Robert Penn Warren's reputation as a poet, though always considerable, has soared in the last decade, as indicated by his recent selection as America's first poet laureate. The Braided Dream is one of the first book-length studies of the poetry that has led to Warren's recent rise to eminence and the first to consider his final collection, Altitudes and Extensions. In a communicable, jargon-free style that will appeal to the nonacademic reader as well as the serious scholar, Randolph Paul Runyon provides a detailed and illuminating guide to a body of poetry that, despite its greatness, has until now seemed resistant to full understanding. Every poem of Warren's last four sequences—Now and Then, Being Here, Rumor Verified, and Altitudes and Extensions—is given a close reading, with a precise laying-out of words, phrases, and recurring images that not only enrich the texture of the poetry but are themselves the texture. Runyon demonstrates the relevance of Freud's concept of the dream work of the unconscious to a reading of this tightly interwoven poetry. He shows how Warren's poems assume additional meanings by the poet's very arrangement of them, deepening his thesis by arguing that "poems eat poems" as each reuses and reconceptualizes the imagery of its predecessor, frequently with ironic or parodic effect.

When you get a message from deep space, should you answer? Earth has cause to believe that the universe is not a friendly place. But one woman, a singer well past her performance years, and seeking one last adventure, funds the mission that will accept an ambiguous invitation. . . to the stars. Bailey Shaw chooses the young and untested Anton Prados to lead the interplanetary expedition. But when they make first contact with the alien Dassa, she and Anton receive a troubling reception. The Dassa appear human. But they are badly altered humans, and the crew increasingly finds them disturbing, even revolting. And the Dassa in turn are appalled by them. As Bailey makes inroads with the commoners and Anton navigates the intrigues at court, the clash between the cultures escalates, bringing the crew, one by one, to the most difficult choice of their lives. To survive, they must unravel the mystery of the Dassa, and of human--and alien--existence.

A tale of love, courage, and the transforming power of imagination

James C. Glass has been writing science fiction, fantasy, and dark fantasy tales for over a dozen years, haunting us with ghosts, aliens, and things far worse. These breathtaking and disturbing stories have now been gathered in his first collection. Also featuring new, unpublished work, MATRIX DREAMS offers something to every reader of speculative fiction. Peek inside and dare to discover the dreams of this talented, award-winning author.

Rachel had everything she could ever want. She was next in line for the throne, had wonderful friends, and she could have anything she could ever want. Until an evil warlock began to take over her world. All at once everything began to fall apart. Her friends were beginning to be banished from the castle and strange shadows were being seen throughout the halls. And when her father was murdered, Rachel was forced to fl ee her home with her new guardian and those she cared about. Could she keep away from the demented man bent on making her his own? And what secrets is the warlock boy who saved he

Author Robert Penn Warren's fiction captures centuries worth of mythology and folklore from all across the globe--from Hebrew, Norse, Roman and Caribbean mythology, to Arthurian legends. This work explores the inspirations and hidden heroes in his works, beginning with his first novel, Night Rider, and extending through his fifth, Band of Angels. The fascinating ways, both blatant and obscure, that Warren incorporates religious practices and ancient legends into his early works are revealed.

A guide to interpreting dreams.

When the human and the vampire worlds collide, there will be hell to pay. Luca Ambrus is a rare breed: vampire from birth, begotten by vampire parents, blood born. He is also an agent of the Council—the centuries-old cabal that governs vampirekind, preserving their secrecy and destroying those who betray them. When a cryptic summons leads him to the scene of the brutal killing of a powerful Council member, Luca begins the hunt for an assassin among his own people. But instead of a lone killer he discovers a sinister conspiracy of rogue vampires bent on subjugating the mortal world. All that stands in their way are the conduits, humans able to channel spirit warriors into the physical world to protect mankind. Chloe Fallon is a conduit—and a target of the vampire assassin who’s killing them. When Luca saves her life, an irresistible bond of trust—along with more passionate feelings—is forged between them. As more victims fall, Chloe and Luca have only each other to depend on to save the world from the reign of monsters—and salvage their own future together.

Sarka is only thirteen when her mother suddenly tells her one day, I dreamed that you got married . . . to the rabbi. These words inform the young girl that she will marry a sixty-five-year-old widower and her fate will be determined by her mothers dream. Sarkas parents remain adamant that she will marry the rabbi whereupon all her youthful dreams of eventually marrying for love are quashed. Little Shaime is only ten when both his parents die, leaving him and his four siblings not only orphaned but penniless. While homes are found for his younger brothers and sisters, there is no family ready to adopt an older boy, and his grandparents have no room for him. So he is sent away to earn his keep as a saddlers apprentice in Lublin. The Krakowski family treat the orphan heartlessly, feeding him leftover scraps and making him sleep alone in a mouldy basement. Yet Shaime clings to his dream of one day having a childhood like any normal boy. The Second World War arrives, and when the carnage is over at last, very few survive. But both Sheindel, Sarkas daughter, and Shaime are among them, and their paths cross. Will fate prove kinder to them than the nightmares of the tragic losses that haunt their sleepless nights? Even before their fate was sealed by the Nazi invasion, the Jews in the little Polish town of Belzitz faced great adversity. Yet there were always dreams, some bringing consolation and others shaping their destinies. In this sweeping historical novel, Admoni traces a riveting family saga through three generations. The personal stories of Sheindel and the orphaned Shaime are interwoven into a rich tapestry of a Jewish shtetlbreathing life into an entire world of language, culture, and customsa world of which hardly a trace has survived. It is often said that reality surpasses imagination; hard as it may be to believe, everything described in Dreams really did take place. None of the names of the main characters have been changed, and their descendants are among us today. Raaya Admonia veteran radio editor and presenter at Kol Israel, Israels Broadcasting Authorityhas written many radio plays and stories which have garnered considerable success. In Dreams, written after extensive research, Admonis vivid characters are lovingly infused with the breath of life. Raaya Admonis book for children, Mother Says Its Late was published in 2001.

America's most eminent man of letters in his later years, and certainly one of the greatest Southern writers, Robert Penn Warren has increasingly come to be known for his poetry. Ghostly Parallels is a close examination of the heart of his poetic corpus-the eight collections published between 1935 and 1976: Thirty-Six Poems; Eleven Poems on the Same Theme; Promises; You, Emperors, and Others; Tale of Time; Incarnations; Or Else; and Can I See Arcturus from Where I Stand? Ghostly Parallels shows how Warren constructed collections of poems based on common subjects and contexts and also contends that, while the poems are distinctive, taken together they reveal intricate patterns of theme, imagery, and diction within explicit sequences. Runyon demonstrates that Warren's collections are integrated, well-crafted wholes, and each poem references its predecessor-sometimes in intriguingly self-referential ways. Runyon shows that despite the many changes in diction, tone, and subject that Warren underwent in his long career, his concern for writing his poems in such a way that they could reach out beyond themselves to other poems remained remarkably constant. In the arrangement Warren gave them, his poems form “ghostly parallels”-an expression that appears in “The Return: An Elegy,” where they refer to the railroad tracks that bring the poet home to his dying mother. This return to the mother is a persistent leitmotif in the poems and forms the other major theme of this study: Warren's personal poetic myth, in which such images as golden light and mirror images are signs of the mother's presence as both Danae, mother of Perseus, and Medusa, whom Perseus confronted. Through pursuing sequential patterns as well as echoes and myth, GhostlyParallels brings a wealth of insights to the work of this prolific novelist, critic, and essayist. An important guide for undergraduate and graduate students alike, Ghostly Parallels will also appeal to anyone with an interest in Robert Penn Warren and southern literature.