Buying the Ghosts a Drink
by Robert Bringhurst
This book features 11 conversations with Robert Bringhurst. Open this book to any page and you will find a compelling, plainspoken discussion of an interesting subject. It might be the relations between poetry and carpentry, the growth of introspection in music for the lute, the convoluted fabric of Hopi/Navajo relations, or the development, on the Northwest Coast of North America, of a range of oral literatures rivaling those of ancient Italy and Greece. No cocktails are served, but there are plenty of good eats.
Robert Bringhurst is a celebrated poet, essayist, linguist, translator, and typographer. Incidentally, he is also a pretty good carpenter, forester, mountaineer, and field naturalist who has worked for extended periods in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He was born in Los Angeles in 1946 and has lived on the British Columbia coast for fifty years. Along the way, he has written a number of books, both poetry and prose.
The book is available in both a paperback edition and a limited cloth edition, strictly limited to 100 copies, each signed and numbered by Bringhurst.
Date of Publication: September 2026
ISBN: 979-8-9991654-4-2 (pbk)
Pages: 256
Size: 5 1/4” x 8 1/2”
Price: $25.00
Limited signed and numbered cloth edition: $100
Excerpt
This is the continent I was born on and raised on. But in school I was taught that the history of this place began with Jacques Cartier and the Mayflower. The languages offered in North American schools were almost entirely European, and Asian, and the literatures taught were in the languages of Europe, with Asian literatures for specialists. I’m glad to have studied them. I continue to read them with pleasure. But Native American languages and literatures were completely left out of that educational program. Why? That kind of blindness threatens to make us aliens in the land where we were born. It also threatens to make it impossible for immigrants to North America to find out where they are when they arrive. Isn’t it just possible that if we listened to the stories and the voices native to the place, we’d be a bit less eager to strip mine it, clearcut it, pave it and pollute it in the name of making money?
About Robert Bringhurst
Robert Bringhurst is a poet, essayist, linguist, translator, and typographer. Incidentally, he is also a pretty good carpenter, forester, mountaineer, and field naturalist who has worked for extended periods in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He was born in Los Angeles in 1946 and has lived on the British Columbia coast for fifty years. Along the way, he has written a number of books, both poetry and prose.