Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Anthropomorphisms by Bruce Boston Anthropomorphisms. "Boston poetically anthropomorphizes animals, inanimate objects, abstractions and things celestial with great wit and insight. This is the stuff of surreal dreams. Being human has never been more entertaining." -G. O. Clark, author of Shroud of Night Anthropomorphisms collects 37 of Bruce Boston's "People" poems which have appeared in such venues as Asimov's SF Magazine, Dreams and Nightmares, and Strange Horizons. Among the poems here you will discover "Beat People," "Crow People," "Harvest People," and "Surreal People." Featuring illustrations and cover art by Marge Simon, this intelligent and imaginative collection is sure to make the reader contemplate humanity in a whole new way. Anthropomorphisms by Bruce Boston. ANTHROPOMORPHISM an’ thrə pə mor’ fism. A figure of speech whereby the deity is referred to in terms of human bodily parts or human passions. To speak of God’s hands, eyes, anger, or even love is to speak anthropomorphically. It may be helpful to distinguish two types of anthropomorphisms: those which picture God in bodily form and those which refer to God as possessed of those various aspects of personality as man knows it in himself. In a sense, it can be argued that those of the first type only are true anthropomorphisms. They speak as if God possessed bodily form, which, of course, He does not. The second type of anthropomorphism which refers to features of personality in God may be called factual description and not a figure of speech at all. It is the Christian teaching that God, the living and true God, is actually possessed of these personal characteristics which men recognize in themselves as attributes of personality. 1. Bodily anthropomorphisms . There are numerous instances of bodily anthropomorphisms in both the OT and NT. Some of these are of a majestic nature for all their bodily representations. Some are much more ordinary. There are a few examples commonly referred to, which should be noted. The creation of man (Gen 2:7) is a case in point. God formed man of dust and breathed into his nostrils. Adam and Eve “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (3:8). This particular case may be doubted. The word “cool” is the word rûaḥ , regularly tr. “wind” or “spirit,” never “cool.” The word for “walk” is a general word meaning “go.” The picture may just as well be that the voice of the Lord was going throughout the garden borne along upon the wind and that the representation of God is wholly immaterial. When men made the tower of Babel, God “came down to see” (11:5). Likewise God resolved to “go down to see” the sin of Sodom (18:21). Such anthropomorphisms are to be distinguished from the appearance of God in human form to Abraham as he sat at his tent door in Mamre. The divine appearance in human form is called a theophany and is not a figure of speech. Exodus 24:10 speaks of the feet of God. The commandments were written with the finger of God (Exod 31:18). Moses sees God’s “back” but not His “face” (33:23). Actually, this last instance is questionable. The Heb. word here is not the regular word for “back” but can mean “after effects.” That is, Moses saw the glory, but not the essence of God. The Psalms illustrate the use of anthropomorphisms. The highly poetic Psalm 18 pictures God as breathing forth smoke (v. 8) uttering a voice of thunder (v. 13) and whose breath is the wind (v. 15). God’s eyes and eyelids test the children of men (Ps 11:4). Second Chronicles pictures the eyes of the Lord as running throughout the earth (16:9). In Ezekiel 1:26f. God is pictured as seated on a throne in human form, and in the NT this symbolism is repeated (Rev 4:2, 3). There has been a tendency to apologize for these figures of speech and assume that they betray a low concept of deity. It is alleged also that the “J” narrative of the Pentateuch, as separated out by critical scholars, is characterized by such anthropomorphisms, whereas other narratives like “E” or “P” represent God as more distant and speaking only through the medium of angels. This division into documents is highly subjective, however, and is an example of circular reasoning. Most anthropomorphisms are placed in “J” and this is the reason it has several notable examples. The alleged “P” document also has anthropomorphisms, e.g. God’s “resting (Gen 2:2). The LXX tr. occasionally removes the anthropomorphisms of the Heb. text in the interests of a more transcendent picture of the Deity. It should be admitted on all sides, however, that the OT does not anywhere represent God as actually possessed of a bodily form. The whole denunciation of idolatry rests upon the uniform teaching of the spiritual nature of God. The Psalms refer repeatedly to the eyes of God, but Psalm 94:9 remarks that the God who made the eye is not limited to lesser faculties than the creatures He made. The picture of God in the OT is an altogether worthy one portraying an exalted Being who, though He is pictured as having hands, yet reaches out to uphold His children even in the uttermost part of the sea (Ps 139:9, 10). The Israelites never thought of their God as six ft. tall with any limitations of body or flesh. The references to bodily activities of God are clearly figures of speech. 2. Anthropomorphisms of personality . The Bible repeatedly speaks of God as living, active, speaking, loving, thinking, judging. There have been many philosophers who insist that this is only a way of speaking of the infinite one. God Himself, being the Absolute, does not, they say, have the limitations of personality. Indeed, it is said, God cannot be known or defined in His essence. Man can have no factual knowledge of Him; he can have only a direct awareness, an experience, a divine-human encounter. God in Himself cannot be known, so the theory goes, nor can He be defined in human terms. This is an old view newly reemphasized in that type of theology called neo-orthodoxy. Some Gr. skeptics argued that man pictures God like himself and thereby deceives himself. They said that if a triangle could talk, it would say “God is a triangle.” There is more truth in this charge than at first appears. The obvious point is that if a triangle could talk, it would not be a mere triangle. It would be a threesided figure possessed of intelligence, rationality, and self-expression. In short, to talk like this is the essence of human personality. Human personality may rightly claim that God is akin to man, because He has revealed that men are created in His own image. The fact of the image of God in man is what makes religion possible, and indeed is the only solid basis for finding meaning in life. If man is made in the image of God in personal characteristics, then it is no mere figure of speech or mythologizing description to say that God is love. Hodge in a significant treatment of these problems declares “We know that He is a Spirit, that He has intelligence, moral excellence, and power to an infinite degree. We know that He can love, pity, and pardon; that He can hear and answer prayer. We know God in the same sense and just as certainly as we know our father or mother. And no man can take this knowledge from us or persuade us that it is not knowledge, but a mere irrational belief.” (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology [1872], I, 360.) C. S. Lewis has a most helpful discussion of the same matters. He tells of a girl he knew who was brought up to believe that God was a perfect “substance.” On examination it developed that “her mental concept of God was ‘a vast tapioca pudding’! Such is the bleak alternative for those who deny personality in God” (C. S. Lewis, Miracles [1947], pp. 75-82). The Bible everywhere assumes and repeatedly teaches that God is a living, infinite Person, and the description it gives of His love, pity, justice, and pardon are not really anthropomorphisms, but are sober descriptions of the living and true God. Bibliography C. Hodge, Systematic Theology , I (1872), 360; H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (1902), 327; C. S. Lewis, Miracles, a Preliminary Study (1947), 75-82; R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (1948), 174; A. B. Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible (1963), 185, 314-317. Anthropomorphisms by Bruce Boston. Anthropomorphisms brings together all of Boston's "people poems" -- cat people, ghost people, gargoyle people, werewolf people, etc. Most of these poems first appeared in Asimov's SF and Strange Horizons . Includes nine original illustrations by Marge Simon. “Boston poetically anthropomorphizes animals, inanimate objects, abstractions and things celestial with great wit and insight. This is the stuff of surreal dreams. Being human has never been more entertaining.” –G. O. Clark, author of Shroud of Night. “Bruce Boston's Anthropomorphisms is by turns waggish ("Beat People"), visionary ("Bird People"), quirky ("Bone People"), droll ("Cat People"), chilling ("Cockroach People"), mordant ("Crow People"), topsy-turvy ("Chicken People), startling ("Gargoyle People"), prophetic ("Ghost People"), quotable ("Robot People," and "Knife People"), appetizing ("Harvest People"), shivery ("Lice People"), and allusive and compressed ("Surreal People"). Anthropomorphisms would make a great gift for anyone with a sense of the absurd. But be selfish; buy the book for yourself.” –Mary Turzillo, Nebula-Award author of "Mars Is No Place for Children" Bruce Boston. Bruce Boston (born 1943) [1] is an American speculative fiction writer and poet who was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California. [2] He received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, 1965, and an M.A., 1967. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1961 to 2001, where he worked in a variety of occupations, including computer programmer, college professor (literature and creative writing, John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California, 1978–82), technical writer, book designer, gardener, movie projectionist, retail clerk, and furniture mover. As of 2015 he was living in Ocala, Florida, with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon, whom he married in 2001. [3] Boston has won the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry a record [4] seven times, [5] and the Asimov's Readers' Award for poetry a record seven times. [6] He has also received a Pushcart Prize for fiction, 1976, a record four Bram Stoker Awards in poetry for his collections, and the first Grandmaster Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1999. [7] His collaborative poem with Robert Frazier, "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest, [8] " received first place in the 2006 Locus Online Poetry Poll for Best All-Time Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror Poem. Boston has also published [9] more than a hundred short stories and the novels Stained Glass Rain and The Guardener's Tale (the latter a Bram Stoker Award Finalist and Prometheus Award Nominee). His work has appeared widely in periodicals and anthologies, including Asimov's SF Magazine, Amazing Stories Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Science Fiction Age , Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase. Writing in The Washington Post , Paul Di Filippo described his collection Masque of Dreams as containing "nearly two dozen brilliant stories ranging across all emotional and narrative terrains." [10] Boston has chaired the Nebula Award Novel Jury (SFWA), the Bram Stoker Award Novel Jury, and the Philip K. Dick Award Jury, and served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. He has served as fiction and/or poetry editor for a number of publications, including Occident , The Open Cell , Berkeley Poets Cooperative , City Miner , and Star*Line . As of 2014, he edits speculative poetry for The Pedestal Magazine . [2] He was the poet guest of honor at the World Horror Convention in 2013. [11] [12] Anthropomorphisms by Bruce Boston. FICTION (story collections except as noted) *Jackbird, BPW&P, 1976 *She Comes When You're Leaving, BPW&P, 1982 *Skin Trades, Chris Drumm Books, 1988 *After Magic (novelette), Eotu, 1990, Dark Regions, 1999 *Hypertales & Metafictions, Chris Drumm, 1990 *All the Clocks are Melting (single story booklet), Pulphouse, 1991 *Houses (novelette, stories), Talisman, 1991 *Short Circuits (flash fictions, prose poems), Ocean View, 1991 *Night Eyes, Chris Drumm, 1993 *Stained Glass Rain (novel), Ocean View, 1993, Wildside, 2003 *Dark Tales & Light, Dark Regions, 1999 *The Complete Accursed Wives (fiction, poetry), Talisman/Dark Regions, 2000 Masque of Dreams (fiction/poetry), Wildside, 2001, 2010 *Bruce Boston: Short Stories, Vol. 1 (fiction, poetry, ebook), Fictionwise, 2003 *Bruce Boston: Short Stories, Vol. 2 (fiction, poetry, ebook), Fictionwise, 2003 *Flashing the Dark (flash fiction), Sam's Dot Publishing, 2006 The Guardener's Tale (novel), Sam's Dot Publishing, *2007, 2011 , ebook, Independent Legions, 2021. El guardian de almas (Spanish edition, The Guardener's Tale), La Factoria de Ideas, 2009 Visions of the Mutant Rain Forest (with Robert Frazier, fiction, poetry), Crystal Lake Publishing, 2017 Gallimaufry (story collection), Plum White Press, forthcoming 2021. *XXO, Maya, 1969 *Potted Poems, Maya, 1970 *All the Clocks Are Melting, Velocities, 1984 Alchemical Texts, *Ocean View, 1985, *Miniature Sun (ebook), 2003, free ebook at Smashwords, 2011 *Nuclear Futures, Velocities, 1987 *Time, Titan, 1988 *Musings (broadside), Eldritch Emu, 1988 *The Nightmare Collector, 2AM, 1989 *Faces of the Beast, Starmont, 1990 *Other Voices, Other Worlds (audio tape, music by Jack Poley), *Chris Drumm, 1990, Telltale Weekly, ( audio download , 2004) *Cybertexts, Talisman, 1991 *Chronicles of the Mutant Rain Forest (with Robert Frazier), Horror's Head Press, 1992 *Accursed Wives, Night Visions, 1993 *Specula: Selected Uncollected Poems, 1968-1993, Talisman, 1993 *Sensuous Debris: Selected Poems, 1970-1995, Dark Regions, 1995 *Conditions of Sentient Life, Gothic, 1996 *Cold Tomorrows, Gothic, 1998 *Confessions of a Body Thief (broadside), Talisman, 1998 *The Lesions of Genetic Sin (broadside), Miniature Sun, 2000 *Pavane for a Cyber-Princess, Miniature Sun, 2001 *White Space, Dark Regions, 2001 *Quanta: Award Winning Poems, Miniature Sun, 2001 *In Far Pale Clarity (broadside), Quixsilver, 2002 *Night Smoke (ebook with Marge Simon), Miniature Sun & Quixsilver, 2002 *She Was There for Him the Last Time, Miniature Sun, 2002 *The Crow Is Dismantled in Flight (ebroadside), Miniature Sun, 2003 *Head Full of Strange (ebook), CyberPulp, 2003 *Pitchblende (selected by Michael Arnzen), Dark Regions, 2003 *Etiquette with Your Robot Wife (humor), Talisman, 2005 *Shades Fantastic, Gromagon Press, 2006 *Night Smoke (with Marge Simon, expanded print edition of the 2002 ebook), Kelp Queen, 2007 *The Nightmare Collection, Dark Regions, 2008 *Double Visions (collaborative poems), Dark Regions, 2009 *North Left of Earth, Sam's Dot, 2009 Dark Matters, Bad Moon Books, 2010 *Surrealities, Dark Regions, 2011 Anthropomorphisms, 2012, Elektrik Milk Bath Press Notes from the Shadow City (with Gary William Crawford), Dark Regions, 2012 Dark Roads: Selected Long Poems 1970-2012, Dark Renaissance, 2013 *Resonance Dark & Light, Eldritch Press, 2015 Sacrificial Nights (with Alessandro Manzetti), Kipple Officina Libraria, 2016 Brief Encounters with My Third Eye: Selected Short Poems 1975-2016, Crystal Lake Publishing, 2016, Korean-language edition, Philyohanchaek, 2021 Artifacts, Independent Legions, 2018. Review Quotes. ". collects nearly two dozen brilliant stories, ranging across all emotional and narrative terrains." --Paul Di Filippo, The Washington Post , on Masque of Dreams. "It is rare to find a writer capable of writing both prose and poetry with equal skill, and in the SF/F/H genres there is no greater practitioner of that combination than Bruce Boston." --Tim Pratt, Locus , on Masque of Dreams. "Boston addresses the issues of individuality in a seemingly perfect world, a world that in actuality is rife with problems. this book certainly belongs as a great anti-authoritarian novel for the ages." --Anders Monsen, Prometheus on The Guardener's Tale. "Boston is deft and quirky. He is also gifted with a distinctive way of seeing 'the other' . it is the best of the classics he brings to mind." --Tom Easton, Analog , on Night Eyes. ". uncommon grace and clarity of vision. Boston writes with the voice of a poet, the heart of a bodhisattva, and the unblinking eye of an investigative reporter." --Daniel Marcus, Wired , on Stained Glass Rain. "Again, with emphasis: this entire collection is composed of award-winning poems. I cannot think of another writer in the genre who could fill a book of short pieces with award-winners, with the exception, perhaps, of Harlan Ellison." --Michael Arnzen, Strange Horizons , on Quanta. "It is witty, wise, and hysterically funny. rivals the Hitchhiker's Guide series for sheer comic brilliance." --J. L. Comeau, Creature Feature , on Etiquette with Your Robot Wife.