← “River, I’ve never seen the sea…”
“On the back seat of the car, with Joseph and Emily…” →

Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles

I’m pleased to announce that Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles is now available—just in time for Halloween.

This 138-page paperback includes 53 poems accompanied by black-and-white photos of the gargoyles and grotesques. I posted drafts of 51 of these poems on the blog from 2009 to 2012; you’ll find a clickable list of them here. Two of the poems in Looking Up are new to the book. (The cover image is the work of photographer, tour guide, and all-around good guy Chris Budny.)

For the time being, I’m donating 75 percent of the net profits from Looking Up to the National Cathedral, to help repair damage from the 2011 earthquake. It’s my way of saying thank-you for the many quiet afternoons I’ve spent on the cathedral grounds.

I had fun writing these poems, and I’m glad so many of you enjoyed reading them. I’d no idea there was an audience for such unfashionable folly: three years of light, occasionally obscure, medieval-influenced neoformalist verse.

* * *

There are several ways to buy Looking Up:

Order it through Amazon (and its international variants: .de, .es, .fr, .it, .uk), Barnes & Noble (coming soon), Powell’s, or the online retailer of your choice.

Buy a copy at the National Cathedral Store, at the new shop on the ground floor, just off the narthex near the front doors, or the original shop down in the crypt. (You’ll find the book in the gargoyle section.)

Order it from me. Email me: jeffsypeck -at- gmail dot com.

If you buy the book from me, the cost within the United States is $14 (which includes shipping!), more if you’re elsewhere. Each additional copy is only $12, no matter where you live. Printing and shipping are exorbitant these days; I’ve kept the price as low as I can.

(I’m looking into e-book options, but I can either do the tedious line-by-line formatting required to make poetry presentable on some e-book platforms, or distribute a PDF that may misformat on many mobile devices. I don’t like either option. Stay tuned.)

* * *

Some books you plan to write; others simply happen. Looking Up definitely falls into the latter category. It’s a great surprise to me that it even exists; I hope you’ll find something pleasantly surprising in it as well.

Thursday, October 18, 2012, 12:48 am in gargoyles/grotesques, looking up, National Cathedral | 9 Comments »

9 responses to Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles

  1. # 1 - Flavia wrote:
    Thursday, October 18, 2012, at 12:55 am

    Congratulations!

  2. # 2 - 'nora wrote:
    Thursday, October 18, 2012, at 8:05 am

    Hooray! I shall tell all my friends to buy it.

  3. # 3 - Julie K. Rose wrote:
    Thursday, October 18, 2012, at 8:27 am

    Hurrah!! Congrats!

  4. # 4 - On the Road and Reading | Professor Mondo wrote:
    Thursday, October 18, 2012, at 4:34 pm

    […] some months back. You may buy the book here, or you may read Jeff’s discussion of it here. Either way, the gargoyles could use the help, and I’d bet you could use a bit of […]

  5. # 5 - Elsa Louise wrote:
    Friday, October 19, 2012, at 3:38 pm

    So exciting! It is wonderful news. Your donation is most generous in helping the beasties with their necessary repairs.

  6. # 6 - david foster wrote:
    Sunday, October 21, 2012, at 9:06 am

    Just linked this at Chicago Boyz.

    On another topic, I’d driven by the 8th Air Force Museum but it was closed at the time. Your post of a couple of weeks ago reminded me of it…I’m in Athens Ga right now, and yesterday I made a day trip to Savannah to visit the museum, which was indeed worth seeing.

    The stained glass windows in the chapel were interesting. One of them has at the top the shield of one of the bomber groups, with its motto…the single word “destroy.” Below is an image of the most angry-looking Jesus I’ve ever seen.

  7. # 7 - Alpheus wrote:
    Wednesday, October 24, 2012, at 8:17 pm

    I just got my copy a couple of days ago! Good, good stuff!

  8. # 8 - Jeff wrote:
    Thursday, October 25, 2012, at 10:27 pm

    Thanks, everyone. This book has enjoyed a surprisingly lively first week!

  9. # 9 - Links: Looking Up, change, real estate crowdsourcing, publishing, porn, men, game, and more « The Story's Story wrote:
    Sunday, December 9, 2012, at 8:46 pm

    […] Jeff Sypeck: “Some books you plan to write; others simply happen:” about Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral […]

Leave a comment:

(Comments with links may be held briefly for moderation.)

  • Quid plura?

    "Quid plura?" is the blog of Jeff Sypeck, a writer in the Maryland woods.

  • Becoming Charlemagne is available as a Harper Perennial paperback. Order a copy here.

  • cover
  • Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles is now available! Order a copy from Amazon or learn more here.

  • cover
  • Folklore! Chivalry! Mad alliteration! The Tale of Charlemagne and Ralph the Collier: A Translation is available in paperback and as a Kindle e-book.

  • cover
  • The Beallsville Calendar is a yearlong alliterative poem about moving from the city to the country. Learn more about it or order a copy here.

  • cover
  • Search ten years of “Quid Plura?” here:

  • Categories

    • academic ax-grinding (13)
    • African Americans (8)
    • Amit Majmudar (1)
    • Appalachian Trail (3)
    • applied paleobromatology (8)
    • Arthuriana (15)
    • Balkans (7)
    • Beallsville Calendar (15)
    • Benton MacKaye (1)
    • Beowulf (11)
    • Best of 2007 (1)
    • Best of 2008 (1)
    • Best of 2009 (1)
    • Best of 2010 (1)
    • Best of 2011 (1)
    • Best of 2012 (1)
    • Best of 2013 (1)
    • Best of 2014 (1)
    • Best of 2015 (1)
    • Best of 2016 (1)
    • Best of 2017 (1)
    • Best of 2018 (1)
    • Best of the First Five Years (1)
    • Best of the First Ten Years (1)
    • bookstores (4)
    • Bulgaria (1)
    • Byzantium (2)
    • California (1)
    • Caucasus (4)
    • Celticism (1)
    • Charlemagne (52)
    • Chaucer (12)
    • Civil War (3)
    • Colorado (2)
    • Dante (5)
    • Delaware (5)
    • England (12)
    • epic poems (23)
    • F. Scott Fitzgerald (4)
    • Fenton Johnson (1)
    • Flannery O'Connor (2)
    • France (8)
    • galangal (2)
    • gardening (8)
    • gardens (1)
    • gargoyles/grotesques (75)
    • George Alfred Townsend (1)
    • Georgia (6)
    • Germany (6)
    • Iceland (23)
    • Iowa (3)
    • Ireland (4)
    • Joan of Arc (6)
    • John Pendleton Kennedy (2)
    • Kansas (1)
    • literature (110)
    • Lloyd Alexander (31)
    • Longfellow (2)
    • looking up (61)
    • Louisiana (19)
    • Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren (1)
    • Mark Twain (2)
    • Maryland (32)
    • Massachusetts (1)
    • medieval shark week (1)
    • medievalism (181)
    • Merovingians (1)
    • Minnesota (3)
    • miscellaneous (118)
    • Missouri (1)
    • National Cathedral (75)
    • New Jersey (20)
    • New York (10)
    • Old English (19)
    • Pennsylvania (2)
    • philanthropy (3)
    • philology (8)
    • Poland (1)
    • Polaroid Land Camera (4)
    • politics (22)
    • Rome (1)
    • Russia (2)
    • Scandinavia (3)
    • Scotland (3)
    • SF/fantasy (23)
    • Shakespeare (3)
    • Sir Gawain (5)
    • statues (22)
    • tapestries (2)
    • teaching (23)
    • Tennyson (2)
    • Theodulf (10)
    • Tolkien (7)
    • translations (23)
    • travel (11)
    • Turkey (1)
    • videos (4)
    • Virginia (7)
    • visual arts (12)
    • Walafrid Strabo (10)
    • Washington (50)
    • Washington Irving (3)
    • writing (38)
  • Contact

    • jeffsypeck -at- gmail.com


Quid plura? © 2007 All Rights Reserved. Hosted by ThatHostingPlace.com.
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

This blog uses a modified version of the ShinyRoad 2.1 WordPress theme by Nurudin Jauhari.