Transports of Delight: An Aromatic Journey in Verse from East to West on the Wings of Perfume

This book is a feast for the nose! Transports of Delight is a celebration through verse of man’s extraordinary sensory world of smell, connecting East and West. Here is a fascinating and delightful anthology, drawn from around the world and across the millennia, capturing a kaleidoscope of emotions, moods and memories, all of which are energized and enhanced by smells of every kind – ‘smells which match our moods, promote our passions, provoke a sense of awe in the natural world around us, and bring us closer to our gods’. The anthology, containing over a hundred poems and excerpts from literature including The Teachings of the Buddha and Ben Johnson’s intoxicating ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’ (Ode to Celia), takes the reader from Japan to China, Tibet and the East Indies, on to India and the Levant, then to Europe and finally to the Americas. Transports of Delight will certainly help transport and delight the reader to another level of sensory pleasure – far removed from today’s audio-visual world of ipods, televisions, CDs and DVDs!

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements; The Ballad of East and West; Prologue; Scent; Japan: Fragrance of the Orange; Once there was a Man; 10 Uses of Koh (Incense); Brought by the Breeze; An Ephemeral Spring Dream; In the Moonlight; Flowers of Hill or Dale; When the East Wind Blows; After Bells had Rung; Memoirs of a Geisha; The Musmee; The Buddha at Kamakura; China,Tibet and East Indies: When Two People are at One; Xanadu; The Glories of Kinsay; The Scent of Autumn; Hymn to Incense; The Widow’s Tale; Lord Jim; Burning Incense; India and the Levant: Soft as a Bud; When We Have Loved; In the Month of Vaishaka; The Prophet; Awake, O Heart; Song of Arabian Camel Drovers; The Capture of a Rose by Distillation; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; Gulistan; Sinbad’s Other Tale; Incantation; Take Unto Thee Sweet Spices; The Smell of Lebanon; The Gardener; Europe: Here First She Bathes; When I Drink Wine; The Histories; Phoenix; You Will Dine Well, Dear; My Boy’s Kisses; Poetry is Hard; The Smell of Gum; Chypre (Cyprus); The Ordinall Of Alchemy; Secret of the Philosophers; Sonnet 54; Coming To Kiss Her Lips; A Fragrante Prayer; To the Most Fair and Lovely Miss Anne Soame; Upon Julia’s Unlacing Herself; Ask Me No More; Rhodon and Iris; A Nosegay for Laura; Edict of George III; Cologne; The Wallflower; Ode to a Nightingale; The Sensitive Plant; Le Parfum; Awakenings; Love and Sleep; Perfume; Memory; White Heliotrope; Odour; Eros D’aute; Hothouse Flowers; The Picture of Dorian Gray; A Lure; The Connoisseur of Woodsmoke; Ithaka; Sent; Americas: To Celia; Bermudas; Meditation 9; The Song of Hiawatha; To Helen; Smoke; Ambergris; Waikiki; The Flower-fed Buffaloes; The Earth is Precious; Roots and Leaves; The Sign; Epilogue: Earth Scent; Glossary; Bibliography; The Harvey Crest

About the Author :
David Pybus, a poet himself, is also a contributor to this volume. Having spent much of his professional life closely connected with the world of aromas through his involvement in the cosmetics, toiletries and perfumery industry, he sees himself today as a twenty-first century Alchemist and Aromancer, with a mission to encourage people to take time out from their frenetic lives in order to ‘smell the roses’ (or the coffee!). He is also known as the Indiana Jones of the perfume industry, having made the search for and recreation of perfumes from history his particular quest, which are now available through his own enterprise. He is a recent winner on the BBC programme ‘Dragon’s Den’.