Bill Pearlman

Flareup of Twosomes

Poems

64 pages

5 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches

ISBN 0-9631909-9-7

$11.00

Solidly, as a meditation, as psalms, as lament and praise upon the House of Love,dreamnt, built and storm-whipped, this web of poems digs within raw character— Orpheus and Mr. Lucky in slow tango as the heart spins on a table under hot lamplight. Not love poems, but reflection upon reflection of what we suffer lovingly. Pearlman writes into and out of a language of drama and wry belief. He engages lyric analysis with turbulent contemplation— “poem” as source of prayer and grit and flinging the crutch into the sky. At once tragic and devotional, it remains a comic play for simple renewal. Why not—go on? Pearlman is the heart’s penitente, whose work weaves the inner salt of need with a sweet leaven of hope redeemed in the midnight hour.

Bill Pearlman’s belief in what one can call loosely “possibility” has been my pleasure for years now. He was a refuge back in the wild times of Placitas and his work here keeps on being that enduring testament. How does he put it?‘the nexus / that startles the alive / to bargain again...’ It sure is worth a try.

— Robert Creeley

In Pearlman we can hear the same discourse that prompted Rilke to ask his own questions… What is this tongue, this script which all lovers must attempt to speak— but can never fully explain? Is the night filled with stars or a canopy of flares sent by every soul’s small request?

— Monique Briod

Bill Pearlman is an educator, dramatist and licensed therapist. He has lived in New Mexico for thirty years and has taught on the faculty of Southwestern College in Santa Fe. Bill Pearlman has had many years of experience in both expressive therapies and in the American theater. He has trained extensively in Jungian Psychology, psychodrama, and family therapy. In the development of archetypal drama therapy, he has brought together the ideas of C.G. Jung, theater theorist Peter Brook, and myriad traditional drama therapies. For five years he worked in community mental health in New Mexico and was on the staff of the Day Treatment Program at the University of New Mexico Mental Health Center. For several years he has been developing archetypal drama, an educational approach to imagination and soul and was the program director of the graduate level Certificate in Archetypal Drama Therapy at Ottawa University in Phoenix. In 1992, he presented workshops at the national ASGPP Psychodrama Conference in New York and the National Association for Drama Therapy in San Francisco. In 1995 his book, Characters of the Sacred: The World of Archetypal Drama, was published by Duende Press, and offers a vibrant and coherent look at soul work. Other published works include: Surfing Off the Ark; Elegy For Prefontaine; and Inzorbital: A Novel.