Benjamin W. Farley Books

Set in Tide water Virginia in the early 1970s, Of Time and Eternity unfolds with artistic resonance and gripping realism. Across a period of three seasons, Farley traces the story of David Kirk (a Protestant minister), whose diary records the minister's private thoughts and daily events that consume his days. Uppermost, Kirk's diary records his evolving love for one of his parishioners, an artist and assistant director of a gallery in nearby Norfolk. Suzanne, lonely and attractive, has equally fallen in love with David. Soon their counseling sessions lead to her home in the quiet countryside, where their yearning for each other develops in earnest. How to reconcile the affair with his genuine love for Joan, his wife, rises constantly as a whisper in the silence of his troubled heart. Both enriching and complicating the story are David's other to a fellow minister, who struggles with his calling in search of a more honest career; to Rheba, a black woman whose son David has pledged to help; to his congregation, whom he seeks to guide and inspire in spite of his own crisis. Hardly a "preachy" book, Of Time and Eternity is a story of high literary quality, engaging dialogue and drama, self-discovery and redemption at the profoundest levels of the heart.

These poems strike a rare balance between wide-ranging erudition and light-hearted wit. Finding inspiration in everything from travels, to American heroes, to the metaphysics of compost--and much more--Benjamin Farley shows readers again and again how a poem can "plummet deep inside /And command what is quiescent." We startle with recognition at the observations, emotions, and glimpses of nature shared in these pages, which document a life singularly attuned to the beauty of the world around us and to its underlying harmony. We are all fortunate that Farley's universe " sings] to him in rhyme and verse." Alexander Ogden, Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, University of South Carolina. Bearing echoes of the Romantic era, these poems by Benjamin Farley offer up a reflective pool of tranquility amidst the chaos of the twenty-first century. Read them aloud to savor their musicality, or take them for a hike in the woods, where many of them had their beginnings. In this volume, characters from the Bible mingle with gods and goddesses from Classical mythology, and even the Dalai Lama. These poems manage to be both human and humane as they reflect the poet's own life experience. Alexa Selph, Poet and Poetry Instructor, Emory Continuing Education