Mission Work（ISBN=） 英文原版

Mission Work is an arresting collection of poems based on Aaron
Baker’s experiences as a child of missionaries living among the
Kuman people in the remote Chimbu Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Rich with Christian and Kuman myths and stories, the poems explore
Western and tribal ways of looking at the world—an interface of
vastly different cultures and notions of spirituality, illuminated
by the poet’s own struggles as he comes of age in this unique
environment. The images conjured in Mission Work are viscerally
stirring: natives slaughter pigs for a Chimbu wedding ceremony; a
cloud of mosquitoes moves through a slender ray of sunlight; hands
sting as they beat a drum made of dried snakeskin. Quieter moments
are shot through with the unfamiliar as well. In “Bird of
Paradise,” a father angles his son’s head toward the canopy of the
jungle to catch sight of an elusive bird. Stanley Plumly, this
year’s judge for the Bakeless poetry prize, states, “Throughout
this remarkably written and felt first book, the reader, like the
author himself, ‘can’t tell if this is white or black magic,’
Christian, tribal, or both at once.”

~AARON BAKER is the winner of the 2007 Katharine Bakeless Nason
Prize for poetry, selected by Stanley Plumly and awarded by
Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. A former
Wallace Stegner Fellow, Baker received his MFA at the University of
Virginia. His work has been previously published in the Virginia
Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Post Road, and Poetry, among
other publications. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and
teaches at Hollins University. ? A vibrant debut collection from
the winner of the 2007 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Bakeless
Prize ? In this prize-winning collection, the poet evokes his
childhood as the son of missionaries in Papua New Guinea ? Foreword
by Stanley PlumlyStanley Plumly is a contributor for Houghton
Mifflin Company titles including: “Mission Work”.~

Foreword  
I Chimbu Wedding 
  Notebook 
  Commission 
  Cargo Cult 
  Bones 
  Blood Debt 
  Bird of Paradise 
  The Taban Tree 
  Second Genesis 
  Sing-sing Kiama 
  Spirits of the Low Ground 
  The Red Snake 
  Bride Price 
  The Weaver 
  The Zero in the Branches 
  How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy? 
II Departures  
  Taro 
  Read and Say Nothing 
  Albino 
  A Prayer 
  Above Kerowagi 
  War 
  Evil Spirit 

  ……

Notes

Acknowledgments