I am so happy to announce the release of my new book The Jeweled Net of Indra from Plain View Press. You can order from Amazon for single copies, or from the publisher for larger orders.
The back cover includes comments from Adrienne Rich, Ellen Bass, Robert Sward, and Patrice Vecchione. The title poem was chosen by Adrienne Rich as the 2005 National Writers Union winning poem, and was subsequently published in The SUN and Poetry Flash. Many of the other poems were published in a wide variety of magazines touching on themes of social justice, the environment, family, and the interlinked web that ties us all together.
The metaphor of Indra's Net is attributed to an ancient Buddhist teacher named Tu-Shun (557-640 B.C.E.), who envisioned life as a vast net with a jewel at each juncture. Each jewel, representing an individual life form, atom, cell or unit of consciousness, reflects all the other jewels in a cosmic matrix and is intrinsically and intimately connected to all others. A change in one gem is reflected in all the others.
The image of Indra's Net conveys that the compassionate and constructive contribution a person makes produces a ripple effect of beneficial action that reverberates throughout the universe. By the same token, one strand of the net cannot be damaged without damaging the others or setting off a cascading effect of destruction.
I was drawn to the Plain View Press vision, which editor Susan Bright describes: We Find Healing In Existing Reality.
Plain View Press is a 32-year-old issue-based literary publishing house. Over the years we have become a far-flung community of activists whose energies bring humanitarian enlightenment and hope to individuals and communities grappling with the major issues of our time--peace, justice, the environment, education and gender. This is a humane and highly creative group of people committed to art and social change. The written explorations of major issues are significant evidence that despite the relentless violence of our time, there is hope and there is art to show the human face of it.
The title poem, winner of the 2005 National Writers Union competition judged by Adrienne Rich, appears in the September 2006 edition of The SUN Magazine, which can be ordered at the site-link below:
http://www.thesunmagazine.org/september2006.html
The poem also appears in the Summer issue of Poetry Flash, and can be viewed in the opening sections of my website.
The Jeweled Net of Indra book endorsements come from the following poets:
"In the great fields of his country--not just the U.S. but the country of the heart, the country of poetry--Dane Cervine sits with and questions what is unfathomable but must be lived with anyway. I admire his faith in poetry. I admire his demand that it serve us. His lyrical and image-rich poems help light the way. They shorten the distance between us."
---Patrice Vecchione, author of "Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within
"The Jeweled Net of Indra is itself a jewel, an antidote to the illusion that any of us 'stands alone'. A testimony to how we are all of us consciousness and inextricably linked. A change in 'one gem' is reflected in all the others. I go for truth, I go for beauty...Dane Cervine's Jeweled Net of Indra has them both."
---Robert Sward, author of "Collected Poems: 1957-2004"
"'Poetry should matter' Dane Cervine writes in The Jeweled Net of Indra, a volume which tackles some of the most difficult and urgent subjects of our day: war, poverty, greed, alienation, the threats to our environment. These are poems rooted in commitment, caring, and a vision that comprehends our deep interconnectedness--poems that matter".
---Ellen Bass, author of "Mules of Love"
