Jay Amberg's Blog

“Authentic… Wholly engrossing…one of the best books I’ve read this year… Very, very well done.” —Asher Syed

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On this International Tolerance Day, Amika Press is proud to announce the publication of Baby Moses by John Cowlin. Though the novel is set in the American South in the 1950s, the story still resonates today.

Advanced reviews of Baby Moses have been fantastic. Read on for quotes and more about the book. We hope you enjoy our newest release. It is truly breathtaking.

“A riveting page-turner… Compelling… Flows beautifully… It is absolute perfection… Brilliant.” —Lesley Jones

“Stunning… Realistic… Unforgettable… Intense and suspenseful… Superbly written… The characters are so real that I felt I knew them… Thrilling… Amazingly breathtaking!” —Susan Sewell

“An engrossing adventure, a series of social revelations, and a probe of one man’s…lasting search for justice over revenge.… A gem of a story.” —Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

It’s the 1950s. The American South. And Moses is returning home. After years away, he’s visiting Miss Clio, the woman who found him as a baby in a basket on a creek mudbank.

Harve and Enos are a couple of hardscrabble losers making time at the local Grain & Feed. They need nineteen dollars to pay back the boys at the V.F.W. so they can get back in Friday night’s card game. They hatch a plan—grab a shotgun and rob a Black church during Sunday service. What they do know is that the plan is foolproof and that absolutely nothing can go wrong. What they don’t know is Moses—or what he has in his duffel.…

READ MORE AND BUY NOW ON AMAZON OR AMIKAPRESS.COM

The Healer’s Daughters is free on Kindle, today through October 23. You can download the book here.

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Amika Press is releasing a revised and redesigned edition of Cycle, my compilation of four stories about environmental issues in our world. When Cycle was first published in 2012, Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “an inspiring call to action.” The book was a Literary Classics Gold Medal Winner and a Living Now Evergreen Book Award Winner.

In this moment of multiple national crises, we cannot ignore the serious ongoing environmental problems we continue to face. The current federal administration has used the cover of both the pandemic and the civil unrest to undermine the nation’s environmental laws and weaken existing regulations.

Please read Cycle (again, if you have already). Please listen to the four voices that speak in the stories. Give the book to family and friends, colleagues and neighbors. I would very much like to talk with anyone about the themes and issues in the book.

In addition, I will be donating 100% of my author royalties to The Nature Conservancy. Cycle is available for purchase, directly from Amika Press, here: https://amikapress.com/books/cycle. And on Amazon, as a paperback and an ebook, here: https://amzn.to/2O1YWcp.

This poem is always new. Thanks to J Voris for the photo.

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maggie and milly and molly and may

by e. e. cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may

went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang

so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star

whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing

which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone

as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)

it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

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How about a brighter selection from 52 Poems for Men. Image by Sharon Wirt.

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Pied Beauty

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

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Here’s another from 52 Poems for Men. Photograph is by James Orr.

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The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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This poem was given to me when I retired from teaching at Glenbrook South High School. While it’s not included in 52 Poems for Men, it’s still one of my favorites. Painting by Regina Roland.

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Lines on Retirement, after Reading Lear

by David Wright

for Richard Pacholski

Avoid storms. And retirement parties.

You can’t trust the sweetnesses your friends will

offer, when they really want your office,

which they’ll redecorate. Beware the still

untested pension plan. Keep your keys. Ask

for more troops than you think you’ll need. Listen

more to fools and less to colleagues. Love your

youngest child the most, regardless. Back to

storms: dress warm, take a friend, don’t eat the grass,

don’t stand near tall trees, and keep the yelling

down—the winds won’t listen, and no one will

see you in the dark. It’s too hard to hear

you over all the thunder. But you’re not

Lear, except that we can’t stop you from what

you’ve planned to do. In the end, no one leaves

the stage in character—we never see

the feather, the mirror held to our lips.

So don’t wait for skies to crack with sun. Feel

the storm’s sweet sting invade you to the skin,

the strange, sore comforts of the wind. Embrace

your children’s ragged praise and that of friends.

Go ahead, take it off, take it all off.

Run naked into tempests. Weave flowers

into your hair. Bellow at cataracts.

If you dare, scream at the gods. Babble as

if you thought words could save. Drink rain like cold

beer. So much better than making theories.

We’d all come with you, laughing, if we could.

I intend to keep posting poems from 52 Poems for Men and elsewhere. I hope you are reading (and/or writing) your own truths, now more than ever. Happy May Day.

Mother to Son

by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

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Photography by .

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Tag’s Cafe is located at 2012 Central St, in Evanston. They are a friendly breakfast and lunch addition to the already wonderful Tag’s Bakery. You can order online here or by calling 847 859 2027. Remember to add a cookie.

Let’s visit with one more goddess. Here is Cybele.

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The introduction to this thorough and fascinating article describes her well:

Cybele (Greek Κυβέλη) was a Phrygian goddess originating in the mythology of ancient Anatolia, whose worship spread to the cities of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. She represented the Mother Earth and was worshiped as a goddess of fertility, nature, caverns, and mountains, as well as walls and fortresses. Like other ancient goddesses, such as Gaia (the “Earth”), she was known as potnia theron, referring to her ancient Neolithic roots as “Mistress of the Animals.”

The goddess was known among the Greeks as Meter (“Mother”) or Meter oreie (“Mountain-Mother”), possibly in connection to the myth that she was born on Mount Ida in Anatolia. Her Roman equivalent was Magna Mater, or “Great Mother.” Additionally, she was worshiped as a deity of rebirth in connection with her consort (and son), Attis.

Cybele was a pivotal influence on The Healer’s Daughters. She is included in the itinerary for a proposed Goddess Tour to Turkey; read the article for an idea of how present goddesses are in Turkish culture.

Above artwork is by Amanda Lindupp. You can see more at her Etsy shop.

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