{"title":"Russell Thornton","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the thought-provoking poetry of Russell Thornton. Exploring themes of nature, mythology, and the human condition, his collections offer a rich and rewarding reading experience. Start your discovery now.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"studying-native-america-book-russell-thornton-9780299160647","title":"Studying Native America","description":"Scholars from a variety of fields have contributed to this volume to explore what Native American studies has been, what it is, and what it may be in the future.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49635599548689,"sku":"GOR013752560","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50507659411729,"sku":"CIN0299160645VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52585068101905,"sku":"NLS9780299160647","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0299160645.jpg?v=1763224382"},{"product_id":"white-light-of-tomorrow-book-russell-thornton-9781990776533","title":"The White Light of Tomorrow","description":"\u003cp\u003eA masterful new collection from award-winning poet Russell Thornton.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith intense lyricism, Thornton records his imaginative movement between the element of water, waking to \"the aloneness of water,\" and the phenomenon of light, comprehending \"light\" as \"fate\" and \"love\" as \"memory of light.\" In the process, Thornton highlights how hard lives can manifest beauty and affirmation. A mother transcends degrading circumstances through laughter. A long-lost father's drafting set case is a \"coffin,\" its tools a \"skeleton;\" his \"ashes are buried\" in the poet's \"arm.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRevelations of nature abound. Thornton's rainy locale lifts onto the mythical level, water \"wrapping around\" him, \"holding\" him \"complete \/ as within womb water about to break.\" Herons' wings \"span the countless characters\" of a creek.\" A description of an ancient BC site is a rapt engagement with Indigenous petroglyphs. An exploration of a Song of Songs passage details \"light ... one with turns of the yarn\" of a shawl, \"a touch within a touch.\" Classical myth informs a poem about a power outage; the speaker enters \"the elsewhere of the night\" to build a fire.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePassionate and moving, this collection marks a fine advance in Thornton's expanding poetic output.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49783663788305,"sku":"GOR013783087","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50995305644305,"sku":"NIN9781990776533","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1990776531.jpg?v=1751187935"},{"product_id":"american-indian-holocaust-and-survival-book-russell-thornton-9780806122205","title":"American Indian Holocaust and Survival","description":"This demographic overview of North American Indian history describes in detail the holocaust that, even today, white Americans tend to dismiss as an unfortunate concomitant of Manifest Destiny. They wish to forget that, as Euro-Americans invaded North America and prospered in the \"\"New World,\"\" the numbers of native peoples declined sharply; entire tribes, often in the space of a few years, were \"\"wiped from the face of the earth.\"\"   The fires of the holocaust that consumed American Indians blazed in the fevers of newly encountered diseases, the flash of settlers' and soldiers' guns, the ravages of \"\"firewater,\"\" and the scorched-earth policies of the white invaders. Russell Thornton describes how the holocaust had as its causes disease, warfare and genocide, removal and relocation, and destruction of aboriginal ways of life.     Until recently most scholars seemed reluctant to speculate about North American Indian populations in 1492. In this book Thornton discusses in detail how many Indians there were, where they had come from, and how modern scholarship in many disciplines may enable us to make more accurate estimates of aboriginal populations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49876041662737,"sku":"CIN080612220XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52537130877201,"sku":"NLS9780806122205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52783986802961,"sku":"GOR004848090","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53448694497553,"sku":"CIN080612220XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/080612220X.jpg?v=1767352908"},{"product_id":"cherokees-book-russell-thornton-9780803294103","title":"The Cherokees","description":"The Cherokees: A Population History is the first full-length demographic study of an American Indian group from the protohistorical period to the present. Thornton shows the effects of disease, warfare, genocide, miscegenation, removal and relocation, and destruction of traditional lifeways on the Cherokees. He discusses their mysterious origins, their first contact with Europeans (prob-ably in 1540), and their fluctuation in population during the eighteenth century, when the Old World brought them smallpox. The toll taken by massive relocations in the following century, most notably the removal of the Cherokees from the Southeast to In-dian Territory, and by warfare, predating the American Revolution and including the Civil War, also enters into Thornton's calculations. He goes on to measure the resurgence of the Cherokees in the twentieth century, focusing on such population centers as North Carolina, Oklahoma, and California.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50362259931409,"sku":"CIN0803294107G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007664455953,"sku":"NIN9780803294103","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53049803211025,"sku":"CIN0803294107VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":53096286617873,"sku":"CIN0803294107A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0803294107.jpg?v=1761389506"},{"product_id":"broken-face-book-russell-thornton-9781550178449","title":"The Broken Face","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe poems in The Broken Face explore a sacramental, imaginative vision within contexts of crime, perception, memory and love. In this collection, Russell Thornton returns to the vital themes of intimacy and family, loss, fear and hope, bringing to each poem the essential quality of a myth or incantation. Reverent and revealing, within those familiar relationships he ushers in a connection with something transcendent: \"A man has come floundering late in the night \/ to stand alone at the shore of a sleeping infant's face.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe poems capture life at the periphery, whether describing homelessness or incarceration, or even the universal experiences of aging and mortality, love and fear of love, all of which bring the speaker into a detached yet energized state of watching and waiting: \"the door that was my grandfather into our passing lives \/ will arrive at a house where each of us is his own door \/ that opens on our first selves, fundamental together.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith intense lyricism, Thornton displays a mastery of craft so complete as to be nearly invisible. While stunningly beautiful, his imagery is also in such complete service to the deeper emotional resonance of each poem that it feels inevitable, and contributes to making the collection deeply moving.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50389216395537,"sku":"CIN155017844XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50698151624977,"sku":"NGR9781550178449","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52681026404625,"sku":"NLS9781550178449","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/155017844X.jpg?v=1750829607"},{"product_id":"answer-to-blue-book-russell-thornton-9781550179675","title":"Answer to Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003eA masterful new collection by award-winning poet Russell Thornton.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn \"Greek Fire,\" one of the poems in Russell Thornton's astonishing new collection, the central image is of fire burning through water: \"water is a bridge \/ for a fire to come into the world.\" This image also illuminates the driving force that animates the poems in \u003ci\u003eAnswer to Blue\u003c\/i\u003e. The stillness and quiet depth characteristic of Thornton's poetry are here shot through with an irresistible vitality, a flame of mythic resonance.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe past, both ancient and recent, exerts a gravitational pull throughout the collection, with Greek myths, family histories and biblical passages unearthed and examined, forgotten and returned to, giving way in a cyclical rhythm to the transient presence of young children and the death of a parent. With a clarity that pierces through the mist of daily routine, Thornton gives attention to transitional states, pausing at the often rushed-through moments of change, and also examines the phenomenon of perception itself.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis collection's response to D.H. Lawrence's question--\"Oh what in you can answer to this blueness?\"--is both an answer and a challenge, an achievement of beauty that contains the seed of something more enduring and sacred.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50389295169809,"sku":"CIN1550179675G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52344723243281,"sku":"NLS9781550179675","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1550179675.jpg?v=1751150169"},{"product_id":"we-shall-live-again-book-russell-thornton-9780521034524","title":"We Shall Live Again","description":"This study of the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements among North American Indians offers an innovative theory about why these movements arose when they did. Emphasizing the demographic situation of American Indians prior to the movements, Professor Thornton argues that the Ghost Dances were deliberate efforts to accomplish a demographic revitalization of American Indians following their virtual collapse. By joining the movements, he contends, tribes sought to assure survival by increasing their numbers through returning the dead to life. Thornton supports this thesis empirically by closely examining the historical context of the two movements and by assessing tribal participation in them, revealing particularly how population size and decline influenced participation among and within American Indian tribes. He also considers American Indian population change after the Ghost Dance periods and shows that participation in the movements actually did lead the way to a demographic recovery for certain tribes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52121263767825,"sku":"NLS9780521034524","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52990327324945,"sku":"NIN9780521034524","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521034524.jpg?v=1757429908"},{"product_id":"we-shall-live-again-book-russell-thornton-9780521328944","title":"We Shall Live Again","description":"This study of the 1870 and 1890 Ghost Dance movements among North American Indians offers an innovative theory about why these movements arose when they did. Emphasizing the demographic situation of American Indians prior to the movements, Professor Thornton argues that the Ghost Dances were deliberate efforts to accomplish a demographic revitalization of American Indians following their virtual collapse. By joining the movements, he contends, tribes sought to assure survival by increasing their numbers through returning the dead to life. Thornton supports this thesis empirically by closely examining the historical context of the two movements and by assessing tribal participation in them, revealing particularly how population size and decline influenced participation among and within American Indian tribes. He also considers American Indian population change after the Ghost Dance periods and shows that participation in the movements actually did lead the way to a demographic recovery for certain tribes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52144797221137,"sku":"NLS9780521328944","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521328944.jpg?v=1757590609"},{"product_id":"birds-metals-stones-and-rain-book-russell-thornton-9781550176018","title":"Birds, Metals, Stones and Rain","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe crows pick at the waste on the asphalt.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The men push jingling shopping carts. Or stand and mimic life\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e in a prison yard. The wild white swan is dead. Where I caught\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e trout as a child, no trout swim now. The drives\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e and crescents gouge ravines, make creeks disappear. Where wild\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e baby fish run, they run the gauntlet of penned fish. They are eaten alive . . .\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e --from \"Nest of the Swan's Bones\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Russell Thornton's latest collection of poems, \u003ci\u003eBirds, Metals, Stones and Rain\u003c\/i\u003e, explores powerful, primary human relationships through images of two worlds: the natural and the urban industrial.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Simple grass is the iron of an invisible forging within nature that involves the human creative consciousness. A scavenger alley crow is the universal creative spirit in brutal primordial disguise. A murderously violent father and son are integrated into a single new man who walks \"bright as a song in the air.\" A young daughter flings up her arms to seagulls that \"collect up the world, opening it like a door.\" An infant son fights the \"anger in him ... the death ... with the heaven in living flailing hands.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Intensely personal, \u003ci\u003eBirds, Metals, Stones and Rain\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how essential human identity reinitiates human consciousness in a participatory universe.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Russell Thornton writes some of the most skillfully crafted lyrics in Canada.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e --Chris Banks, winner of the Jack Chalmers Poetry Award","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52451262103825,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52451263217937,"sku":"NLS9781550176018","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781550176018.jpg?v=1759361076"},{"product_id":"house-built-of-rain-book-russell-thornton-9781550172812","title":"House Built of Rain","description":"Russell Thornton has the rare ability to be both keenly observant of the minute details of his environment and intensely introspective. His poetry is full of startling images that will stay with you long after turning the final page.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eHouse Built of Rain\u003c\/i\u003e, Thornton takes his readers on a dizzying journey of human experience - from the yearning of a young child to the sorrow of an adult losing a loved one to Alzheimer's. He covers a lot of ground along the way, witnessing prostitutes \"counting out their smiles,\/ and hiding in their pupils\" or hiking to the mouth of the Capilano River where \"the gulls know how the waters of this place can run two ways at once.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Thornton writes about extremes: the moment of conception and the moment of death, tranquil forests and smoky urban bars, abuse and tenderness. Concerned but never pessimistic, fierce but compassionate, narrative but lyrical, \u003ci\u003eHouse Built of Rain\u003c\/i\u003e is a balanced collection of work that reveals Thornton's considerable talents as a wordsmith. Though his poems are often dark and edgy, he shows us beauty in a scream, ecstasy in violence and, in a dying breath, the universe.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52666135150865,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52666135544081,"sku":"NLS9781550172812","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781550172812.jpg?v=1762279158"},{"product_id":"human-shore-book-russell-thornton-9781550173857","title":"The Human Shore","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe Human Shore\u003c\/i\u003e is an accomplished collection of poems both grittily real and spiritual, the follow-up to Russell Thornton's critically acclaimed \u003ci\u003eHouse Built of Rain.\u003c\/i\u003e Whether describing a tidal wave, a train yard, or the ravaging effects of a wildfire, Thornton's work is arresting and masterful. The poet covers a wide variety of places and subjects, including a woman and her child in Thessaloniki, rats in a basement, a BC river \"grind[ing] mountains down to tears\" and catacombs in Lima, where \"human corpses were bulldozed \/ tumbling over and under one another like adult rag dolls.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Barry Dempster has called Thornton's poems \"expansive, exquisitely detailed, eloquently transformative\" and Patrick Lane deems them \"impeccable in their craft.\" By turns elegant and shocking--and often both at once--\u003ci\u003eThe Human Shore,\u003c\/i\u003e promises to leave an indelible mark on Canadian poetry.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52679850328337,"sku":"NLS9781550173857","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781550173857.jpg?v=1762311630"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-russell-thornton.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}