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Poems and Prayers
by Herbert Knapp
by Herbert Knapp
The imagination of the poet is a reflection of his spiritual life. Myth and metaphor are the currency both of religion and poetry. Poetry is one of the most powerful domains in which religious expression takes place. And the same is true of music, drama, painting, and dance. Not all artists are religious persons or have a religious interest. But even if they do not and perhaps especially if they do not, art serves as a religion substitute.
—Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith
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Reading Weather
A Calendar Without Dates
by Herbert Knapp
We all know that in devious and crooked ways the weather influences what we read, and what we read influences how we feel about the weather—but the feelings that connect what we read to the weather are also influenced by a host of other things—personal things—which means that the connections aren’t amenable to scientific analysis. Connecting them is a job for poetry.A Calendar Without Dates
by Herbert Knapp
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Reading and Rhyming
by Herbert Knapp
We live in a clutter of flashing, flaring, flickering images which demand our attention. As a result, fewer people read books every year. However, there are still many people who are addicted to the printed word. They find refuge, inspiration, and solace in books. These poems are for them.by Herbert Knapp
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Aids to Reflection
Poems of Argument and Exposition
Pertaining to Free Will and Self-Reliance,
Memory, Identity, Evil, Success, The Soul, God, Beauty, Mortality, and the Hereafter
by Herbert Knapp
If poets don't want to be dismissed as hobbyists whose hobby is of no public significance, they need to write poems that challenge both the ideas and the rambling prose of philosophers, psychologists, and assorted pretentious pundits. The poems in this book do this.Poems of Argument and Exposition
Pertaining to Free Will and Self-Reliance,
Memory, Identity, Evil, Success, The Soul, God, Beauty, Mortality, and the Hereafter
by Herbert Knapp
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Hunting for the Plot
A Son's Search for His Family's Untold Stories
by Herbert Knapp
A Son's Search for His Family's Untold Stories
by Herbert Knapp
We are all born into history, not only the history of our country, but of our own families. The hopes and dreams, the fears and frustrations of our forebears thread their way through the generations, shaping in profound and unpredictable ways who we are. The trouble is, most of us don’t really know much about the stories of those who went before us. In an effort to understand his parents and his contentious relationship with them, the author set about to discover their stories and the stories of their parents and grandparents.
A moving biography of two people who overcame incredible personal hardships and whose long lives spanned the 20th century. They came of age during the emergence of the American middle class as people moved from small towns and farms into cities. This social movement accounted in large part for who they wanted to be and in fact became. They aspired to the American dream, and they achieved it, but at an expense they never really fully understood.
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Flying Backwards
1931 to 20—: a Life in Verse
by Herbert Knapp
Since I am not a politician, a movie star, a TV celebrity, a criminal, or a victim, Flying Backwards (1931–20—: A Life in Verse) contains no lurid revelations. Nor is it a narrative that zips people and events up together. It’s more like a series of buttons that hold together a story that is unstated but understood. The “buttons” range from wisecracks about my kindergarten teachers to my versions of those “spots of time” by which, according to Wordsworth, “our minds / Are nourished and invisibly repaired." — Herbert Knapp
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1931 to 20—: a Life in Verse
by Herbert Knapp
Since I am not a politician, a movie star, a TV celebrity, a criminal, or a victim, Flying Backwards (1931–20—: A Life in Verse) contains no lurid revelations. Nor is it a narrative that zips people and events up together. It’s more like a series of buttons that hold together a story that is unstated but understood. The “buttons” range from wisecracks about my kindergarten teachers to my versions of those “spots of time” by which, according to Wordsworth, “our minds / Are nourished and invisibly repaired." — Herbert Knapp
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Beating a Dead Stick
by Herbert Knapp
Barbara Butler teaches English in an urban high school in the 1980s where the students learn nothing and the faculty doesn’t care. Fed up with the collective dishonesty of her colleagues, she has decided to resign and tells the story of her last year of teaching in Beating a Dead Stick.
A student is raped in the book room but refuses to identify the rapist. Another student is murdered during a robbery at a convenience store near the school. There are rumors of a call-girl ring involving the students, but the faculty remains comically oblivious, and the administration insists all is well, even as the situation worsens.
When Barbara’s best friend, a transvestite math teacher, is beaten up but is too frightened to identify his attacker, she turns to a former student, now a grown-up detective, who helps discover the truth.
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Also available as an Audiobook from Audible
by Herbert Knapp
Barbara Butler teaches English in an urban high school in the 1980s where the students learn nothing and the faculty doesn’t care. Fed up with the collective dishonesty of her colleagues, she has decided to resign and tells the story of her last year of teaching in Beating a Dead Stick.
A student is raped in the book room but refuses to identify the rapist. Another student is murdered during a robbery at a convenience store near the school. There are rumors of a call-girl ring involving the students, but the faculty remains comically oblivious, and the administration insists all is well, even as the situation worsens.
When Barbara’s best friend, a transvestite math teacher, is beaten up but is too frightened to identify his attacker, she turns to a former student, now a grown-up detective, who helps discover the truth.
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Also available as an Audiobook from Audible
Did You See This?
Poems to Provoke the Politically Correct
by Herbert Knapp
Political correctness has stifled independent thought, hobbled the economy, turned sexual relationship into a minefield of legal liabilities, and neutered stand-up comedy. In response, poetry has clutched its pearls and hidden in its academic parlor. Poets tell themselves poetry is about feelings and the ineffable—eternal things—not transitory political disputes. It was not always so. In a more robust age (when poetry mattered) children didn’t run to the teacher but shouted back, “I’m rubber, you’re glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!”
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Poems to Provoke the Politically Correct
by Herbert Knapp
Political correctness has stifled independent thought, hobbled the economy, turned sexual relationship into a minefield of legal liabilities, and neutered stand-up comedy. In response, poetry has clutched its pearls and hidden in its academic parlor. Poets tell themselves poetry is about feelings and the ineffable—eternal things—not transitory political disputes. It was not always so. In a more robust age (when poetry mattered) children didn’t run to the teacher but shouted back, “I’m rubber, you’re glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!”
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Miracle on Fourth Street:
Saving an Old Merchant’s House
by Mary L. Knapp
This sequel to An Old Merchant’s House takes up the story of a family home built in 1832 after the last family member died in 1933, almost a hundred years later. It tells how the house became a museum and recounts the extraordinary efforts expended over the years to preserve it for posterity.
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Saving an Old Merchant’s House
by Mary L. Knapp
This sequel to An Old Merchant’s House takes up the story of a family home built in 1832 after the last family member died in 1933, almost a hundred years later. It tells how the house became a museum and recounts the extraordinary efforts expended over the years to preserve it for posterity.
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An Old Merchant’s House:
Life at Home in New York City, 1835-64
by Mary L. Knapp
This book offers an authentic view of the domestic life of privileged New Yorkers in the three decades before the Civil War. It is based on memoirs, diaries, letters, and a preserved antebellum home belonging to the same family for almost 100 years. The daily life and habits of that family and their neighbors are revealed in detail.
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Life at Home in New York City, 1835-64
by Mary L. Knapp
This book offers an authentic view of the domestic life of privileged New Yorkers in the three decades before the Civil War. It is based on memoirs, diaries, letters, and a preserved antebellum home belonging to the same family for almost 100 years. The daily life and habits of that family and their neighbors are revealed in detail.
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One Potato,Two Potato:
The Folklore of American Children
by Mary and Herbert Knapp
W.W. Norton
Children's traditional customs, rhymes, games, jeers, songs, superstitions, stories,and pranks help kids deal with feelings and taboo subjects that they can’t understand or talk about and to cope with the stresses of their lives. That’s the serious theme. Readers also find the book an amusing blast from the past as they recall their own childhoods. Remember cooties?
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The Folklore of American Children
by Mary and Herbert Knapp
W.W. Norton
Children's traditional customs, rhymes, games, jeers, songs, superstitions, stories,and pranks help kids deal with feelings and taboo subjects that they can’t understand or talk about and to cope with the stresses of their lives. That’s the serious theme. Readers also find the book an amusing blast from the past as they recall their own childhoods. Remember cooties?
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Next! Auditioning for the Musical Theatre
by Steven M. Alper
The perfect guide for any musical theater hopeful by a veteran New York City musical director, composer, and audition accompanist. Extensive do’s and don’ts, pitfalls to avoid, and rules you should never break. Chapters include music preparation: how to prepare the physical music; the piano player: what to expect from him; the song: what to sing, what not to sing; the audition: how to impress the people behind the table; and much more.
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by Steven M. Alper
The perfect guide for any musical theater hopeful by a veteran New York City musical director, composer, and audition accompanist. Extensive do’s and don’ts, pitfalls to avoid, and rules you should never break. Chapters include music preparation: how to prepare the physical music; the piano player: what to expect from him; the song: what to sing, what not to sing; the audition: how to impress the people behind the table; and much more.
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Red, White and Blue Paradise
The American Canal Zone in Panama
by Mary and Herbert Knapp
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Based on our 20 years experience teaching in the former Panama Canal Zone, this book is a combination personal memoir, historical record, and sociological study of an ambiguous American utopia that existed in Panama for three-quarters of the twentieth century. Now out of print, but a reasonably priced used copy can usually be obtained from Amazon.
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The American Canal Zone in Panama
by Mary and Herbert Knapp
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Based on our 20 years experience teaching in the former Panama Canal Zone, this book is a combination personal memoir, historical record, and sociological study of an ambiguous American utopia that existed in Panama for three-quarters of the twentieth century. Now out of print, but a reasonably priced used copy can usually be obtained from Amazon.
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