Both books were recommended by Donald Miller at the FPU Lecture that I went to recently. The first is Sailing Alone Around the Room, by Billy Collins. It's "a landmark collection of new and selected poems..." all of which I find are all the more satisfying when read aloud, which I suppose is true of most poetry. It's poetry for the everyday person, keeping a safe distance away from overly complex descriptions and puzzling mouthfulls of analysis. Reading Collins is like singing the melody of a huge symphony piece, it's the simple beauty surrounded by the cacophany of even greater, yet uncontainable beauty.Some of my favorites:
-My Number -The Rival Poet -Vade Mecum -On Turning Ten -The Blues -Man In Space -Splitting Wood -Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles
On to review number 2.
Man in Black by Johnny Cash
The book focuses mainly on the relationship between Cash's addiction to pills and his walk of faith. Essentially, it's his testimony. Man in Black starts at Cash's childhood telling stories of church and the influence of his older brother's faith and death, follows his love of music and introduction into the music industry, and then spiral into pill addiction, reaching his rock bottom point and recovery / repentance to a more serious relationship with Jesus, performing for the armed forces, then finishing with the story of writing and producing a movie about Jesus in the holy land (The Gospel Road, thanks Netflix). Lyrics of songs Cash and others have written show up throughout the chapters including some by Kris Kristofferson.
Some of my favorite stories include Cash's meeting younger stars Merle Haggard and Charlie Pride. His faith comes across as genuine and his vulnerability is almost limitless. He tells of multiple times driving through the woods in his jeep completely high on pills, getting arrested seven times, having to cancel concerts, and getting kicked out of the Grand Ole Opry.
I was surprised to learn about how much Gospel music was a part of all of his shows and so many of those in the music entertainment industry. As well, in his own words, Cash seems much more Christian and spiritual than the media portrays, I remember nothing in Walk the Line highlighting his faith.
Man in Black was published in 1975, almost 30 years before his death. I'd be interested to read some of the new auto biographies that have come out recently. Overall, I really did enjoy the book, Cash is a decent enough writer, he sometimes jumps back a few years or fills in a time-line of a particular event and I occasionally got lost. My guess is that if someone isn't already interested in Cash's life the stories may not be compelling enough to keep interest. But come on, who isn't interested at least a litte by Johnny Cash?
