Evan Jones

Steeped in Classical and modern history, the poems in Evan Jones's third Carcanet collection are satirical, elegiac and memorable.

“ If I can impart one final message, beyond the usual declarative to read poetry and buy poetry books,” writes Evan Jones in his introduction to The Civilizing Discourse, “ it is to listen to poets. The real ones offer wisdom and a perspective at odds with prevalent visions.” In a series of passionate, enlightening, frank, engaging, and sometimes astonishing conversations, thirteen poets— many acknowledged masters— open up about their writing processes, their childhoods and marriages, their regrets, as well as their hopes for and frustration with poetry. From Norm Sibum describing his affinity with a waitresses and cabbies to Nyla Matuk’s wrenching investigations into the Palestinian side of her family; from Don Coles’s obsession with alternative universes to Robyn Sarah’s praise for discarded things; from Elise Partridge describing her shift in priorities after a cancer diagnosis to Steven Heighton’s interest in remaining childlike, The Civilizing Discourse is not only a highly readable record of the literary scene today, but, in its celebration of language, will appeal to poetry readers and poets alike.

Later Emperors is four poems, each of which approaches Roman history from a very different perspective. It is also four voices, each one concerned with the living and the dead: voices of historians and moralists, voices of great (and not so great) emperors. Jones has written a book which is all the more for our time because it looks so clearly at other times and identifies in them familiar patterns, difficulties, ambitions and desires. History becomes a crystal ball in which the past chides the future, the same mistakes predicted and made again, the same injustices repeated. The Byzantine historians Michael Psellos and Anna Komnene reveal themselves as the significant chroniclers they always were. The book concludes with a retelling of Plutarch's 'Consolatio Ad Uxorem', in which Jones considers what we might hold on to in a world of suffering.

Writing this book has been a three-year process. Why you ask? Because I didn't have all of my thoughts together to complete it. I had to get out of my own way mentally and refocus my priorities. As a man, husband, father of 5, soldier in the United States Army, life can get hectic in today's society. I've struggled a lot, one reason being I found my way in this world without my father but a great support system instead. I always wondered "where is the rule book to this thing called life?" This book is not a rule book to life, instead, tools to help you build a foundation to have a successful path to happiness. Happiness with self, happiness with relationships, happiness with love, and happiness within society. My hope is that you can take some of the lessons learned through my perspective on the chapters I've shared to create your own platform of peace. You create the journey and you create the ending.

On Thermonuclear War was controversial when originally published and remains so today. It is iconoclastic, crosses disciplinary boundaries, and finally it is calm and compellingly reasonable. The book was widely read on both sides of the Iron Curtain and the result was serious revision in both Western and Soviet strategy and doctrine. As a result, both sides were better able to avoid disaster during the Cold War. The strategic concepts still apply: defense, local animosities, and the usual balance-of-power issues are still very much with us. Kahn's stated purpose in writing this book was simply: "avoiding disaster and buying time, without specifying the use of this time." By the late 1950s, with both sides H-bomb-armed, reason and time were in short supply. Kahn, a military analyst at Rand since 1948, understood that a defense based only on thermonuclear arnaments was inconceivable, morally questionable, and not credible. The book was the first to make sense of nuclear weapons. Originally created from a series of lectures, it provides insight into how policymakers consider such issues. One may agree with Kahn or disagree with him on specific issues, but he clearly defined the terrain of the argument. He also looks at other weapons of mass destruction such as biological and chemical, and the history of their use. The Cold War is over, but the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, and the lessons and principles developed in On Thermonuclear War apply as much to today's China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as they did to the Soviets.

The Principles and Practice of Tonal Counterpoint is a comprehensive textbook that combines practical, "how-to" guidance in 18th-century techniques with extensive historical examination of contrapuntal works and genres. Beginning with an introductory grounding in species counterpoint, tonal harmony, and figured bass, students progress through the study of chorale preludes, invertible counterpoint, and canonic and fugal writing. This textbook thoroughly joins principle with practice, providing a truly immersive experience in the study of tonal counterpoint and familiarizing students with contrapuntal styles from the Baroque period to the 21st century. Also available is a companion volume, The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint, which focuses on 16th-century techniques and covers modal music from Gregorian chant through the 17th century.

The Principles and Practice of Tonal Counterpoint is a comprehensive textbook that combines practical, "how-to" guidance in 18th-century techniques with extensive historical examination of contrapuntal works and genres. Beginning with an introductory grounding in species counterpoint, tonal harmony, and figured bass, students progress through the study of chorale preludes, invertible counterpoint, and canonic and fugal writing. This textbook thoroughly joins principle with practice, providing a truly immersive experience in the study of tonal counterpoint and familiarizing students with contrapuntal styles from the Baroque period to the 21st century. Also available is a companion volume, The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint, which focuses on 16th-century techniques and covers modal music from Gregorian chant through the 17th century.

Aural Skills in Context by Matthew Shaftel, Evan Jones, and Juan Chattah is the first complete text covering sight singing, ear training, and rhythm practice that features real musical examples (from classical to folk and jazz) as the composer wrote them. Other texts either feature simple melody lines that are edited from the standard repertoire or author-composed examples. By offering the melodies with the addition of the related harmony part, the book parallels the full Music Theory curriculum, resulting in a more comprehensive engagement than the typical sight-singing text. This approach reinforces the relevance of the aural skills curriculum to the students' other classes, as well as to their performance and listening interests. It exposes students to many examples of music that they will surely revisit as performers, scholars, or educators. It also gives a wealth of options for the instructor and students, going well beyond simply singing the melodies or writing them down from dictation. Improvisation; performance by multiple voices; switching between melody and accompanying lines; and creating new melodies above a given bass line, or an additional obbligato voice above the given melody or between the outer voices are all possible.

"Paralogues", which takes its title from the Greek word for 'ballads', is the British debut of an original Canadian poet and editor. Evan Jones explores Greek mythology, Roman and Byzantine history, art and travel, from contemporary perspectives. The myth of Actaeon is re-imagined in three ways, and "Paralogues" concludes with a sequence retelling the Byzantine folk ballad "Constantine and Arete". Translation is central to the collection, from the modern Greek of Miltos Sachtouris to the Austrian German of Raoul Schrott. Readers encounter people and places real and imagined: the lonely figure of the poet Cavafy in Victorian Liverpool, God in post-war Paris, the landscapes of Europe and North America at once familiar and unfamiliar.

Covering modal music from Gregorian chant through the seventeenth-century, The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint is a comprehensive textbook combining stylistic composition, theory and analysis, music history, and performance. By supplementing a modified species approach with a wealth of complete musical examples and historical information, this textbook thoroughly joins principle with practice, providing a truly immersive experience in the study of modal counterpoint and familiarizing students with modal repertoire.

Covering modal music from Gregorian chant through the seventeenth-century, The Principles and Practice of Modal Counterpoint is a comprehensive textbook combining stylistic composition, theory and analysis, music history, and performance. By supplementing a modified species approach with a wealth of complete musical examples and historical information, this textbook thoroughly joins principle with practice, providing a truly immersive experience in the study of modal counterpoint and familiarizing students with modal repertoire.