In her latest book, Eva Brann has collected observations and aphorisms
written over more than thirty years. Open Secrets / Inward Prospects
divides in a rough but ready way into two sorts: observations about our
external world well known to all but not always openly told, and
sightings of internal vistas and omens, wherein she looks at herself as
a sample soul.
Often the aphorisms balance opposing thoughts, as if the writer
were--simultaneously--on both ends of the seesaw.
In the preface Eva Brann describes her manner of composition: I wrote
these thoughts down on about two thousand sheets, two to three thoughts
per paper, and I kept them in some used manila envelopes, the earliest
of which bore a postmark of 1972.
Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in
Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for over fifty years. She is a
recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include The
Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans,
The Music of the Republic, Un-Willing, Then and Now, and Homeric
Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).