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SOUNDINGS

by Joanne Regenhardt

115 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0360; ISBN 1-55212-958-6; US$17.00, C$19.50, EUR14.00, £10.00

SOUNDINGS is a book of poetry written over a lifetime by a woman whose life has been full of family, child rearing, study, homemaking, serious singing and travel. Here is a private poet sharing for the first time a body of carefully crafted work which both celebrates the playful surfaces of life and plumbs its meaningful depths.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book Soundings are the poems of a lifetime, written by a woman whose life has been dedicated to music, to family and to travel. For over 30 years, Joanne Regenhardt enjoyed a full career as a professional singer of the classical repertoire. About the relationship of her passion for music to poetry, she says: "The musician becomes engrossed in meters and rhythms, harmonies, timing, pauses and silences. Along with learning the musical score, he or she discovers the intent of the composer, the poetry of the composition. In my case, I felt similar meters, rhythms and harmonies in the life around me and felt a need to express them in poetry. Soundings is divided into six sections: Writing Poems, Soundings, Love Poems, Reading Poems, Early Poems and Recent Poems. Writing Poems is by way of introduction, and Soundings and Love Poems form the main body of the work. Reading Poems was written in homage to inspirational poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson, in close approximation of their beloved voices. Early Poems hark back to the poet's beginnings, while Recent Poems have been written in the past year or so. In Soundings are love poems (not necessarily romantic), poems about childhood, and poems about children. There are poems about the feelings of a young woman in her 20s and those feelings revisited by the same woman in her 70s. Soundings includes poems about death and loss, poems which show a profound love of nature and art, (especially music and music-makers), a deep affection for family, and a sustaining faith in God. In the section entitled Reading Poems, the reader will find styles and meters of master poets such as Hopkins and Dickinson examined and cleverly used. praise for SOUNDINGS: ".............this splendid collection is surely one of the most impressive first gatherings to appear in a long time. The poems are remarkable in their language and images. Though the words are simple, the use [made] of them is highly original and evocative. I was startled by many lines that seemed to jump off the page and by the perceptiveness and sophistication of [the visions they created]. This is poetry of a very high order doing what all good poetry is supposed to do: illuminate our experience and increase our understanding......." -John L Stewart, retired provost of Muir College at University of California, San Diego "Your poetry has a remarkable sensitivity and a remarkable range of reference to human experience - qualities that have, alas, both become rare...... You give a fresh, clear vision of emotional experience, and you also evoke the complexity of intellectual experience and analysis (I refer to poems like "Stan Hywet." my favorite in the collection.) Wonder of wonders, you even offer a fresh response to 9/11." -Stephen Cox is the Director of the Humanities Program at Revelle College, University of California, San Diego. He is the author of "The Titanic Story", a book about the disaster, focusing on the moral choice faced by the people involved and "Love and Logic" a book on William Blake.

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About the Author Joanne Regenhardt was born and raised in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and graduated from The College of Wooster in Ohio. She has lived in La Jolla, California, for fifty-four years, where she and her husband, Bill, raised their two children. Joanne enjoyed a singing career which included concertizing Bach, oratorios, and German Lieder. For ten years she also sang light opera and appeared with symphony orchestras in southern California. Today, she lives quietly with her husband and their dog, Duke, and loves to "play the romantics" on the piano, read, cook, and write poetry. Several times a year Duke goes to Kritter Kamp and the Regenhardts travel. Their travels have included the south seas, the Caribbean, the Galapagos Islands, Central America, Canada, Spain, the Mediterranean, Europe, Egypt, and all of the 50 United States.

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Sample Excerpt

"The past is now real because I am reliving it,and it is when I find in the past the means of realizing my future that I discover my present.And all this happens in an instant; moment by moment life swells out into the three dimensions of the true interior time."      --Eugene H.Peterson

I believe that the poet and the composer take soundings from the same vast,silent,inner sea.The same area of my psyche is engaged whether I am composing a poem or learning a musical composition. This engagement is not mere enjoyment,but a dancing with the muse,a sounding of the inner life.

I began to write poetry in 1945 and to study singing seriously ten years later.These two pursuits have never been incompatible to me,although music took precedence in my career.When taking apart a musical composition in order to commit it to memory,the musician becomes engrossed in meters and rhythms,harmonies,timing,pauses and silences. Along with learning the musical score,he or she discovers the intent of the composer,the poetry of the composition.In my case,I felt similar meters, rhythms and harmonies in the life around me and felt a need to express them in poetry.

Why poetry,instead of composing music?I don 't know.Perhaps it was simply easier,as all I ever needed was a tablet,a pen and my thoughts.Driving through the country with my husband,Bill,I could let what I saw provide the idea for a poem.The early hours of the day,my solo times,were equally fertile ground for writing,and reading poetry has always inspired me to write it.

SOUNDINGS is divided into six sections:Writing Poems,Soundings,Love Poems,Reading Poems, Early Poems and Recent Poems.Writing Poems is by way of introduction,and Soundings and Love Poems form the main body of the work.Reading Poems was written in response to certain poets who have inspired me,while Early Poems come from my early writing days and Recent Poems were composed in the past year or so.

In rereading the poems of a lifetime to prepare them for publication,I find them to be honest --a representation of what has been lived from my own personal,poetic perspective.I hope this honesty may prove helpful in some way,or simply be a source of enjoyment to the reader.If so,I will not have taken on the task of compiling SOUNDINGS for selfish reasons alone.

INSPIRATION

I move with the flow again
      in the aqueduct at night.
As I awake to find feet twitching,
    the breathing fast and out of rhythm,
Poem shells of light weight,
        surely formed,
Bob like boxes slow enough
        to invite the filling.

Quickly I snatch them
        from the flow
And beach them in the memory,
Waiting for sleepiness to pass.

In the morning amid
Clattering breakfast sounds
I sit surrounded
        and sip my coffee
And luxuriously select, for the day's
Indulgence, a form for finery.

 

PRETENSE

You will be relieved
to know
I do not think of you
at all:
the sound of your voice,
the look of thoughtfulness,
some bit of humor, some
loving gesture inspired
by my delight in you;
the shape of your hand
the eyelids and lashes,
the forehead and the
way you hesitate in speech
when ideas struggle
to take shape.
A poem, from some undredged
part of you,
like this one from me,
scribbled on a restaurant napkin.

You will be relieved to know
I do not think of you at all.

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Catalogue Information

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