational fall of my runs by the Eno river," writes James Applewhite, "and other travels, into a self I could not otherwise know. They are my repetitive song of belief in the possibility of presence in language.."

From "Observing the Sun":

On a bank overlooking the Eno,
I feel us as lightly aligned
As heads of the Queen Anne's lace,
Their congregation of angles.
Red sun, dilated, has us all
In its sights.
Against its horizon,
I spread my arms like a road sign
To mark earth where we are.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"These poems are the waves emanating from the gravitational fall of my runs by the Eno river," writes James Applewhite, "and other travels, into a self I could not otherwise know. They are my repetitive song of belief in the possibility of presence in language.". From "Observing the Sun": On a bank overlooking the Eno, I feel us as lightly aligned As heads of the Queen Anne's lace, Their congregation of angles. Red sun, dilated, has us all In its sights. Against its horizon, I spread my arms like a road sign To mark earth where we are. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In his poem ""Afterward,"" James Applewhite imagines a curious Eve in the Garden of Eden, her eye falling upon a twisting river and an S-shaped snake before she eats from the tree of knowledge, choosing change over stasis. Applewhite's new collection Time Beginnings casts a keenly observant eye on the ever-varied natural world and meditates on the place of humans within it. In these philosophical poems, the slow creation of new planets in the farthest reaches of the galaxy mirrors the development of single-celled Earth organisms whose ""first awareness . . . foretell[s] a consciousness / of self, the life lived knowing of death."" Meditating upon topics as far-ranging as the movement of photons in the heart of the sun and the single drop of blood on the finger of a girl holding a rosebud, James Applewhite's poems explore deeply the mysteries of the galaxies and the complexities of being human.

Throughout his long career, James Applewhite has skillfully navigated the world of science through poetry. His new book makes no exception, fearlessly exploring time and consciousness in relation to the universe as described by Big Bang cosmology -- and as experienced by human beings in the everyday world. Applying experiences from his present-day life as well as a multitude of memories from his childhood to scientific theories of the nature of the universe, the poet engages in a patient but relentless -- and finally deeply rewarding -- quest for a sense of meaning in a cosmos whose dimensions of space and time defy the human capacity to imagine.

In his quest, Applewhite suggests the continuing possibility of a crucial connection to the universe through our seemingly tiny, evanescent experiences here on planet Earth. The poems in Cosmos help us value the human-related dimensions of being all the more as they are discerned against the cosmic vastness.

"We've known for a long time gravitydoesn't exist," Dr. Verlinde said.This adhesion of all mass to itself isfollowing the vector of energy downwardwith the thermodynamic arrow, which pierces uswith our moments. The illusion encloses, scenes in mind return nonsensically -- my foot slips on the slick bank and fora moment suspended in fallingI know the time slow down, seeingthe red-star sweet gum leafsliding with the current's surfacethat holds the late September skyand heat in a thin film.

Then I pierce it, splashing through -- the rowboat my brother called the Peanut Shellrocking out from the bank whileI arise back through the brown creekskin and into air of the dream worldI know so well, where Henry is laughing.

-- from "Reading the Science News"

Applewhite has undertaken to capture, in the manner of Monet's serial paintings, the momentary registration of light on the world around-and on the world within as well, for light is also the poet's metaphor for meaning and understanding.-Kelly Cherry These poems record the partly predictable, partly random representative days in a year that inspire wonder at their swiftness. Seasonal time is reflected in the changing angle of sunlight, and familial time is marked by birthdays and holiday celebrations. Public events take on both a sense of history and a sense of unreality in the bright glare of media attention and shiny celebrity surfaces. All the various time-orders in which we live overlay one another: a red leaf adrift in a stream is emblematic of autumn's recurrence; after years of marriage, a couple's wedding suddenly seems very close. Spurred by the sensation of accelerating days at the turn of the new millennium, James Applewhite explores the interplay of immediate experience and lasting memory, of continuity and change, over time-that elusive, ineffable, yet crucial medium of self-definition and of understanding the cosmos.

James Applewhite has produced nine extraordinary books of poetry. This volume is the first anthology of his remarkable oeuvre. It brings together chronologically arranged selections from all of his previous books, from the first, published in 1975, through the most recent, published in 2002. Applewhite's poetry is deeply rooted in the history and rhythms of rural North Carolina, where he was born and raised, and these poems mark stages in an artistic and personal journey he has undertaken over the past thirty years.In impeccable and surprising language, Applewhite depicts the social conventions, changes, frictions, and continuities of small southern towns. He celebrates that which he values as decent and life-enhancing, and his veneration is perhaps most apparent in his response to the natural world, to the rivers and trees and flowers. Yet Applewhite's love for his native land is not straightforward. His verse chronicles his conflicted feelings for the region that gave him the initial, evocative language of place and immersed him in a blazing sensory world while it also bequeathed the distortions, denials, and prejudices that make it so painful a labyrinth. Rendering troubled legacies as well as profound decency, Applewhite reveals the universally human in a distinctively local voice, within dramatic and mundane moments of hope and sorrow and faith.

This book offers original inroads to understanding the life and works of the celebrated novelist and poet. In ""The Way We Read James Dickey"" editors William B. Thesing and Theda Wrede have assembled an outstanding collection of current critical responses to the works of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and teacher, including essays by Dickey's former colleagues at the University of South Carolina and a piece by his most famous student, novelist Pat Conroy. The volume breaks new ground in the application of innovative critical approaches and restores Dickey to his rightful place in the literary canon as a remarkable writer who crafted some of the best poetry and fiction of the twentieth century. A decade after Dickey's death and thirty-five years after the release of the film version of his famous novel Deliverance, Dickey remains a controversial figure in the American literary landscape. He was an intellectual maverick who was often ahead of his time, and yet he responded intensely, almost obsessively, to his own changing times. Thesing and Wrede argue that, although he appeared to conform to poetic conventions, his writing was a visionary reinterpretation and extension of preexisting traditions. This tension between a poet's intellectual precursors and the radical innovation of his work is the inspiration behind the fresh approaches taken by the contributors in this volume, just as it energized Dickey's own endeavors. The essays offer original insights through emerging scholarly perspectives as well as through established methods of critique. The contributors address a range of themes in Dickey's works, including gender, religion, humanity's relationship to nature, and the writer's cultural context. This landmark reappraisal of Dickey's legacy offers readers a coherent forum that addresses why his writings remain relevant today, thus restoring and revaluing the rising significance of Dickey's literary achievement for twenty-first-century audiences.