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These Details in Preference to Nothing is the story of a relationship, or rather it’s a meditation on one, that is, a mediation on love, faith and an existence caught in transition told from a perspective not fully capable of seeing all angles. The narrative is in the first person and in the present tense as is every love affair between very young adults. The title sums up a lot—These Details in Preference to Nothing—a line lifted from Becket. To quote John Barth “heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill; but what you want is passionate virtuosity.” A story told in intense moments of meditative stupor, it sometimes reads more like poetry, and so it began as an extended sonnet sequence, but emerged into this record—to be added to all the others throughout history--of the truth in the sincere and authentic passion of the young, or at least some of the relevant and more illustrative details. ISBN: 978-1-932023-36-7. https://www.facebook.com/williamralpheditions...

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I have begun every impulse to speak with hesitation, suspended on the edge of doubt, mindful of my inability to say how it was. It was the year of the roar of lions, humid nights, the soft breaths of waterweeds and kisses. It was the first year alone with my son. I had always had enemies of my sleep. I had come to know them. My response was always hesitation. The world was very large. It was true that a specific combination of things often conspired to lead my telling what happened back to an ecstasy of memories of melancholy and through a long, long night. Saudade the Portuguese say, the sadness inside each joy. All my life I have been haunted by a dream of heaven.  It was true. For me, anyway, for the way I told things, and the way I have always told them. I was somewhat absent of myself where the words came to carry the telling from me. I was touched by the words the way the butterfly wants to be still in the hands of the breeze, to be untangled from the air that makes the soft current, carries the preliminary push, something unformed and unclear, to be unsnarled from the waft, to be unfurled as the sound from the trees, to be...

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These Details in Preference to Nothing About the Author Also from William Ralph Press

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A complete and unabridged e-edition of the collected verse of John Donne. Donne, 1572–1631, was born in London, England, and, as evidenced by the verse collected here, is one of the great English language poets and thinkers in modern history illuminating the human condition through a verse marked for its argument, metaphysical conceit, metaphorical illuminations, and deep passions, whether they be focussed on love, God (two of Donne's favorite foci), or some other theme. While his poetry is dense, it is also inspiring, wise, and an essential and vital piece in the evolution of western verse. Volume 6 in The Reader's Library Series. ISBN: 978-1-932023-48-0 https://www.facebook.com/williamralpheditions...

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"Batter my heart, three person’d God..." Batter my heart, three person’d God; for, you As yet but knock, breath, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise, and stand, o’rthrow me,’and bend Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurpt Town, to another due, Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end. Reason your Viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue, Yet dearly’I love you and would be lov’d fain, But am betroth’d unto your enemy, Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again, Take me to you, imprison me, for I Except you’enthral me, never shall be free, Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me....

Table of Contents Details
Contents Introduction SONGS AND SONNETS The Flea The Good-Morrow Song ("Goe, and catch a falling starre...") Woman's Constancy The Undertaking The Sun Rising The Indifferent Love's Usury Canonization The Triple Fool Lovers' Infiniteness Song ("Sweetest Love, I doe not goe...") The Legacy A Feaver Air and Angels Breake of Day The Anniversary A Valediction of My Name, in the Window Twicknam Garden Valediction to His Book Community Love's Growth Love's Exchange Confined Love The Dream A Valediction of Weeping Love's Alchymy The Curse The Message A Nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day Being the Shortest Day Witchcraft by a Picture The Bait The Apparition The Broken Heart A Valediction Forbidding Mourning The Extasie Love's Deity Love's Diet The Will The Funeral The Blossom The Primrose, Being at Mountgomery Castle upon the Hill, on Which It Is Situate The Relique The Damp The Dissolution A Jeat Ring Sent Negative Love The Prohibition The Expiration The Computation The Paradox Farewell to Love A Lecture upon the Shadow EPIGRAMS Epigrams ELEGIES Elegie I Elegie II Elegie III El...