Time Beginnings - by James Applewhite (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

This masterful collection, beautifully designed and thought out, introduces us to the mystery and mastery of scientific thought, showing us the wonders of time, space, mind, body, music and image and the scientific method. What's more, Applewhite illustrates for us how thought and feeling are interwoven with time and space. As he says, we are 'Dream-beings permitted a consciousness / in time.' The precision of his diction and details validate these poems and his apt metaphors and liquid rhymes provide the energy for which this journey calls. I am awed by his astonishing achievement and recommend it to every reader who seeks to know what it means to be human.--Kelly Cherry, author of Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer

Walking along the banks of the Eno River near Durham, or hiking in the woods and watching the heavens, or revisiting the past, James Applewhite plays many roles. Sometimes he is an astronomer and cosmologist, reflecting on the nature of space and time, and the constitution of matter: how like the trees and the ripples on the river we are all stardust. Sometimes he is an art historian and painter, and the forest becomes a great stained-glass window. Sometimes he is a chronicler, recalling Eden or his childhood or Randall Jarrell recalling Rilke amidst students in Greensboro. But he is always first and foremost a poet, turning experience and memory, science and history, love and regret, field and stream, into the warmly structured flow of poems.--Emily Grosholz

About the Author

A prolific poet, James Applewhite was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame in 2008 and is professor emeritus in creative writing at Duke University. He has received the Associated Writing Programs Contemporary Poetry Prize, the Jean Stein Award in Poetry from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry.