Resonating Distances by Richard von Sturmer
$30.00
200mm x 140mm / 150pp
ISBN: 978-1-877441-18-9
Resonating Distances is a work of complexity made out of simplicity. Each of the five sections consists of ten three or four part tanka sequences; from which the nouns have been excerpted and then employed as seeds with which to write the ten prose pieces which follow; in a disciplined yet strangely invisible manner.
The two forms swim alongside each other like eels in a stream; they walk together like lovers under an umbrella in the rain. The tanka flow from image to perception and back again. The prose pieces tell stories we seem to have heard before but not, in their brevity and their mystery, the way we hear them here.
— Martin Edmond
“In Richard von Sturmer’s prose and poetry, the acts of seeing and thinking become one, and the end result is – to borrow a phrase from J. S. Bach – a musical offering, an exercise in marvellousness.” — Gregory O’Brien
Richard von Sturmer is one of New Zealand’s most versatile artists. He has written the lyrics to hit pop songs including Blam Blam Blam’s ‘There is No Depression in New Zealand’, acted in a famous feature film, made his own movies, published eight acclaimed books of poetry and prose, and lectured and written about Zen Buddhism.
His collections of his writing include: A Network of Dissolving Threads (Auckland University Press, 1991), Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose (HeadworX, 2005), and This Explains Everything (Atuanui Press, 2016).
