With spring upon us it seems like the right time to announce the release of a new book project that I have been working on for about the past three years now, though at times it has felt even longer! Below is a description of the book.
The book, Dead Reckoning: Transatlantic Passages on Europe and America (SUNY Press), is a co-written effort with my good friend and former colleague, Anthony Di Renzo (Ithaca College). The book is officially scheduled for release in May, though it is already available for Kindle on Amazon and the paperback is available for pre-order.
http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Reckoning-Transatlantic-Passages-America-ebook/dp/B01BEA7OZ8/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1457390700&sr=8-4&keywords=guruianu
What began as an email exchange between Anthony and me turned into a dialogic exchange consisting of prose poems and lyrical essays, and eventually became a book that I am extremely proud of and excited to share with you.
From the press:
A poet and essayist attempt to find their bearings in a civilization lost at sea.
Dead reckoning is the nautical term for calculating a ship’s position using the distance and direction traveled rather than instruments or astronomical observation. For those still recovering from the atrocities of the twentieth century, however, the term has an even grimmer meaning: toting up the butcher’s bill of war and genocide.
As its title suggests, Dead Reckoning is an attempt to find our bearings in a civilization lost at sea. Conducted in the shadow of the centennial of the First World War, this dialogue between Romanian American poet Andrei Guruianu and Italian American essayist Anthony Di Renzo asks whether Western culture will successfully navigate the difficult waters of the new millennium or shipwreck itself on the mistakes of the past two centuries. Using historical and contemporary examples, they explore such topics as the limitations of memory, the transience of existence, the futility of history, and the difficulties of making art and meaning in the twenty-first century.
“Dead Reckoning pilots readers through the purgatory of immigration, a painful sea voyage that with enough courage and hard work can lead through the narrow channel facing paradise: spiritual and material success. Charting the currents between the Old and New Worlds, Andrei Guruianu and Anthony Di Renzo write with the ferocious genius of Pope and Swift and the compassionate heart of Saint Nicholas, patron of sailors and guardian of ports.” — Emanuel di Pasquale, author of The Ocean’s Will
“In the space of the passage from immigrant to citizen in a new home, things fall apart to an apparent nothingness. Guruianu and Di Renzo ask us to consider a brave creativity as an answer for the space where systems fall apart, so that it can be a place where things grow in a reverence for the need to live, to love, to have community, and to be truly free.” — Afaa M. Weaver, author of City of Eternal Spring
“A lovely, seductive, original book.” — Thomas G. Pavel, author of The Lives of the Novel: A History
For those of you who teach, if you're doing anything related to essay and creative writing, poetry and hybrid genres, I think this book could serve as a wonderful supplementary text. The poems and the essays all contain cultural and literary references that just just enough for readers to become interested but leave sufficient room for further thinking and exploration. If interested in a desk copy, they are available to instructors for $10 via the SUNY Press website: http://www.sunypress.edu/l-50-exam-desk-copies.aspx