front cover of La Nouvelle France
La Nouvelle France
The Making of French Canada - A Cultural History
Peter N. Moogk
Michigan State University Press, 2000

On one level, Peter Moogk's latest book, La Nouvelle France: The Making of French Canada—A Cultural History, is a candid exploration of the troubled historical relationship that exists between the inhabitants of French- and English- speaking Canada. At the same time, it is a long- overdue study of the colonial social institutions, values, and experiences that shaped modern French Canada. Moogk draws on a rich body of evidence—literature; statistical studies; government, legal, and private documents in France, Britain, and North America— and traces the roots of the Anglo-French cultural struggle to the seventeenth century. In so doing, he discovered a New France vastly different from the one portrayed in popular mythology. French relations with Native Peoples, for instance, were strained. The colony of New France was really no single entity, but rather a chain of loosely aligned outposts stretching from Newfoundland in the east to the Illinois Country in the west. 
     Moogk also found that many early immigrants to New France were reluctant exiles from their homeland and that a high percentage returned to Europe. Those who stayed, the Acadians and Canadians, were politically conservative and retained Old Régime values: feudal social hierarchies remained strong; one's individualism tended to be familial, not personal; Roman Catholicism molded attitudes and was as important as language in defining Acadian and Canadian identities. It was, Moogk concludes, the pre-French Revolution Bourbon monarchy and its institutions that shaped modern French Canada, in particular the Province of Quebec, and set its people apart from the rest of the nation.

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The Lake Huron Ecosystem
Ecology, Fisheries and Management
M. Munawar
Michigan State University Press, 1995
Lake Huron is the second largest of the Great Lakes and the fifth largest lake in the world (surface area: 59,000 km2). It is also one of the least known lakes in the Great Lakes system in terms of limnology and food web dynamics. To rectify this, the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society organized an international symposium in September 1993, which they followed with the publication of this peer-reviewed book. In total, forty-five papers were presented during the conference on topics ranging from microbial ecology, the role of exotic species, and sediment toxicology, to fisheries and wildlife of Lake Huron and its basin. With few existing comprehensive reports on the limnology and fisheries of Lake Huron, this detailed book helps bridge the information gap by introducing a multidisciplinary and ecosystematic approach to Great Lake (particularly Lake Huron) research.
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Lakeshore Living
Designing Lake Places and Communities in the Footprints of Environmental Writers
Paul J. Radomski
Michigan State University Press, 2014
In this remarkable and remarkably accessible synthesis of ecology, landscape design, and social sciences, the authors present an approach to lakeshore living that addresses the need to create rich, sustainable places and communities on the water, where both the loon and the family find a place, and where the cabin can be handed down with integrity to the grandchildren. Fragile shorelands require care, and that caring comes from knowledge, experience, and an environmental ethic. Radomski and Van Assche argue that an environmentally sensitive lakeshore place and community design is the way forward. While many factors affect the quality of lakes and lakeshore living, property owners and local communities do not have to wait until policies are perfect: the design approach advocated here can be applied in any place people living lakeside can get together and collaborate. The approach presented here is proactive and context sensitive: new designs have to fit the existing ecological, cultural, and policy landscapes. Development is always re-development in this sense. The authors introduce the reader step-by-step to this approach and carefully discuss leverage points that can be helpful in implementation and system change.
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Land Ho! 1620
A Seaman's Story of the Mayflower, Her Construction, Her Navigation, and Her First Landfall
W. Sears Nickerson
Michigan State University Press, 1997

With an original 1931 press run of only seven hundred and fifty, surviving copies of Land Ho! 1620 are now either in archives or exist as valued collector's editions. Acclaimed by the Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association in 1957 as "the most authentic, interesting, and best written book on the voyage of the Pilgrims and their lives," Nickerson's work is now available in this handsome paperback edition, complete with all original illustrations and maps. Nickerson scholar Delores Bird Carpenter updated all one hundred and seventy- nine annotations, checking them against original sources. In addition, she has prepared a new bibliography and an extensive, new introduction that places Land Ho! 1620 into its historical and historiographical context.  
     Divided into four parts, the first describes "the Voyage"; the second, told with the skill of a shipbuilder, describes "the Ship," which includes drawings of the deck plan, the passenger quarters, and the elevation and the sail plan. Also included in this section are discussions of the ship's speed, instruments, and personnel. The Third, "the backside of Cape Cod," addresses the problem of where the Mayflower first saw land, and its subsequent course. Nickerson concludes with "the Landfall and the Landing." Of great significance is his map, The Back Side of Cape Cod Today—1930 and Yesterday—1620.

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Landlocked
Julia McConnell
Michigan State University Press, 2023
Lesbian bars, libraries, highways, churches, and oil rigs set the scenes for the poems in Landlocked. Whether at work or at play, the speakers in Landlocked live in the space between longing and belonging, wanderlust and homesickness, and explore the intersection of place and identity. In the era of “don’t say gay,” these poems provide a defiantly queer perspective on Oklahoma, one of the reddest of the red states, and its many contradictions.
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The Landscape of Rural Service Learning, and What It Teaches Us All
Randy Stoecker
Michigan State University Press, 2016
Up until now, the majority of literature about service learning has focused on urban areas, while comparatively little attention has been paid to activities in rural communities. The Landscape of Rural Service Learning, and What It Teaches Us All is designed to provide a comprehensive look at rural service learning. The practices that have developed in rural areas, partly because of the lack of nonprofits and other services found in urban settings, produce lessons and models that can help us all rethink the dominant forms of service learning defined by urban contexts. Where there are few formal organizations, people end up working more directly with one another; where there is a need for services in locations where they are unavailable, service learning becomes more than just an academic exercise or assignment. This volume includes theoretical frameworks that are informed by the rural, concrete stories that show how rural service learning has developed and is now practiced, practical strategies that apply across service learning contexts, and points to ponder as we all consider our next steps along the path of meaningful service learning.
 
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Late Self-Portraits
Mary Morris
Michigan State University Press, 2022
A compelling collection of poems, Late Self-Portraits conveys an intimate description of lives through a collage of portraits and affliction. Weaving history and the sacred, both intimate and worldly, one encounters a blind Jorge Luis Borges with his mother, a glass confessional in the of Notre Dame Cathedral, Frida Kahlo in Mexico, ghosts, a neurosurgeon’s prognosis, and Marie Laveau in New Orleans. Whether in a field with Joan of Arc, encountering the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, or having dinner with Hades, these are haunting poems of loss and unearthing, equally bold, personal, and tender.

From “Dinner with Hades”:

He shows me a birthday cake, candled. My name is written in pomegranate
seeds. It’s like vertigo. Just before he seeks to devour, he halts to birdsong—
sound of goldfinch, bluebird, hawk, lilting of sparrows. Of whippoorwill
and dove. Wings flap, so many wings, a cool breeze as leaves unfurl into a
once forgotten green and I am back on earth, held in my mother’s arms.
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Latinos and the 2012 Election
The New Face of the American Voter
Gabriel R. Sanchez
Michigan State University Press, 2015
In giving President Obama a record level of support (75 percent) and reaching a watershed 10 percent of the voting population, Latinos proved to be decisive in the 2012 election outcome—an unprecedented mark of influence for this segment of the wider electorate. This shift also signaled a radical reenvisioning of mobilization strategies by both parties and created a sea change in the way political organizations conduct outreach and engagement efforts. In this groundbreaking volume, experts in Latino politics ask: What is the scope of Latino voter influence, where does this electorate have the greatest impact, and what issues matter to them most? They examine a key national discussion—immigration reform—as it relates to voter behavior, and also explore the influence of Latinos within key states, including California, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Nevada, and Florida. While some of these states have traditionally had strong Latino voting blocs, in others Latinos are just emerging as major players electorally. The book also discusses the extent to which Latinos were mobilized during the 2012 campaign and analyzes election outcomes using new tools created by Latino Decisions. A blend of rigorous data analysis and organizational commentary, the book offers a variety of perspectives on the past, present, and future of the Latino electorate.
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Latinos and the 2016 Election
Latino Resistance and the Election of Donald Trump
Gabriel R. Sanchez
Michigan State University Press, 2020
The 2016 election saw more Latino votes than the record voter turnout of the 2012 election. The essays in this volume provide a highly detailed analysis of the state and national impact Latino voters had in what will be remembered as one of the biggest surprises in presidential election history. Contrary to much commentary, Latino voters increased their participation rates in all states beyond the supposed peak levels that they attained in 2012. Moreover, they again displayed their overwhelming support of Democratic candidates and even improved their Democratic support in Florida. Nonetheless, their continued presence and participation in national elections was not sufficient to prevent the election of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate who vilified Latinos and especially Latino immigrants. Each essay provides insights as to how these two competing realities coexist, while the conclusion addresses the implications of this coexistence for the future of Latinos in American politics.
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Latinos in Michigan
David A. Badillo
Michigan State University Press, 2003
The history of Latinos in Michigan is one of cultural diversity, institutional formation, and an ongoing search for leadership in the midst of unique, often intractable circumstances. Latinos have shared a vision of the American Dream--made all the more difficult by the contemporary challenge of cultural assimilation. The complexity of their local struggles, moreover, reflects far-reaching developments on the national stage, and suggests the outlines of a common identity. While facing adversity as rural and urban immigrants, exiles, and citizens, Latinos have contributed culturally, economically, and socially to many important developments in Michigan's history.
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Latinos in the Midwest
Rubén O. Martinez
Michigan State University Press, 2011
Over the past twenty years, the Latino population in the Midwest has grown rapidly, both in urban and rural areas. As elsewhere in the country, shifting demographics in the region have given rise to controversy and mixed reception. Where some communities have greeted Latinos openly, others have been more guarded. In spite of their increasing presence, Latinos remain the most marginalized major population group in the country. In coming years, the projected growth of this population will require greater attention from policymakers concerned with helping to incorporate them into the nation’s core institutions. This eye-opening collection of essays examines the many ways in which an increase in the Latino population has impacted the Midwest—culturally, economically, educationally, and politically. Drawing on studies, personal histories, legal rulings, and other sources, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach to an increasingly important topic in American society and offers a glimpse into the nation’s demographic future.
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Latvians in Michigan
Silvija D. Meija
Michigan State University Press, 2005

Latvians have contributed to the cultural mosaic and economy of Michigan far more than one might imagine. There are three large Latvian communities in Michigan—Kalamazoo, Detroit, and Grand Rapids—with several smaller enclaves elsewhere in the state. An underlying goal of Latvians who now live in Michigan, as well as other parts of the United States and Canada, is to maintain their language and culture. More than five thousand Latvians came to Michigan after World War II, found gainful employment, purchased homes, and became a part of the Michigan population. Most sought to reeducate themselves and struggled to educate their children in Michigan’s many colleges and universities. Latvians in Michigan examines Latvia and its history, and describes how World War II culminated in famine, death, and eventual flight from their homeland by many Latvian refugees. After the war ended, most Latvian emigrants eventually made their way to Sweden or Germany, where they lived in displaced persons camps. From there, the emigrants were sponsored by individuals or organizations and they moved once again to other parts of the world. Many came to the United States, where they established new roots and tried to perpetuate their cultural heritage while establishing new lives.

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Laughing Whitefish
Robert Traver
Michigan State University Press, 2011
Laughing Whitefish is an engrossing trail drama of ethnic hostility and the legal defense of Indian treaties. Young Lawyer William (Willy) Poe puts out a shingle in Marquette, Michigan, in 1873, hoping to meet a woman who will take him seriously. His first client, the alluring Charlotte Kawbawgam, known as Laughing Whitefish, offers an enticing challenge—a compelling case of injustice at the hands of powerful mining interests. Years earlier, Charlotte's father led the Jackson Mining Company to a lucrative iron ore strike, and he was then granted a small share in the mine, which the new owners refuse to honor. Willy is now Charlotte's sole recourse for justice. Laughing Whitefish is a gripping account of barriers between Indian people and their legal rights. These poignant conflicts are delicately wrought by the pre-eminent master of the trial thriller, the best-selling author of Anatomy of a Murder. This new edition includes a foreword by Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University, that contextualizes the novel and actual decisions of the Michigan Supreme Court ruling in favor of Charlotte.
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Learning in the Plural
Essays on the Humanities and Public Life
David D. Cooper
Michigan State University Press, 2014
Can civic engagement rescue the humanities from a prolonged identity crisis? How can the practices and methods, the conventions and innovations of humanities teaching and scholarship yield knowledge that contributes to the public good? These are just two of the vexing questions David D. Cooper tackles in his essays on the humanities, literacy, and public life. As insightful as they are provocative, these essays address important issues head-on and raise questions about the relevance and roles of humanities teaching and scholarship, the moral footings and public purposes of the humanities, engaged teaching practices, institutional and disciplinary reform, academic professionalism, and public scholarship in a democracy. Destined to stir discussion about the purposes of the humanities and the problems we face during an era of declining institutional support, public alienation and misunderstanding, student ambivalence, and diminishing resources, the questions Cooper raises in this book are uncomfortable and, in his view, necessary for reflection, renewal, and reform. With frank, deft assessments, Cooper reports on active learning initiatives that reenergized his own teaching life while reshaping the teaching mission of the humanities, including service learning, collaborative learning, the learning community movement, and student-centered and deliberative pedagogy.
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The Least of These
Todd Davis
Michigan State University Press, 2010

In his third collection of poems Todd Davis advises us that "the only corruption comes / in not loving this life enough." Over the course of this masterful and heartfelt book it becomes clear that Davis not only loves the life he's been given, but also believes that the ravishing desire of this world can offer hope, and even joy, however it might be negotiated.
     Drawing upon a range of stories from the Christian, Transcendental, and Asian traditions, as well as from his own deep understanding of the natural world, Davis explores the connection between the visible and invisible worlds, or what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called "the incandescent surface of matter plunged in God." 
     A direct poetic descendant of Walt Whitman, Davis invites us to sing "the songs we collect in the hymnals of our flesh- / impromptu, a cappella, our mouths flung open / in a great wide O."

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Let Burn
Rachel K. Wentz
Michigan State University Press, 2013
In 1985, desiring a meaningful, high-paced career in public service, Rachel Wentz left her university studies to become a firefighter/paramedic. Only the eighth woman hired by the Orlando Fire Department, a highly competitive department steeped in tradition, Wentz excelled, completing an AS in Fire Science, a master’s in public administration, and numerous specialized training courses to prepare her for an administrative position within the department. Wentz spent eleven years with OFD, experiencing a career that was every bit as exciting and challenging as she had sought. A moving, candid, and eloquent memoir, Let Burn recounts her experiences as a firefighter/paramedic, during which time she witnessed aspects of life and death few people are privy to, experiences that shaped her as a professional and as a person. From the rigorous demands of training to the extraordinary calls Wentz responded to, Let Burn details the gratifying aspects of the field, but also demonstrates the precarious nature of the job: a heated altercation at the scene of an industrial fire leads to Wentz losing almost everything she’s worked for and the dramatic end of a storied career. In vivid detail, Let Burn provides a firsthand glimpse into the hidden world of firefighting and emergency medicine.
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Letters from Robben Island
A Selection of Ahmed Kathrada's Prison Correspondence, 1964-1989
Robert D. Vassen
Michigan State University Press, 1999

Late one night in July, 1963, a South African police unit surrounded the African National Congress headquarters in Rivonia and arrested a group of Movement leaders gathered inside. Eventually eight of them, including Nelson Mandela, who was already serving a sentence, Walter Sisulu, Dennis Goldberg, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Elias Motsoledi, Andrew Mangeni, and Ahmed Kathrada, were convicted of sabotage and, on June 12, 1964, sentenced to life in prison. Soon, these men became widely known as the "Rivonia Trialists." Despite their imprisonment, the Trialists played active roles in the struggle against South Africa's racist regime. Instead of being forgotten, as apartheid officials had hoped, they became enduring symbols in a struggle against injustice and racism. 
     Kathrada and his colleagues were classified as high security prisoners, segregated from others and closely watched. Every activity was regulated and monitored. Among the many indignities visited upon them, the prisoners were prohibited from keeping copies of incoming and outgoing correspondence. Kathrada, or "Kathy" as he is known, successfully hid both. 
     Letters From Robben Island contains a selection of 86 of the more than 900 pieces of correspondence Ahmed Kathrada wrote during his 26 years on Robben Island and at Pollsmoor Prison. Some were smuggled out by friends; others were written in code to hide meaning and content from prison censors. These are among his most poignant, touching, and eloquent communications. They are testimonies to Kathrada, his colleagues, and to their commitment to obtaining human dignity and freedom for all South Africans.

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Liberation and Development
Black Consciousness Community Programs in South Africa
Leslie Anne Hadfield
Michigan State University Press, 2016
Liberation and Development: Black Consciousness Community Programs in South Africa is an account of the community development programs of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa. It covers the emergence of the movement’s ideas and practices in the context of the late 1960s and early 1970s, then analyzes how activists refined their practices, mobilized resources, and influenced people through their work. The book examines this history primarily through the Black Community Programs organization and its three major projects: the yearbook Black Review, the Zanempilo Community Health Center, and the Njwaxa leatherwork factory. As opposed to better-known studies of antipolitical, macroeconomic initiatives, this book shows that people from the so-called global South led development in innovative ways that promised to increase social and political participation. It particularly explores the power that youth, women, and churches had in leading change in a hostile political environment. With this new perspective on a major liberation movement, Hadfield not only causes us to rethink aspects of African history but also offers lessons from the past for African societies still dealing with developmental challenges similar to those faced during apartheid.
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Lies to Live By
Lois Beardslee
Michigan State University Press, 2003

Lies To Live By brings together two selections of stories by Ojibwe storyteller Lois Beardslee. “Lies to Live By,” a series of interdependent tales, reflects the storyteller’s role in interpreting traditional stories for contemporary audiences, while preserving traditions based not in mysticism but in pragmatism. In “Calm Days,” three generations—the narrator, her grandfather, and her son—spend a week together on a remote island during the course of which they demonstrate the continuity of Ojibwe life. Together these stories weave the contemporary and the traditional to show how cultural diversity can be preserved even as cultural boundaries are transcended.

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The Lieutenant of Kouta
Massa Makan Diabaté
Michigan State University Press, 2017
The Lieutenant of Kouta is the first novel in Massa Makan Diabaté’s award-winning trilogy. Featuring an introduction by leading Diabaté scholar Cheick M. Chérif Keïta and Shane Auerbach, it tells the story, part tragicomic and part hagiographic, of an African lieutenant in the French Army who returns as a decorated hero from the battlefields of Europe to Kouta, a fictionalized version of the author’s own birthplace, the Malian town of Kita. Upon his return, Siriman Keita finds it difficult to adjust to village life as he navigates traditional customs in his attempts to create his place in the predominantly Muslim Kouta. The novel offers a rich and nuanced representation of Mali on the brink of independence; it is a tapestry of traditional Mandinka society and the French colonial apparatus, illustrating the dynamic interplay between the two. This text is, ultimately, a story of one man’s transformation coinciding with that of his country.
 
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Life of Lidian Jackson Emerson
Delores Bird Carpenter
Michigan State University Press, 2012
Ellen Tucker Emerson's biography of her mother, Lidian Jackson Emerson, provides important insights into the life of Ralph Waldo Emerson's wife of 46 years. Delores Bird Carpenter has carefully edited this narrative to enhance continuity and to ensure completeness.
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The Light People
A Novel
Gordon Henry
Michigan State University Press, 1994

The Light People is a multi-genre novel that includes a series of nested stories about a tribal community in Northern Minnesota. Major themes include Oskinaway’s search for his parents and the legal wrangling over the possession of a leg that has been removed from a tribal elder. Each story is linked to previous and successive stories to form a discourse on identity and cultural appropriation, all told with humor and wisdom.
     Taking inspiration from traditional Anishinabe stories and drawing from his own family's storytelling tradition, Gordon Henry, Jr., has woven a tapestry of interlocking narratives in The Light People, a novel of surpassing emotional strength. His characters tell of their experiences, dreams, and visions in a multitude of literary styles and genres. Poetry, drama, legal testimony, letters, and essays combine with more conventional narrative techniques to create a multifaceted, deeply rooted, and vibrant portrait of the author's own tribal culture. Keenly aware of Eurocentric views of that culture, Henry offers a "corrective history" where humor and wisdom transcend the political. 
    In the contemporary Minnesota village of Four Bears, on the mythical Fineday Reservation, a young Chippewa boy named Oskinaway is trying to learn the whereabouts of his parents. His grandparents turn for help to a tribal elder, one of the light people, Jake Seed. Seed's assistant, a magician who performs at children's birthday parties, tells Oskinaway's family his story, which gives way to the stories of those he encounters. Narratives unfold into earlier narratives, spinning back in time and encompassing the intertwined lives of the Fineday Chippewas, eventually revealing the place of Oskinaway and his parents in a complex web of human relationships.

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Lithuanians in Michigan
Marius K. Grazulis
Michigan State University Press, 2009

In Lithuanians in Michigan Marius Grazulis recounts the history of an immigrant group that has struggled to maintain its identity. Grazulis estimates that about 20 percent of the 1.6 million Lithuanians who immigrated to the United States arrived on American shores between 1860 and 1918.
     While first-wave immigrants stayed mostly on the east coast, by 1920 about one-third of newly immigrated Lithuanians lived in Michigan, working in heavy industry and mining.
     With remarkable detail, Grazulis traces the ways these groups have maintained their ethnic identity in Michigan in the face of changing demographics in their neighborhoods and changing interests among their children, along with the challenges posed by newly arriving "modern" Lithuanian immigrants, who did not read the same books, sing the same songs, celebrate the same holidays, or even speak the same language that previous waves of Lithuanian immigrants had preserved in America. Anyone interested in immigrant history will find Lithuanians in Michigan simultaneously familiar, fascinating, and moving.

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Living in the Land of Death
The Choctaw Nation, 1830-1860
Donna L. Akers
Michigan State University Press, 2004

With the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Choctaw people began their journey over the Trail of Tears from their homelands in Mississippi to the new lands of the Choctaw Nation. Suffering a death rate of nearly 20 percent due to exposure, disease, mismanagement, and fraud, they limped into Indian Territory, or, as they knew it, the Land of the Dead (the route taken by the souls of Choctaw people after death on their way to the Choctaw afterlife). Their first few years in the new nation affirmed their name for the land, as hundreds more died from whooping cough, floods, starvation, cholera, and smallpox.
     Living in the Land of the Dead depicts the story of Choctaw survival, and the evolution of the Choctaw people in their new environment. Culturally, over time, their adaptation was one of homesteads and agriculture, eventually making them self-sufficient in the rich new lands of Indian Territory. Along the Red River and other major waterways several Choctaw families of mixed heritage built plantations, and imported large crews of slave labor to work cotton fields. They developed a sub-economy based on interaction with the world market. However, the vast majority of Choctaws continued with their traditional subsistence economy that was easily adapted to their new environment.
     The immigrant Choctaws did not, however, move into land that was vacant. The U.S. government, through many questionable and some outright corrupt extralegal maneuvers, chose to believe it had gained title through negotiations with some of the peoples whose homelands and hunting grounds formed Indian Territory. Many of these indigenous peoples reacted furiously to the incursion of the Choctaws onto their rightful lands. They threatened and attacked the Choctaws and other immigrant Indian Nations for years. Intruding on others’ rightful homelands, the farming-based Choctaws, through occupation and economics, disrupted the traditional hunting economy practiced by the Southern Plains Indians, and contributed to the demise of the Plains ways of life.

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Louise Erdrich's Justice Trilogy
Cultural and Critical Contexts
Connie A. Jacobs
Michigan State University Press, 2021
Louise Erdrich is one of the most important, prolific, and widely read contemporary Indigenous writers. Here leading scholars analyze the three critically acclaimed recent novels—The Plague of Doves (2008), The Round House (2012), and LaRose (2016)—that make up what has become known as Erdrich’s “justice trilogy.” Set in small towns and reservations of northern North Dakota, these three interwoven works bring together a vibrant cast of  characters whose lives are shaped by history, identity, and community. Individually and collectively, the essays herein illuminate Erdrich’s storytelling abilities; the complex relations among crime, punishment, and forgiveness that characterize her work; and the Anishinaabe contexts that underlie her presentation of character, conflict, and community. The volume also includes a reader’s guide to each novel, a glossary, and an interview with Erdrich that will aid in readers’ navigation of the justice novels. These timely, original, and compelling readings make a valuable contribution to Erdrich scholarship and, subsequently, to the study of Native literature and women’s authorship as a whole.
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Love Is My Savior
The Arabic Poems of Rumi
Nesreen Rumi
Michigan State University Press, 2016
This new volume of Rumi’s works, the first-ever English translation of his Arabic poems, will be exciting for the newcomer to Rumi’s verses as well as to readers already familiar with his mystical philosophy. The poems take the reader on a journey of spiritual exploration, ecstatic union, cruel rejection, and mystic reconciliation. Rumi reveals his soul and welcomes everyone to his spiritual feast.
This dual-language volume opens a treasury of Rumi’s mystic thought and startling poetry. His verses pulsate with desire and longing, with sensuality, and with ecstatic celebration. Rumi found in his mystic poetry a vehicle for the expression of the endless spiritual bounties of love. He placed love at the center of his faith and doctrine, and he pronounced it to be the goal of his life and the only form of true worship. This collection is stunningly rendered in English by an award-winning poet and a distinguished translator of Arabic poetry.
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The Luck of the Fall
Jim Ray Daniels
Michigan State University Press, 2023
In The Luck of the Fall, characters get lost; they fall, but the falls shape their lives in ways that might even be called “lucky”—if luck is defined as survival, despite the scars left behind. They take consolation in their lack of prizes, in the clarity of their failures, while approaching the future with gallows humor and faith in cynicism. Some stories read like dramatic monologues in the longer play of lives along Eight Mile Road on the edge of Detroit, a landmark location throughout Daniels’s six other fiction collections. Among the looming hulks of abandoned factories, near-nihilistic lives struggle in the absence of the comforting shadows those factories provided. Some keep score, some don’t, as they search for validation, however brief, before the curtain comes down and anonymity returns. COVID shows up with its masked consequences, along with addiction, divorce, unwanted pregnancy, and mental illness. None of these characters fit in, but all are trying to keep from being squeezed out entirely. In The Luck of the Fall, the logic of the heart wins out, even as the characters are picking up the pieces of their broken lives, looking for something shiny called hope.
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