This National Book Award-winning debut poetry collection is a powerfully evocative (The New York Review of Books) meditation on the black female figure through time.
Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems meditating on the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. In the center of the collection is the title poem, Voyage of the Sable Venus, an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present--titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, Voyage is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin--five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story? Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire--how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race--a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
A stunning poetry debut: this meditation on the black female figure throughout time introduces us to a brave and penetrating new voice. Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems considering the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. The central panel is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," a riveting narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present--titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's autobiographical poems, "Voyage" is a tender and shocking study of the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, as it juxtaposes our names for things with what we actually see and know. Offering a new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin--five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role has art played in this ancient, often heinous story? From the "Young Black Female Carrying / a Perfume Vase" to a "Little Brown Girl / Girl Standing in a Tree / First Day of Voluntary / School Integration," this poet adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire and how they define us all, including herself, as she explores her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race--a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.
Srikanth Reddy's second book of poetry probes this world's cosmological relation to the plurality of all possible worlds. Drawing its name from the spacecraft currently departing our solar system on an embassy to the beyond, Voyager unfolds as three books within a book and culminates in a chilling Dantean allegory of leadership and its failure in the cause of humanity. At the heart of this volume lies the historical figure of Kurt Waldheim--Secretary-General of the U.N. from 1972-81 and former intelligence officer in Hitler's Wehrmacht--who once served as a spokesman for humanity while remaining silent about his role in the collective atrocities of our era. Resurrecting this complex figure, Reddy's universal voyager explores the garden of forking paths hidden within every totalizing dream of identity.
The author has restored the early vision of some 30 of his greatest poems, generally considered to be superior to the later versions. Edited by Edward Medelson.
Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize
Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection
The extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States
Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else Are they so buffered against, if not love's blade
Sizing up the heart's familiar meat? We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.
Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean. Love: naked almost in the everlasting street,
Skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze. --from "Unrest in Baton Rouge" In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice--inquisitive, lyrical, and wry--turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence. Here, private utterance becomes part of a larger choral arrangement as the collection widens to include erasures of The Declaration of Independence and the correspondence between slave owners, a found poem comprised of evidence of corporate pollution and accounts of near-death experiences, a sequence of letters written by African Americans enlisted in the Civil War, and the survivors' reports of recent immigrants and refugees. Wade in the Water is a potent and luminous book by one of America's essential poets.
Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize
Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection
The extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States
Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else Are they so buffered against, if not love's blade
Sizing up the heart's familiar meat? We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.
Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean. Love: naked almost in the everlasting street,
Skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze. --from "Unrest in Baton Rouge" In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice--inquisitive, lyrical, and wry--turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence. Here, private utterance becomes part of a larger choral arrangement as the collection widens to include erasures of The Declaration of Independence and the correspondence between slave owners, a found poem comprised of evidence of corporate pollution and accounts of near-death experiences, a sequence of letters written by African Americans enlisted in the Civil War, and the survivors' reports of recent immigrants and refugees. Wade in the Water is a potent and luminous book by one of America's essential poets.
Wait finds C. K. Williams by turns ruminative, stalked by the conscience-beast, who harries me, and riven by idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was / for whom everything always was going too slowly, too slowly. Poems about animals and rural life are set hard by poems about shrapnel in Iraq and sudden desire on the Paris métro; grateful invocations of Herbert and Hopkins give way to fierce negotiations with the shades of Coleridge, Dostoyevsky, and Celan. What the poems share is their setting in the cool, spacious, spotlit, book-lined place that is Williams's consciousness, a place whose workings he has rendered for fifty years with inimitable candor and style.
Williams manages to consistently maintain the gentle, witty, and honest voice that he has spent a lifetime crafting. --Rachel A. Burns, The Harvard Crimson
The legendary author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day turns her attention to marriage in a collection of poems that explores the peeves and pleasures of a long marriage...and what lies beyond. Judith Viorst began publishing poetry in the 1960s in New York magazine, and since then, her works have celebrated life's milestones with wit and poignancy. Married for fifty-five years, she now casts a rueful, experienced eye on the amusing annoyances and deep satisfactions of a long marriage...and what a couple must inevitably confront together. Enriched by Stephen Campbell's charming, full-color illustrations, this touching, wise, and funny book will surely bring a smile of recognition to anyone who has been in a long marriage. A wonderful gift for a parent, a grandparent, or your own eternal someone, Wait for Me is a celebration of the lasting power of married love.
Allen Ginsberg's poems, from "Howl" to "Kaddish" to "The Fall of America," have influenced generations of writers and made him a defining figure of the twentieth century. Ginsberg's Collected Poems, first published in 1984, and expanded in 1997, was originally thought to contain all of his poetic work. But now, for the first time, Ginsberg's stray poems have been gathered and the result, Wait Till I'm Dead is a landmark publication spanning five decades of Ginsberg's writing life. The first new Ginsberg collection in over fifteen years, Wait Till I'm Dead is edited by renowned scholar Bill Morgan, with a foreword written by award-winning poet Rachel Zucker. Many of the poems collected in this volume were scribbled in letters or sent off to obscure publications and unjustly forgotten. Tracing the chronology of his life, Wait Till I'm Dead follows Ginsberg from his high school days and earliest political satire to his activism, spiritual maturation, and on-the-road experiences worldwide. The collection concludes with his personal thoughts on mortality as he watched his friends, and himself, grow old. Throughout the collection Ginsberg pays homage to his contemporaries and poetic icons, including Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound. The selection also features several of Ginsberg's collaborative poems, works coauthored by Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Gary Snyder, and Kenneth Koch, providing an inside view of famed Beat poets and their relationships. Containing 104 previously uncollected poems and accompanied by original photographs and extensive notes, Wait Till I'm Dead is the final major contribution to Ginsberg's sprawling oeuvre, a must-read for Ginsberg neophytes and longtime fans alike.
Rainy night on Union Square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till I'm dead.--Allen Ginsberg, August 8, 1990, 3:30 A.M. The first new Ginsberg collection in over fifteen years, Wait Till I'm Dead is a landmark publication, edited by renowned Ginsberg scholar Bill Morgan and introduced by award-winning poet and Ginsberg enthusiast Rachel Zucker. Ginsberg wrote incessantly for more than fifty years, often composing poetry on demand, and many of the poems collected in this volume were scribbled in letters or sent off to obscure publications and unjustly forgotten. Wait Till I'm Dead, which spans the whole of Ginsberg's long writing career, from the 1940s to the 1990s, is a testament to Ginsberg's astonishing writing and singular aesthetics. Following the chronology of his life, Wait Till I'm Dead reproduces the poems together with extensive notes. Containing 104 previously uncollected poems and accompanied by original photographs, Wait Till I'm Dead is the final major contribution to Ginsberg's sprawling oeuvre, a must-read for Ginsberg neophytes and longtime fans alike.
Winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award, poetry category What is it like living today in the chaos of a city that is at once brutal and beautiful, heir to immigrant ancestors "who supposed their children's children would be rich and free?" What is it to live in the chaos of a world driven by "intolerable, unquenchable human desire?" How do we cope with all the wars? In the midst of the dark matter and dark energy of the universe, do we know what train we're on? In this cornucopia of a book, Ostriker finds herself immersed in phenomena ranging from a first snowfall in New York City to the Tibetan diaspora, asking questions that have no reply, writing poems in which "the arrow may be blown off course by storm and returned by miracle."
The Waiting Tide is a bilingual homage to Pablo Neruda's classic tome of love poetry, The Captain's Verses, mixing classic love poetry with verse of a more modern and visceral bent, and all while never straying far from the sea. Illustrated by Chicago artist Brett Manning.
Awaken your connection to Mother Earth as you journey through these peaceful encounters with the birds, the wind, and the trees. This collection of stories, poems, and meditations touches your soul and refreshes your spirit with its gentle wisdom and simple beauty. Evocative meditations will help you deepen your own connection to the Earth and will open your heart to the glorious world we are blessed to live in. Written by a shamanic healer and teacher who is deeply in touch with nature, Walk Gently Upon the Earth will awaken you to the living, vibrant beauty of this precious planet.
An "extraordinary" (Laurie Halse Anderson) young poet traces the lives of her foremothers in West Tennessee, from those enslaved centuries ago to her grandmother, her mother, and finally herself, in this stunning debut celebrating Black girlhood and womanhood throughout American history. "A masterpiece that beautifully captures the heartbreak that accompanies coming of age for Black girls becoming Black women."--Evette Dionne, author of Lifting as We Climb, longlisted for the National Book Award
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Ms. Magazine, Kirkus Reviews Walking Gentry Home tells the story of Alora Young's ancestors, from the unnamed women forgotten by the historical record but brought to life through Young's imagination; to Amy, the first of Young's foremothers to arrive in Tennessee, buried in an unmarked grave, unlike the white man who enslaved her and fathered her child; through Young's great-grandmother Gentry, unhappily married at fourteen; to her own mother, the teenage beauty queen rejected by her white neighbors; down to Young in the present day as she leaves childhood behind and becomes a young woman. The lives of these girls and women come together to form a unique American epic in verse, one that speaks of generational curses, coming of age, homes and small towns, fleeting loves and lasting consequences, and the brutal and ever-present legacy of slavery in our nation's psyche. Each poem is a story in verse, and together they form a heart-wrenching and inspiring family saga of girls and women connected through blood and history. Informed by archival research, the last will and testament of an enslaver, formal interviews, family lore, and even a DNA test, Walking Gentry Home gives voice to those too often muted in America: Black girls and women.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Ms. Magazine, Kirkus Reviews Walking Gentry Home tells the story of Alora Young's ancestors, from the unnamed women forgotten by the historical record but brought to life through Young's imagination; to Amy, the first of Young's foremothers to arrive in Tennessee, buried in an unmarked grave, unlike the white man who enslaved her and fathered her child; through Young's great-grandmother Gentry, unhappily married at fourteen; to her own mother, the teenage beauty queen rejected by her white neighbors; down to Young in the present day as she leaves childhood behind and becomes a young woman. The lives of these girls and women come together to form a unique American epic in verse, one that speaks of generational curses, coming of age, homes and small towns, fleeting loves and lasting consequences, and the brutal and ever-present legacy of slavery in our nation's psyche. Each poem is a story in verse, and together they form a heart-wrenching and inspiring family saga of girls and women connected through blood and history. Informed by archival research, the last will and testament of an enslaver, formal interviews, family lore, and even a DNA test, Walking Gentry Home gives voice to those too often muted in America: Black girls and women.
Between youth and adulthood, kids are faced with complex questions and equally difficult answers. Transition is a daily theme. This honest and insightful book includes poems for young adults that confront and question issues of transition, new experiences, difficult choices, and a search for truth.
Eloquent, engaging, sometimes unsettling poetic examination of the changes that time imposes on our personal as well as national histories.
In this radiant new collection, Franz Wright shares his regard for life in all its forms and his belief in the promise of blessing and renewal. As he watches the "Resurrection of the little apple tree outside / my window," he shakes off his fear of mortality, concluding "what death . . . There is only / mine / or yours, - / but the world / will be filled with the living." In prayerlike poems he invokes the one "who spoke the world / into being" and celebrates a dazzling universe-snowflakes descending at nightfall, the intense yellow petals of the September sunflower, the planet adrift in a blizzard of stars, the simple mystery of loving other people. As Wright overcomes a natural tendency toward loneliness and isolation, he gives voice to his hope for "the only animal that commits suicide," and, to our deep pleasure, he arrives at a place of gratitude that is grounded in the earth and its moods.
The Wall is a poetic exploration-across time, space, and language, real as well as metaphorical-of the U.S.-Mexican wall dividing the two civilizations, of similar walls (Jerusalem, China, Berlin, Warsaw, etc.) in history, and of the act of separating people by ideology, class, race, and other subterfuges. It is an indictment of hateful political rhetoric. In the spirit of Virgil's Aeneid and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Master, it gives voice in symphonic fashion to an assortment of participants (immigrants, border patrol, soldiers, activists, presidents, people dead and alive) involved in the debate on walls. It brings in elements of literature and pop culture, fashion and cuisine. Poetry becomes a tool to explore raw human emotions in all its extremes.