Reviews
“Fischer is best at explaining these key concepts without making them too abstract, a skill gained perhaps through all of his years of teaching. His work with the imagination is stellar….
Fischer doesn’t end in thought but finds living examples in our shared lives. ”
Larry Smith, "Review: The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path," New York Journal of Books, April 2019.“Fischer has developed a wide range of ways to re-imagine everyday situations, and to challenge the habitual feeling tones that they evoke.…
The Buddha’s message has moved through a number of different cultures in its long history. Will it put down lasting roots in our own? If it does, then it will have to adapt to this culture, keeping its spirit but re-imagining itself in new cultural forms. Who better for this task than a poet?”
"REVIEW: The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path Norman Fischer," The Zen Gateway, April 2019.“I don’t know who’s right, Gary Snyder or Norman Fischer. Norman says that poetry has nothing to do with self-expression, while Gary says poetry is rooted in self-expression.”
Read More“Fischer’s newest collection of poems, Questions / Places / Voices / Seasons (in a beautiful large format), is built, as the title suggests, on multiple styles, approaches, voices, and locations.”
Read More“A fluid series of poems based in the area where Norman lives, these poems move in and out of statements with grace and beauty, placing us within a world of perpetual movement, impermanence, and wonder.”
Read More“The poems have the quality of already having been slowed down. They then impart that quality – the listener is slowed down. That should be one of the qualities of all poetry I think – but it often isn’t. Here it is.”
Read More“Norman Fischer has written a marvelous book of poems about the experience of thinking the unthinkable.”
Read More“To all serious seekers, whether Jewish, Christian or Buddhist, I recommend the use of this book in their personal practice.”
Read More“… In Jerusalem Moonlight Judaism and Buddhism do not easily commingle, but the tension between them sparkles with buoyancy, celebrating this modern, mysterious intersection of two ancient traditions.”
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