Paul Naylor: Book of Changes
Published 1 March 2012
Paperback, 88pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781848611993
Download a sample PDF from this book here.
The poems in this book grow out of an extended encounter with the ancient Chinese book of divination, the I Ching or Book of Changes, which is a collection of sixty-four hexagrams comprised of various combinations of broken (yin) and whole (yang) lines.
"Paul Naylor's Book of Changes starts with the understanding that there is no greater change in our lives than death— except birth; birth is the change that continues to change. Both are difficult to understand at first until a person accepts help. Naylor has chosen to converse with the ancient wisdoms of the I Ching.
Naylor's book is that conversation recorded by short form poems in response, in questioning, and in summation of a quest to understand the deaths of parents, the birth of a child, and the chaotic movement of his position at midway between both. A conversation that in the end accepts the child as the embodiment of change, of the I Ching itself. This is a deeply beautiful and quieted meditation." —Ed Roberson
"A close listening across time, for echoes bouncing off the ancient strings of hexagrams, cosmic whispers audible in a modern-day poet's life." —Yunte Huang
"Paul Naylor has surreptitiously begun to publish an important poetry. The result is the development of a poetry informed by philosophy and spiritual practice, and by a commitment to innovation, combined with a commendably stubborn unwillingness to stay away from poetry's traditionally most compelling topics. It is a pleasure to see the unfolding of this humorous, ambitious, skeptical and serious poetry." —Hank Lazer, Golden Handcuffs Review
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