How To Live With What You Know

Description

Poetry that addresses the metaphysical and spiritual nature of being human, as well as a meditation on purposes of and for dreaming. "My dream-life is ungovernable and disproportionally epic. Poetry is its native tongue. As a lucid dreamer, I carry no sword or compass to navigate the inner world. Dreams de-throne the mind and are by nature subversive. If the mind goes about daily pretending to be us, then poetics is the key in the hand of the mouth of my own errant yet essential knight." ~Peter Valentyne

Peter Valentyne was awarded the prestigious Atlantic Monthly prize for poetry. His poems have appeared in various publications including: The Red Cedar Review and SUFI Journal, as well as the on-line Alchemy Lab. Mr. Valentyne is also a playwright whose plays include: The Unimagined Bridge, The Fortuneteller's Nostalgia, Candidates for God, The Aluminum Garden, Prater at Lethe, The Logic of Solids and Trusting Mr. Universe; all produced by Sage Theatre Company on Theatre Row. Peter has been an initiated Dervish in the Nimatullahi order of Sufis since 2012 and currently resides in Hell's Kitchen in NYC.In How to Learn to Live With What You Know, the dream rides shotgun with wakefulness and the reader finds a poet who embraces the paradox of identity as constructed by the rational mind conjoined with the self as a murmuration of shadows, untethered by reason and breaking mirrors at will. With dexterous language, Peter Valentyne evokes what comes of grappling with a mystery that at once confounds and thrills us, and because he has invited us into his poems, we are vividly reminded of our own contention with the riddle of being. Deirdre Jacobson, Award Winning Poet & Author