Approximately Paradise

by Don Schofield

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 Written over a period of twenty years, the poems in this collection chart the experiences of an American living in Greece. This odyssey of sorts is told in four parts, tracing a personal journey from naivete and alienation to identity and belonging.

 Don Schofield touches upon urban and island life in contemporary Greece that few outsiders see. Skillfully juxtaposing the old with the new, the expected with the unexpected, the historical with the modern, he entertains various themes bringing the past into relation with the present. Seemingly disparate traditions are merged--the pagan with the Christian, American literature with classical Greek. The main speaker often appears as the antithesis of the classical hero, Odysseus, willing to look foolish, lost and bewildered, and at times acknowledging his own moral weakness. Conventional interpretations of myth are redefined as personas from the archaic and biblical worlds examine the nature of desire or the experience of loss and exile on a contemporary stage.

 By dint of acute observation and innate sensitivity, Schofield evokes a sense of place by working himself into the psyche of the people and the landscape, thus enabling him to enrich and comment on his own experiences. Through this immersion into the other, the author is gradually led to perceive the world more fully and richly, come to terms with his own traumatic past, and achieve a sense of self in a place that comes to be “approximately paradise.”

Don Schofield is professor of English at the University of LaVerne, Athens, Greece. 

The University of Central Florida Contemporary Poetry Series

March. 96 pp. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2

ISBN 0-8130-2460-9 Cloth $24.95s

ISBN 0-8130-2461-7 Paper $12.95

"Here's a poetry that I admire: vernacular, intelligent, gritty, informed, deeply engaged in the life of the world, but still keeping a sly distance. Many poems from Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean cultures, knowledgeable, and at home. Poems of politics and power, of love, of community and family. Skepticism and hard-won wholeness."--Gary Snyder

"After enjoying Don Schofield's poems in various journals over the last few years, it's exciting to read them in this fine collection.  Approximately Paradise takes us on a voyage through contemporary and legendary Greece with an eye to the telling detail that both moves and informs.  This is a marvelous introduction to a new young poet."--Peter Meinke