The Parliament of Poets: An Epic Poem. By Frederick Glaysher
Celebrating Our Common Humanity
Opening Hymn. Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto Fringe Festival. July 10, 2023. 2:16 minutes.
Miriam Sossin, Stage Manager. Sophie Stetsenko, Assistant Stage Manager & Videographer.
Cervantes. Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto Fringe Festival. July 10, 2023.
Youtube@FrederickGlaysher/playlists
A Universal, Interfaith Story of Human Aspiration
Solo Performance by Frederick Glaysher, playing the role of the main character, The Poet of the Moon.
Appalled by fascism and oligarchy on Mother Earth, Apollo calls all the poets of the nations to the moon to teach them how to create peace.
Among the major characters are Tolstoy, Dante, Black Elk, Du Fu, Faerie Queene, Vyasa, Tagore, Rumi, Job, Borges, Sogolon, and many other poets from around the world. Together, they seek our common humanity, with Don Quixote as Master of Ceremonies.
Download the Program for Solo Performance
Epic poet, rhapsode seeking invitations to perform.
Performing Black Elk at Theatre NOVA
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
September 22, 2019:
Epic Poetry Reading at The Farmhouse, Village of Franklin, Michigan.
March 22, 2018. 15 minutes. Funded by Poets & Writers, Inc.
On the moon,
Black Elk and Chief Seattle; The Poet-Prophet Job on the Holocaust.
Funded by Poets & Writers, Inc.
If the old exclusivisms evolved into the exclusivism of the Enlightenment, from the moon, together, we can see universality...
As a global epic tale, I am speaking to the entire planet, not merely the Western world. While the whole is always more than the sum of its parts, I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to such writers and thinkers as the historian Arnold Toynbee, Carl Jung, Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, and many others of open and universal sensibility. Campbell and Mircea Eliade, especially, wrote on shamanism and myth and their power to heal the tribe through a visionary, ecstatic experience and tale. Campbell also wrote repeatedly about the overview Image of Earthrise, rising above the horizon of the moon, as the great new mythic Image and Symbol for our time.
Reading at Hannan Cafe and the Detroit Public Library. Best Selections 2015 - 2017. (The reading at Hannan Cafe funded by Poets & Writers, Inc.) The story of humanity, from Blombos Cave to the dark side of the moon, drawing from and evoking all of the great spiritual and wisdom traditions and regional civilizations.
Reviews
"Like a story around a campfire." —The Audience
"Certainly wowed the crowd at the library with the performance
and the words themselves." —Albany Poets News, New York
"A great epic poem of startling originality and universal significance, in every way partaking of the nature of world literature." —Hans Ruprecht, Carleton University, Canada, author on Goethe, Borges, etc.
"A remarkable poem by a uniquely inspired poet, taking us out of time into a new and unspoken consciousness..." —Kevin McGrath, Lowell House, South Asian Studies, Harvard University, author on the Mahabharata
"Mr. Glaysher has written an epic poem of major importance." —ML Liebler, Poet, Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
"And a fine major work it is." —Arthur McMaster, Department of English, Converse College, South Carolina, in Poets' Quarterly
The Universality of One World
Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church. Sunday, April 28, 2019. Grosse Pointe, Michigan
The Search for Universal Spirituality
Theosophical Society of Detroit - Friday, December 7, 2018. Berkley, Michigan
Frederick Glaysher spoke about the long journey of modernity during the last 130 to 150 years in search of a universal conception of spirituality. Glaysher discusses the book The World’s Parliament of Religions, 1893, and key influential speakers and groups represented at The Parliament in Chicago, including Vivekananda, Brahmo Samaj, the Unitarian Church, and the Theosophical Society, highlighting and surveying Madame Blavatsky’s emphasis on Universal Brotherhood and the study of comparative religion. Further currents include Dara Shikoh, Rammohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Abdul-Baha, Rumi, Kabir, poets and mystics, Emerson. Among other seeking souls touched on, Evelyn Underhill, Arnold Toynbee, Micea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Huston Smith.
Spiritual Themes in the German Philosopher Karl Jaspers and British Historian Arnold Toynbee
Universalist Unitarian Church of Farmington, Michigan. August 7, 2022. Starts at 16:58
Frederick Glaysher speaks on the similar spiritual themes in the writings of Jaspers and Toynbee, especially Jaspers on the Axial Age and Toynbee on the need for a universal religion and world government to bring humanity together, with some mention of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Karen Armstrong's own book The Great Transformation, also on the Axial Age.
Sunday Service - Streamed live. https://youtu.be/rZnYfyKws7A?t=1018
Tolstoy's Universality
Universalist Unitarian Church of Farmington, Michigan.
July 14, 2019. Starts at 22:02
From 1884 until Tolstoy's death in 1910, he worked on a compilation of spiritual and moral excerpts from all of the major world religions, which he called at various times, A Wise Thought for Every Day, Thoughts of Wise Men, Cycle of Reading, The Path of Life, and A Calendar of Wisdom. The scope of his effort can be gleaned from the titles. Tolstoy's selections are from Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Roman philosophers, Emerson, the Unitarian 19th Century minister William Ellery Channing, who was a major influence on the American Transcendentalists, and so on. A Calendar of Wisdom is worth reflecting on today. Includes selected Readings.
UN Plaza, International Day of Peace, San Francisco, September 21, 2025. 26:49 minutes.