history Archives - Sable Books

Comb

Comb is the story of a girl “under the spell of history,” growing up in the shadow of the legendary Khyber Pass which is both a bridge between disparate civilizations and an impassable divide. Shadab Zeest Hashmi reveals the tangles of empire and language, history and myth, exile and belonging — from the lens of childhood, integrating memory with the history of one of the most significant geopolitical and cultural thresholds of the world. This is a book that honors thresholds in a time of closed doors, written with a poet’s conviction in the regency of love.

Azaleas on Fire, by Gabrielle Langley

Conceived “in the month of pearls” as she tells us in her poem “Birthstone,” Gabrielle Langley is a poet of true luminosity, stringing her “English words like pearls” across continents — from Paris and Milan to Katyn and Istanbul, Lebanon and beyond. I find her to be a remarkable imagist of postmodernity. In Azaleas on Fire, she leads her reader through gardens of flowers rescued from romantic tradition through irony where the fragrance of narcissus and gardenias meets charred wood, “the burn of salt water rising to swallow small children.” She weaves delicacy with strength, a floral lace that is beautiful, tough, untearable.

Pause, by Sandy Roberts

With gentle imagery and language, Sandy Roberts explores her own spiritual roots and survival of growing up in the deep South of 1940’s Texas, and the pain and hardship of the changing physical and political landscape.

Emily Dickinson kept at her side the two same books that were prominent in Sandy’s own childhood home – the dictionary and the bible. Perhaps those books were enough to plant the seed to love words, language, and the images and the connections.

Sacajawea’s Song, by Judith Fuller

The history of Sacajawea, who traveled with Lewis & Clark on their expedition, has been documented by the writings in their journals, and her story has been told and retold through the years, even to our school children. But how often do we get a chance to travel along with Sacajawea on her inner journey as well?

Sacajawea’s Song is the beautifully-imagined journey — both across the land and the landscape of the heart — of one of this country’s best-known native daughters, Sacajawea.