A Palace of Pearls

Jane Miller is a traveler stimulated by ideas beyond our immediate sphere. In this book-length sequence animated and propelled by a confrontation with her dead father, she meditates on home, love, war and the responsibility of the poet. A Palace of Pearls is inspired by one of the most spectacular civilizations in history, the Arab kingdom of Al-Andalus-a Middle Age civilization where architecture, science and art flourished and Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in relative harmony. The reader roams through "rooms," encountering Greek, Judaic and Roman mythology, and through the streets of fifteenth-century Spain and contemporary Rome in Miller's most personal and associative volume. From A Palace of Pearls: We bow our heads for the ancient draping of the gardenia lei in the hotel lobby and are relieved of our possessions as per a reminder that one must enter Paradise a little naked.