{"product_id":"locomotive-cathedral-paperback-softback-9781496240088","title":"Locomotive Cathedral (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496240088","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eLocomotive Cathedral\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eBrandel France de Bravo (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496240088\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 March 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e112 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 0.7 cm, 0.18 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e“Kinetic and spectral, wise and suspicious of wisdom, Brandel France de Bravo’s \u003ci\u003eLocomotive Cathedral\u003c\/i\u003e chugs into an expansive, vaulted space, where ‘any raised surface can be an altar,’ via a hybrid text of poems, prose poems, and brief lyric essays. There is even a companion crow with one foot, RenÉ, who, like the speaker, is compelling and brilliant and makes no promises. Deft with figurative language-‘Like restaurant carp, we are learning to live in this aquarium,’-France de Bravo also questions the whole enterprise. ‘Metaphors can seem so transactional, language doing business, swapping currency,’ she writes, in a \u003ci\u003ezuihitsu\u003c\/i\u003e on giving and taking. Nothing here is undisputable, even the tools of the trade, and I love it. I love her parables breathing contemporary life into twelfth-century Tibetan Buddhist slogans on mind training-‘And then, there was the time I drove a dangerous highway, \/ thumb-drive buried in my bun . . . files and poems bobby-pinned \/ to my skull.’ I love the poems on flood and fire and plague, on dryer lint and home improvement, on the subject\/object conundrum, on the woman, a mature, exhilarative presence, and on the one-legged crow, who has the first word, and the last.”-Diane Seuss, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of \u003ci\u003efrank: sonnets\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eModern Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“The muse of this collection is a one-legged crow, and crow it does, with an insinuating, insistent music and a wily, restless aesthetic that hops from brilliant image to sly aphorism to tender insight. These poems are luminously dark, keenly observant, and endlessly curious about the whole symphony of existence, where nothing is lost, everything is transformed, and we live our lives ‘not dying, but molting.’ \u003ci\u003eLocomotive Cathedral\u003c\/i\u003e is marked by its unflinching yet compassionate gaze; we are blessed to have it.”-Michael Bazzett, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Echo Chamber\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“Brandel France de Bravo’s \u003ci\u003eLocomotive Cathedral\u003c\/i\u003e is a panoramic meditation ushering us into stillness. With grace and humility, in a skillful range of forms, France de Bravo sings a praise song to surrender. When living means ‘cycling through the stink and stain,’ France de Bravo celebrates the sacred pause, reminding us that ‘any raised surface can be an altar, a place to kneel.’”-Rage Hezekiah, author of \u003ci\u003eYearn\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eWith wit and vulnerability, Brandel France de Bravo explores resilience in the face of climate change and a global pandemic, race, and the concept of a self, all while celebrating the power of breath as “baptism on repeat.” Whether her inspiration is twelfth-century Buddhist mind-training slogans or the one-footed crow who visits her daily, France de Bravo mines the tension between the human desire for permanence and control, and life’s fluid, ungraspable nature. Poem by poem, essay by essay, she builds a temple to the perpetual motion of transformation, the wondrous churn of change and exchange that defines companionship, marriage, and ceding our place on Earth: “not dying, but molting.”\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e Regard the Other as a Verb\u003cbr\u003e Part 1. Take \u0026amp; Give\u003cbr\u003e After the Ecstasy, the Laundry\u003cbr\u003e Resilience I\u003cbr\u003e Free Trade Agreement, a \u003ci\u003eZuihitsu\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Women Talking\u003cbr\u003e Love It or List It\u003cbr\u003e Staging\u003cbr\u003e People of the Dog\u003cbr\u003e Resilience II\u003cbr\u003e Resilience III\u003cbr\u003e You’re Like a Dull Knife\u003cbr\u003e The Lounge Chair Does the Work\u003cbr\u003e Taking Dictation\u003cbr\u003e Home Improvement\u003cbr\u003e Pronominal Affection\u003cbr\u003e It’s a Joy to Be Hidden and a Disaster Not to Be Found\u003cbr\u003e Fractals\u003cbr\u003e Part 2. Mind Training Slogans\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 27: Work with the Greatest Defilements First\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 25: Don’t Talk about Injured Limbs\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 7: Giving and Taking Should Be Practiced Alternately. These Two Should Ride the Breath (a.k.a. Practice \u003ci\u003eTonglen\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 34: Don’t Transfer the Ox’s Load to the Cow\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 8: Three Objects, Three Poisons, Three Seeds of Virtue\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 1: Train in the Preliminaries\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 20: Of the Two Witnesses, Hold the Principal One\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 38: Don’t Seek Others’ Pain as the Limbs of Your Own Happiness\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 49: Always Meditate on Whatever Provokes Resentment\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 59: Don’t Expect Applause\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 4: Self-Liberate Even the Antidote\u003cbr\u003e Slogan 28: Abandon All Hope of Fruition\u003cbr\u003e Part 3. After the Before Times\u003cbr\u003e Resilience IV\u003cbr\u003e What It Took and What It Gave\u003cbr\u003e Resilience V\u003cbr\u003e Lying Flat\u003cbr\u003e Seam and Sieve\u003cbr\u003e Tradition Is the Prison in Which You Live\u003cbr\u003e Provincetown\u003cbr\u003e Angrief\u003cbr\u003e Now You Don’t See It, Now You Do\u003cbr\u003e If It’s in the Way, It Is the Way\u003cbr\u003e Resilience VI\u003cbr\u003e Part 4. Terminal Lucidity\u003cbr\u003e Resurrection, a Cento from My Murdered Darlings\u003cbr\u003e As Seen on TV\u003cbr\u003e Guns and Butter\u003cbr\u003e The Chemistry of Distance\u003cbr\u003e Course Correction\u003cbr\u003e Gold Chains and Squash Blossoms\u003cbr\u003e Wind in a Box\u003cbr\u003e Final Descent\u003cbr\u003e Resilience VII \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e Acknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Notes \u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"The Backwaters Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52600287461656,"sku":"9781496240088","price":13.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/locomotive-cathedral-paperback-softback-9781496240088","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}