{"product_id":"parmenides-in-minneapolis-9781961822214","title":"Parmenides in Minneapolis","description":"\u003cp\u003eParmenides in Minneapolis is a book-length sequence of poems which employ, for the most part, a 9-line stanza, featuring a rhyme scheme [a-b-a-b-c-a-b-c-a] which is very roughly modeled on the logical structure of the argument presented in the ancient poetic fragments (untitled) of the pre-Socratic poet-philosopher Parmenides of Elea. This book is the first volume of a projected longer work, which has the preliminary title of \u003cem\u003eShield of Mnemosyne.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eParmenides in Minneapolis \u003c\/em\u003eis the outcome of a first encounter, relatively late in life, with the eponymous poet-philosopher from Elea (an ancient Greek city located in southern Italy, near present-day Naples). Upon reading these ancient fragmentary writings I was immediately struck by their fusion of poetry and philosophy: a flinty, adamantine quest for ultimate truth, couched in a poetic speech of fabulous, mythical, dramatic intensity. Parmenides' narrated encounter with the fearsome, awe-inspiring Goddess of the Sun, driving her four horses - who leads him beyond an inherently fraudulent, illusory human condition, onto the Way of absolute Truth - quickly brought to mind Dante's parallel encounter with the immortal Beatrice in his \u003cem\u003eDivina Commedia\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eParmenides' forthright quest, aided by divine powers, took place during an age of tumultuous change in his Mediterranean world. So in this work, I attempt to yoke together thought and poetry, metaphysics and politics, in response to a sense of terrible upheaval and crisis - presenting an ominous threat to my own seemingly ordered, civilized, American world of democracy, law and power. My poems plunge into a similar poetic idiom of judgement and imagination - yet yoked to my own ordinary, local \"Minneapolis\" actuality, tangled in a time of moral uncertainty and political corruption - of inescapable suffering and calamity. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Contubernales\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/16\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781961822214\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 100\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.32lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.21d","brand":"Henry Gould","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52161392574645,"sku":"9781961822214","price":12.74,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_dd3a0538-4780-4428-b7be-b34a6fc15e5d.jpg?v=1768318261","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/parmenides-in-minneapolis-9781961822214","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}