Gigantic Cinema: A Weather Anthology (Paperback)
A luminous, "deliciously playful" (Rishi Dastidar, Guardian) anthology of poems and prose inspired by the weather.
In three hundred varied entries, Gigantic Cinema narrates the weather of a single capricious day, from dawn through rain, volcanic ash, nuclear dust, snow, light, fog, noon, eclipse, hurricane, flood, dusk, night, and back to dawn again. It includes reactions both formal and fleeting—weather rhymes, journals and jottings, diaries and letters—to the imaginary and actual drama unfolding above our heads.
Ranging from Homer’s winds and Ovid’s flood to Frank O’Hara’s sun, Pliny’s reportage on the eruption of Vesuvius to Elizabeth Bishop’s “Song for a Rainy Season,” Gigantic Cinema offers an expansive collection of writing inspired by the commotion of the elements. Rather than drawing attention to authors and titles, entries appear as a medley of voices; as editors Alice Oswald and Paul Keegan write in their stunning introduction, the excerpts ask to be read “with no hat, no coat, no preconceptions, encountering each voice abruptly, as an exclamation brought on by the weather.” Assembling a chorus of responses (ancient and modern, East and West) to air’s manifold appearances, Gigantic Cinema offers a new perspective on the oldest conversation of all.
Alice Oswald is the author of eight books of poetry, including Memorial and Falling Awake, winner of the Costa Poetry Award and Griffin Poetry Prize. Elected as the University of Oxford Professor of Poetry in 2019, she lives in Bristol, United Kingdom.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A deliciously playful reminder that the greatest show on the planet is what happens in the skies and all around us.
— Rishi Dastidar - Guardian
The weather comes at you, page after page, with an almighty and unstoppable roar of terrifying magnificence.
— Michael Glover - Tablet
A capacious selection of writings about the whether... The 300 entries are vibrant, evocative, and sometimes surprising... A delightful collection.
— Kirkus Reviews
A brilliant anthology of disturbances and interruptions, in which finite mortals struggle to express the mysteries of invisible forces that tangle the sense.
— Joanna Kavenna - Literary Review
THE SANTA FE LITERARY FESTIVAL
Celebrating the power of story, the inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival will be an unforgettable weekend dedicated to a shared love and language of ideas. Collected Works Bookstore is thrilled to be the official bookstore of the Festival.
Bestselling, prizewinning authors and literary legends like Margaret Atwood, Joy Harjo, Colson Whitehead, Sandra Cisneros, John Grisham, amongst others, will headline the festival, discussing their work with readings and book signings that set the stage for further inspired conversations.
NOTE: If you purchase a festival event ticket that is INCLUSIVE of the author's book, you will receive that book upon check-in for your event at the festival.
To order books by festival authors directly from CW, see below. Collected Works will be carrying a wide selection of books by all participating authors available for online pre-order and at the on-site festival bookstore May 20-23.
Purchase your tickets from the SF Literary Festival website here.
Purchase your books by festival authors directly from CW below:
Margaret Atwood Freddie Bitsoie Sandra Cisneros
Lynn Cline William deBuys Ashley Ford
John Grisham Roshi Joan Halifax Joy Harjo
Anne Hillerman Cheryl Alters Jamison Craig Johnson
Asma Khan Phil Klay Jon Krakauer
Valeria Luiselli Deborah Madison Emily St. John Mandel
George R. R. Martin James McGrath Morris Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich of Honey & Co.
Carmella Padilla Douglas Preston Kirstin Valdez Quade
Bob Shacochis Henry Shukman Hampton Sides