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My Body the Guitar
Poems by Karla Linn Merrifield
119 poems ~ 155 pages
Price: $22.00
Publisher: Before Your Quiet Eyes Holograph Series
ISBN: 978-1-7328840-6-9
To Order: Amazon
To Order a personalized copy email Karla Linn Merrifield:
https://karlalinnmerrifield.org/books/my-body-the-guitar/
ABOUT THE BOOK:
My Body the Guitar is a book about life. It is not about just any life. It is about one woman’s journey as told through the metaphor of music, and to be more precise: the shape and form of her guitar. About the instrument, Carlos Santana has said, “The guitar is shaped like a woman, with a neck you hold and a body you hug against yourself. You can touch your fingers up and down the strings, but you have to be delicate and know what you’re doing.” Without a doubt, multi-award-winning poet, Karla Linn Merrifield knows what she is doing. Whether your preferred genre is music, poetry, or both … My Body the Guitar will demand an encore reading.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
A masterful blending of story and song, there’s a transcendent quality to My Body the Guitar that goes beyond the words on the page. It’s a musical journey in three parts: obsession and desire, nostalgia and ongoing, and reverence and prayer. Like a troubadour’s notebook of songs, this creates such depth and vision in this gorgeous and spellbinding book, and one can hear music weaving its way from cover to cover. An emotional and intimate book that will continue to reveal its secrets every time it is read.
—Jenni Brandon, composer of Sisters of the Covid Moon for soprano, bassoon, and piano, 2021 (US)
An incredible immersive work written from the inside out, learning to play guitar from scratch to dive deeper into poetic Nirvana!!! A groundbreaking work written with the deepest love of the art. A virtuoso poet at the height of her powers.
—Paul Garthwaite, guitarist, composer, teacher (UK)
Life is all about emotions, memories, and meaning. Karla brought and blended these ingredients together with music, guitars, friends, and, above all, a joyful life into an elegant poem shape. It is a privilege to read, at the same time, an intimate love letter and a tribute to all the vibe music brings. What a powerful, joyful, musicful, guitarful ride!!! We felt so proud and thrilled to read and feel that Karla wanted us all to be part of this … to be part of her life.
—Júlio Martins, partner, luthier, AVA Guitars, (Portugal)
When reading Karla Linn Merrifield’s poems, I can hear her voice filled with nuances, cadences, and varied tempi. In other words: it is musical! How fitting that she wrote an entire collection of poems about her musical influences and her favorite instrument. Her language is thoughtfully crafted, witty, touching. Buy this book and make sure you go hear Karla read from it!
—Sylvie Beaudette, founder and former director of the Women in Music Festival, Eastman School of Music (US)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Karla Linn Merrifield, a nine-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, has had 1000+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) was her 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. Her Godwit: Poems of Canada (FootHills Publishing) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry. She is a frequent contributor to The Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, and assistant editor and poetry book reviewer emerita for The Centrifugal Eye.
FROM THE BOOK:
Gentle Weep
by Karla Linn Merrifield
I don’t have much longer
in the playing fields of love.
So when he looks at the tip
of my ring finger and sees
under the bistro lamp a nascent
callous he perceives desire.
All I do is metaphor,
the steel g-string pressed
again, again, again, in B minor’s
third position—thus my hand
remembers what my body
learns of its embodiment.
I am the guitar.
play me now.
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