Imagine Inventing Yellow

Book excerpt: M.C. Richards' CENTERING, published 25 years ago, went on to sell 120,000 copies and became a classic on the melding of spirit and art and the discovery of the self through creativity. This is the first major collection of her richly imagistic poetry which combines previous work with new poems written in the past decade. Richards here inquires about the essence and power of the imagination, and advocates viewing the world in images that "make us whole." "The world will change," she says, "when we imagine it differently," This new book includes eight color paintings by Thomas Buechner, with the poems they inspired.