Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The High Heart by Joseph Bathanti The High Heart by Joseph Bathanti – Book Giveaway and Review. Set in the less-than-perfect Philadelphia of the ’60s and ’70s, Joseph Bathanti’s book The High Heart reads as both a collection of short stories and a novel. Each story of Fritz Sweeny, the only son of two unconventional parents, stands alone as a short. But placed all together, you come away with a captivating look at an unusual family. Bathanti has a way of writing dialog that makes the characters jump off the page. Reading the banter between Fritz’s mismatched parents was completely entertaining. I found myself rereading some conversations; they made me feel like I was listening in on my neighbors – if my neighbors were a fiery Italian woman married to an Irish American, that is. While reading The High Heart, it’s easy to feel Bathanti’s poetry roots within the stories. The sentences are dense with meaning and enjoyably visual. Overall, this book was a fulfilling read, hitting all the right chords of well-chosen words and rich, unpredictable characters. And here’s the good news – I have an extra copy. To win The High Heart, please leave a comment here telling me what intrigues you about the book. Or subscribe to carp(e) libris reviews to be entered in this and all book giveaways. Or link to this contest from your blog. Do all three, and you’ve got three entries. I’ll randomly select a winner this Friday, March 7, 2008, at 12noon EST. The winner will be contacted by email. Buy The High Heart here and support carp(e) libris reviews and your local bookseller! Joseph Bathanti, Blair-distributed author, named N.C. Poet Laureate. Congrats, Joseph Bathanti! The award-winning poet, professor, and advocate for literacy has been named North Carolina’s Poet Laureate by Governor Bev Perdue. “Joseph Bathanti is an award-winning poet and novelist with a robust commitment to social causes. He first came to North Carolina to work in the VISTA program and has taught writing workshops in prisons for 35 years,” Perdue said. “As North Carolina’s new Poet Laureate he plans to work with veterans to share their stories through poetry — a valuable and generous project.” North Carolina’s seventh poet laureate, Bathanti will be installed during a public celebration scheduled Thursday, Sept. 20 at 4:30 p.m. at the State Capitol. The event is free. Bathanti’s books of poetry include This Metal (St. Andrews College Press, 1996 and Press 53, 2012), Restoring Sacred Art (Star Cloud Press, 2010), Land of Amnesia (Press 53, 2009), Anson County (Williams & Simpson, 1989 and Parkway Publishers, 2005, distributed by John F. Blair), The Feast of All Saints (Nightshade press, 1994) and Communion Partners (Briarpatch Press, 1986). He has published two novels, Coventry (Novello Festival Press, 2006, distributed by John F. Blair) and East Liberty (Banks Channel Books, 2001, distributed by John F. Blair) along with a book of short stories, The High Heart (Eastern Washington University Press, 2007). A native of Pittsburgh, Penn., Bathanti arrived in North Carolina in 1976 as a member of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), a national service program designed to fight poverty, and he never left the state. Assigned to work in Huntersville Prison in Mecklenburg County, he met fellow volunteer and future wife, Joan Carey on his first day of training. They have been married for 35 years. Land of Amnesia by Joseph Bathanti. "In his title poem, Joseph Bathanti writes that ‘Even a mincing moon off cotton will yield/light enough to walk by.’ There is something of pale moonlight in all these poems, by which I scarcely mean that they are vague. Rather, things as ordinary as field cotton are seen in a way so original as to seem magical. The author has his rhetorical reasons to call this masterful book Land of Amnesia , but in fact that author forgets nothing. …. The delicious, full-throated lyricism of this volume would alone be enough to recommend it. That it grapples so bravely and brilliantly with what I must feebly call Things That Matter makes it indispensable." — Sydney Lea , founder of The New England Review. “ ‘I swear, given even this much/of a fool’s chance,’ Joseph Bathanti exclaims right off, making sure he is certain of what he is saying as he narrates memory aloud. So he doesn’t forget—nor do we—what takes place everywhere he goes, whatever he does. That’s what I like best of all about Land of Amnesia , the poetic narrative, the anecdotal moment that’s personal, reflective, and memorable, and the fact that story is the basis of poetry.” — Simon J. Ortiz , author of Out There Somewhere and Woven Stone. “When I read a poem, I long for a language that is strong yet nuanced, edgy yet ready at any moment to turn on a dime and become capacious, open to all the many ways of living in this world, both past and present. Joseph Bathanti brings this kind of language to his new collection. I admire the heft of it, the sheer refusal to back down in the face of all the ways life can nibble away at our passion and persistence. Take a line, any lines: ‘There where the earth knows to open,/her hair like solstice wheat the day of gleaning,/going grey, but in the moonlight like milkweed/surging out of its pod./Even the unimagined returns.’ Need I say more? Land of Amnesia is a collection I wish I’d written myself. That’s the greatest compliment any poet could give.” — Kathryn Stripling Byer , North Carolina Poet Laureate and author of Coming to Rest. “Not since Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology has a grouping of poems powerfully linked by viewpoints and voices— spoken or spelled out from a particular landscape in time—excited me so deeply. In this focused gathering of wildly wayward poems, Joseph Bathanti evokes so many invisible realities—some sensual, some subtle—that characterize the heart that beats in the bosom of a Southern countryside he partly describes from loving gut-contact, and another that he painstakingly imagines. To some readers it may occur that Land of Amnesia can be abbreviated as /loa/, who, in the Voudun religion of Haiti, act as spirits, go-betweens, shuttling between worldly and divine realms, serving the same function as angels and saints in Judeo-Christianity. To be human is to overlook the sacred qualities of everything that shines—dark details, delectable details season and ripen Bathanti’s short, sensuous lines. Taken one by one or cumulatively, the poems in Land of Amnesia can only stun as they spell out—solemnly, lyrically, in close-ups and pull-backs—compelling histories of a shared micro-region drunk on the wine of forgetfulness.” — Al Young , California Poet Laureate and author of Something About the Blues. “These poems by Joseph Bathanti track and blend right in with the early films of Fellini. The locations in this book, while American, American as can be, are yet in their center of Mediterranean space. Not a word of this is explicit here, but is its hidden center, and his location for memory. This book stands out as one by a poet whose experience is his life, and his memory is his aesthetic. This is a very good book of poems.” — Fielding Dawson , author of Penny Lane. “Not since Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology has a grouping of poems powerfully linked by viewpoints and voices— spoken or spelled out from a particular landscape in time—excited me so deeply." — Al Young , California Poet Laureate and author of Something About the Blues. About the Author. Joseph Bathanti is former Poet Laureate of North Carolina (2012-14) and recipient of the 2016 North Carolina Award for Literature. He is the author of ten books of poetry, including Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; This Metal , nominated for the National Book Award, and winner of the Oscar Arnold Young Award; Land of Amnesia; Restoring Sacred Art , winner of the 2010 Roanoke-Chowan Award, given annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association for best book of poetry in a given year; Sonnets of the Cross ; Concertina, winner of the 2014 Roanoke-Chowan Award; and The 13th Sunday after Pentecost , released by LSU Press in 2016. His novel, East Liberty , won the 2001 Carolina Novel Award. His novel, Coventry , won the 2006 Novello Literary Award. His book of stories, The High Heart , won the 2006 Spokane Prize. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists, 1971-1995 , his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. His recent book of personal essays, Half of What I Say Is Meaningless , winner of the Will D. Campbell Award for Creative Nonfiction, is from Mercer University Press. A new novel, The Life of the World to Come , was released from University of South Carolina Press in late 2014. Bathanti is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolna, and the University’s Watauga Residential College Writer-in-Residence. He served as the 2016 Charles George VA Medical Center Writer-in-Residence in Asheville, North Carolina. ISBN 13: 9781597660334. The beautiful linked stories in Joseph Bathanti's award-winning collection, The High Heart, bring us an ensemble of heartbreakingly vivid characters, headed by the young Fritz Sweeny and his volatile and eccentric parents, all of them caught in a weir of desperation, frustration, hilarity, confusion, and deep affection. The setting is Pittsburgh in the sixties and seventies, when the city still lay in the trough of industrial collapse, when the boundaries of long-established ethnic neighborhoods had begun to blur and bend against the pressures of economically driven population shifts, when Vietnam was gobbling up the children of a whole generation. Through the painfully honest perplexity of Fritz, we are afforded a clear view of the family, the neighborhood, the city, and the era. In the deftness of their portraiture and dialogue and in the depth of their compassion for the nearly lost, these stories invite comparisons with the writing of Nelson Algren, Fred Pfeil, and Kurt Vonnegut. And their loving invocation of a particular city, warts and all, will recall for lovers of American fiction the magnificent Albany novels of William Kennedy. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, JOSEPH BATHANTI came to North Carolina in 1976 as a VISTA volunteer to work in the state's prison system and later earned an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College, in Swannanoa. He is the author, most recently, of two novels-- Coventry, for which he received the 2006 Novello Literary Award, and East Liberty, which won the 2001 Carolina Novel Award--and a work of nonfiction, They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina's Visiting Artists, 1971-1995, published in 2007 by the North Carolina Arts Council. He has also written four volumes of poetry, among them This Metal, which was nominated for a National Book Award, as well as the one-act play Afomo, which won the Wachovia Playwrights Pride and was produced by the Lab Theatre of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The recipient of numerous other honors, among them the Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding sustained contributions to the fine arts of North Carolina, the Linda Flowers Prize, the Sara Henderson Hay Prize, and the Sherwood Anderson Award, he teaches creative writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. "The High Heart is a gripping, soulful collection of linked stories, perfectly pitched in its depiction of a small family deeply rooted in working-class Pittsburgh of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The main characters are indelible—the young protagonist, Fritz, his passive-but-sweet father, Travis, and his explosive mother, Rita, whose dark sexuality and dissatisfaction loom like storm clouds over these stories. . . . Vivid and engaging, The High Heart satisfies that mysterious quality of great fiction by managing to be both truthful and artful at the same time." (Jess Walter, author of The Zero) "In this beautifully written and deeply moving collection, Joseph Bathanti gives us all the sad trappings of working-class life—the Rolling Rock beer, the Pall Mall cigarettes, the plastic lawn chairs, the beat-up Bonnevilles and Impalas. Yet the world of The High Heart never feels depressing. It's impossible not to cheer on young Fritzy as he struggles to make sense of his eccentric parents, the ever-bickering, memorable couple known as Travis-and-Rita." (Rita Ciresi, author of Pink Slip and Sometimes I Dream in Italian) "There is no doubt in my mind that Joseph Bathanti is one of the finest writers Italian America has produced. Whether it's poetry, novels, or short fiction, Bathanti has a way of latching onto a character or an idea and not letting go until he gets you to care about his protagonists, even if you don't like them. He writes in a way that makes reading seem effortless . . . creating stories that linger long after the pages have been turned." (Fred Gardaphé, author of From Wiseguys to Wise Men: The Gangster and Italian American Masculinities) "Joseph Bathanti's The High Heart pulls us in with an urgency that never lets up, imbuing his own little corner of urban America with the same kind of mythic hyperreality as William Kennedy's Albany novels or Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County." (Nino Ricci, author of Testament) Broad River Review. Joseph Bathanti is the Poet Laureate of North Carolina. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has bachelor and master’s degrees in English Literature from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College. Bathanti came to North Carolina as a VISTA Volunteer in 1976 to work with prison inmates. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where he is also the Writer-in-Residence for the University’s Watauga Global Community and Director of Writing in the Field. Bathanti is the author of seven books of poetry: Communion Partners; Anson County; The Feast of All Saints; This Metal, nominated for The National Book Award, and winner of the 1997 Oscar Arnold Young Award from The North Carolina Poetry Council for best book of poems by a North Carolina writer; Land of Amnesia, in 2009; and, Restoring Sacred Art , winner of the 2010 Roanoke Chowan Prize, awarded annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association for best book of poetry in a given year; and Sonnets of The Cross. His new book of poems, Concertina, is forthcoming from Mercer University Press. His first novel, East Liberty , winner of the Carolina Novel Award, was published in 2001 by Banks Channel Books in Wilmington, NC. His latest novel, Coventry , winner of the 2006 Novello Literary Award, was published by Novello Festival Press in Charlotte, North Carolina. They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists, 1971-1995 , his book of nonfiction, was published in early 2007. His collection of short stories, The High Heart , winner of the 2006 Spokane Prize, was published by Eastern Washington University Press in Fall 2007. His collection of personal essays, Half of What I Say Is Meaningless , winner of the 2012 Will D. Campbell Award for Creative Nonfiction, is forthcoming from Mercer University Press. Bathanti is the recipient of Literature Fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council in 1994 (for poetry) and 2009 (for fiction); The Samuel Talmadge Ragan Award, presented annually for outstanding contributions to the Fine Arts of North Carolina over an extended period; a Fellowship from The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry; the Bruno Arcudi Literature Prize; the Ernest A Lynton Faculty Award for Professional Service and Academic Outreach; the Aniello Lauri Award for Creative Writing (in 2001 and 2007); the Linda Flowers Prize; the Sherwood Anderson Award; the Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize; the 2011 Donald Murray Prize; the 2012 Ragan-Rubin Award for Literary Achievement; the 2012 Will D. Campbell Award for Creative Nonfiction, the 2013 Mary Frances Hobson Prize; and others. He was the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the Western Region for the North Carolina Poetry Society for 2011-12.