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Poetry
Here is the good stuff: poetry written by women that actually excites the thinking reader. This anthology, spanning work of the last 75 years, will broaden its readers' notions of what defines erotic poetry. For what is more intriguing, more satisfying than strong, self-assured writing?
This groundbreaking anthology includes some of our most powerful women writers--among them Sharon Olds, Elizabeth Alexander, Anne Sexton, Dorianne Laux, Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, and Louise Glück. These poets fully demonstrate that, far from being prurient, the erotic can permeate even the most mundane aspects of life, from reading a book to buying clothes.
At the same time, the collection affirms the enormous meaningfulness of poetry--its ability to express the inexpressible and to illuminate the most private and intimate of human experiences. The poets included here represent different ethnicities, geographies, social classes, and sexual preferences. The only characteristic they share is that they are women writing about sex.
This collection is a love letter to language with poems that are drunk and filled with references to the hyperkinetic world of the twenty-first century. Yet Zeus and Hera tangle with Leda on the interstate; Ava Gardner becomes a Hindu princess; and Shiva, the Destroyer, reigns over all. English is the primary god here, with its huge vocabulary and omnivorous gluttony for new words, yet the mystery of the alphabet is behind everything, a funky puppet master who can make a new world out of nothing.
While the poems in Steve Straight''s new collection lead the reader "into the dark forest of memory / or onto the carnival ride of hypothesis, / or even right off the cliff of surprise," they maintain a sure course through the din and distraction of modern life. Bits of news from the natural sciences, chance encounters, and even convicted felon and crafting queen Martha Stewart all fall under Straight's observant eye. The result is a collection of conversational poems that lend a sense of wonder to the commonplace.
In poems of graceful lyricism and penetrating observation, award-winning poet Linda Pastan sheds new light on the complexities of ordinary life and the rising tide of mortality. Drawing from Pastan's five most recent volumes and including over thirty new poems, Almost an Elegy reflects on beauty, old age, and the probability of loss.
With signature precision and quiet power, selections from The Last Uncle (2002) and Queen of a Rainy Country (2006) explore childhood, love, landscape, and the many pleasures of the imagination. Poems from Insomnia (2015) and Traveling Light (2011) chime with similar themes of aging, memory, and language. The new poems offer a profound portrait of a poet contemplating her life and the endurance of art, amidst the fleeting beauty of nature and the everyday losses that accompany old age. In "The Collected Poems," Pastan writes, "For years I wrestled / with syllables, with silence." Now, after a long and celebrated career, the poet rests "in a hammock of words, waiting / for the sun to rise again / over the horizon of the page."
Whether in a lush evocation of an impressionist painting or a wry and wistful ode to a car key, Pastan finds lucid meaning in the passage of time.
WINNER OF THE 2016 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY Moss is oceanic: his poems rise, crest, crash, and rise again like waves. His voice echoes the boom of the Old Testament, the fluty trill of Greek mythology, and the gongs of Chinese rituals as he writes about love, nature, war, oppression, and the miracle of language. He addresses the God of the Jews, of the Christians, and of the Muslims with awe and familiarity, and chants to lesser gods of his own invention. In every surprising poem, every song to life, beautiful life, Moss, by turns giddy and sorrowful, expresses a sacred sensuality and an earthy holiness. Or putting it another way: here is a mind operating in open air, unimpeded by fashion or forced thematic focus, profoundly catholic in perspective, at once accessible and erudite, inevitably compelling. All of which is to recommend Moss's ability to participate in and control thoroughly these poems while resisting the impulse to center himself in them. This differentiates his beautiful work from much contemporary breast-beating. Moss is an artist who embraces the possibilities of exultation, appreciation, reconciliation, of extreme tenderness. As such he lays down a commitment to a common, worldly morality toward which all beings gravitate.
From the Instagram poet and author of the exquisite Please Don't Go Before I Get Better comes a gorgeous poetry and prose collection that explores the meaning of "home" and the profound discovery of finding it within oneself--perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace.In this stunning third collection from Madisen Kuhn, Madisen eloquently analyzes some of life's universal themes within the framework of a house. Whether it's the garden, the bedroom, or the front porch, Madisen takes you into her own "home," sharing some of the most intimate parts of her life so that you might also, someday, feel free to share some of yours. Filled with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations from Melody Hansen, this boldly intimate, preternaturally wise, and emotionally candid collection encourages you to consider what home means to you--whether it's in the lush, green-lawned suburbs or a city apartment--and, more importantly, explores how you can find it even when home feels like it's on the far-off horizon.
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Strand comes an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems. Sometimes appearing as pure prose, sometimes as impure poetry, but always with Strand's clarity and simplicity of style, they are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they appear within reach. Fable, domestic satire, meditation, joke, and fantasy all come together in what is arguably the liveliest, most entertaining book that Strand has yet written.
In his debut collection, chosen by Mary Karr as a winner of the 2005 National Poetry Series, Tryfon Tolides weaves together poems that speak of desire, loss, and small joys. Tolides was born in a tiny village in Greece and his work is rooted in the mountains and wind and the deep interior of that place; his poems express a longing and a searching for peace, for home, for beauty, for escape. These poems constitute a lament, whether they concern themselves with the difficulties of assimilation or the question of whether it is possible for people to live with one another in a spirit of true understanding. They prove that the physical and the metaphysical can share residence, can even be one and the same.
From New York to Nashville, Boston to L.A., a bohemian rhapsody of rap swagger is spreading across the land. As the "New York Observer" writes: "The poetry corpse is stirring, " its healing heart is "a big, dark, brick-walled loft on Third Street and Avenue C called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. It's democratic, multicultural...sometimes funny, sometimes ribald. It has the vitality of vulgarity."
In her highly ambitious second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg takes her inspiration from the alphabet.
A meditation on the hump of a camel, and what it hides. A reminder that tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, and a vision of the plant as Adam's downfall. The Book of Kells, gold-leafed and extravagantly decorated by monks. Titled for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, these poems are richly grounded in objects both humble and exotic. Vandenberg explores the intersection of power and forgiveness, and deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in emotionally poignant ways. "What will protect us?" one poem asks. "The words will be our weapons. In the end."
Moving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World unearths meaning--with astonishing beauty--from the pain of loss and separation.
Always/Siempre is a work of poetic and photographic ekphrasis, presented in English with Spanish translations.
Helen Vitoria has been nominated for Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize. She is the Founding Editor of THRUSH Press.
B.L. Pawelek has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes.
Always Danger offers a lyrical and highly imaginative exploration into the hazards that surround people's lives--whether it's violence, war, mental illness, car accidents, or the fury of Mother Nature. In his second collection of poems, David Hernandez embraces the element of surprise: a soldier takes refuge inside a hollowed-out horse, a man bullies a mountain, and a giant pink donut sponsors age-old questions about beliefs. Hernandez typically eschews the politics that often surround the inner circle of contemporary literature, but in this volume he quietly sings a few bars with a political tone: one poem shadows the conflict in Iraq, another reflects our own nation's economic and cultural divide. Always Danger parallels Hernandez's joy of writing: unmapped, spontaneous, and imbued with nuanced revelation.
In these four collections of verse ("The Dog Ate My Homework, I Never Said I Wasn't Difficult, Am I Naturally This Crazy? "and "Which Way to the Dragon!"), Sara Holbrook deals honestly with issues facing adolescents: school, divorce, anger, violence, love, friendship, and self-esteem. Through her straight-talk style, Holbrook captures the joys, pains, and attitudes that preteens and teenagers feel and provides a message of understanding that readers will appreciate.
Outsider poetry inspired by Ainsworth Rosewell, self-professed genius and con man who committed suicide in 1996 by jumping from the seventh floor of the Water Tower Mall. Subjects include relationships, death, sex, drugs, dogs, immortality, and Chicago, all exploding with nontraditional humor and vibrant characters, both real and imagined.
This dazzling Christmas poem by Maya Angelou is powerful and inspiring for people of all faiths. In this beautiful, deeply moving poem, Maya Angelou inspires us to embrace the peace and promise of Christmas, so that hope and love can once again light up our holidays and the world. "Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward," she writes, "and speak the word aloud. Peace." Read by the poet at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree at the White House on December 1, 2005, Maya Angelou' s celebration of the "Glad Season" is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of life.
Following the manic journey of a man stripped of memory, the poems in American Amnesiac confront the complexities of being American in an age of corruption, corporations, and global conflict.
I am a man missing a nation and a wife, strung up between a past
I may not want and a present in which I cannot make myself at ease.
Diane Raptosh has published three books of poems. The recipient of three literature fellowships from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, she teaches creative writing and literature at The College of Idaho. She was named Boise's first ever Poet Laureate in 2013.
In the tradition of Alice Walker, this electrifying new African American voice delivers the verdict on the urban condition in a sensual, propulsive, and prophetic book of poetry and prose.
Whether she is writing about an enraged teenager gone "wilding" in Central Park, fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins gunned down by a Korean grocer, or a brutalized child who grows up to escape her probable fate through the miracle of art, Sapphire's vision in this collection of poetry and prose is unswervingly honest.
"Stunning . . . . One of the strongest debut collections of the '90s."-- "Publishers Weekly"
Whether she is writing about an enraged teenager gone "wilding" in Central Park, fifteen-year-old Latasha Harlins gunned down by a Korean grocer, or a brutalized child who grows up to escape her probable fate through the miracle of art, Sapphire's vision in this collection of poetry and prose is unswervingly honest.
"Stunning . . . . One of the strongest debut collections of the '90s."-- "Publishers Weekly"
The ultimate subject of Maya C. Popa's stunning debut collection is violence. American Faith begins with its manifestation in our country: a destructive administration, a history of cruelty and extermination, and a love of firearms. The violence naturally extends to the personal. What for some is routine can feel like an assault: a TSA agent wipes down a bra tucked in a traveler's suitcase, adding, "...prettiest terrorist I've seen all day." Tentatively, the title poem casts light on the unrevealed future, a solution that includes faith: "...the days, impatient, fresh beasts, appeal to me--/ You are here. You must believe in something."