'We Learn to Swim in Winter' is Released

The renowned philosopher and psychologist William James believed that one learns by incorporating bodily knowledge, the way one recalls how to swim in winter. One recalls by muscle memory. One adapts and form habits from one's daily experiences. This insight helps shape Paul Lacey's new poetry book, "We Learn to Swim in Winter".

Poetry invites one to look closely as a visual artist sees things, paying respectful attention to people, animals and nature. It teaches one to see well, to meditate on and celebrate what one sees. "We Learn to Swim in Winter" gives voice to memories of family and friends who enrich the inner meanings of one's life. They are present in everyone's lives and draw out emotions of joy, laughter, the pleasure of companionship and the truth of grief. Here are poems closely observing "war remnants' in Vietnam, homeless people in freezing weather, a prisoner in prolonged solitary confinement, recording participation in political demonstrations. Telling the truth about those lives is an ethical responsibility.

His poem Winter Postcard reads:
"Winter Postcard
From the plane the world is monochrome
to the horizon. Snow sculpts nubby
undulations of pasture, wind-cut hillocks,
water-courses' long smooth half-moons,
stubble rows like bones beneath the skin.
Black dense circles of evergreens,
grey tweed of woodlots.
Like pewter mirrors, the ponds
give back no light.
And through the snow one long
red field, a stain, an accent, the artist's
chop on an ancient Chinese painting."

"We learn to swim in Winter" is a well written poetry book that shows one man's observations on life.

This book will be featured at this year's Public Library Association Book Exhibit in Indianapolis, IN, on March 11-15, 2014. For more information, log on to http://www.Xlibris.com.

For more information on this book, interested parties may log on to http://www.Xlibris.com.

About the Author
Paul Lacey is an emeritus professor of English at Earlham College. He is Literary Executor and Co-editor of the Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, New Direction Books, in press.He and his wife are the parents of three children.

We Learn to Swim in Winter* by Paul Lacey
Publication Date: October 8, 2013
Trade Paperback; $15.99; 97 pages; 978-1-4931-0282-2
Trade Hardback; $24.99; 97 pages; 978-1-4931-0283-9
e-book; $3.99; 978-1-4931-0284-6

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