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The Diaspora Sonnets
by Oliver de la PazLONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY For fans of Diane Seuss and Victoria Chang, a coruscating collection that eloquently invokes the perseverance and myth of the Filipino diaspora in America. In 1972, after Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, Oliver de la Paz’s father, in a last fit of desperation to leave the Philippines, threw his papers at an immigration clerk, hoping to get them stamped. He was prepared to leave, having already quit his job and having exchanged pesos for dollars; but he couldn’t anticipate the challenges of the migratory lifestyle he and his family would soon adopt in America. Their search for a sense of “home” and boundless feelings of deracination are evocatively explored by award-winning poet de la Paz in this formally inventive collection of sonnets. Broken into three parts—“The Implacable West,” “Landscape with Work, Rest, and Silence,” and “Dwelling Music”—The Diaspora Sonnets eloquently invokes the perseverance and bold possibilities of de la Paz’s displaced family as they strove for stability and belonging. In order to establish her medical practice, de la Paz’s mother had to relocate often for residencies. As they moved from state to state his father worked to support the family. Sonnets thus flit from coast to coast, across prairies and deserts, along the way musing on shadowy dreams of a faraway country. The sonnet proves formally malleable as de la Paz breaks and rejoins its tradition throughout this collection, embarking on a broader conversation about what fits and how one adapts—from the restrained use of rhyme in “Diaspora Sonnet in the Summer with the River Water Low” and carefully metered “Diaspora Sonnet Imagining My Father’s Uncertainty and Nothing Else” to the hybridized “Diaspora Sonnet at the Feeders Before the Freeze.” A series of “Chain Migration” poems viscerally punctuate the sonnets, giving witness to the labor and sacrifice of the immigrant experience, as do a series of hauntingly beautiful pantoums. Written with the deft touch of a virtuoso and the compassion of a loving son, The Diaspora Sonnets powerfully captures the peculiar pangs of a diaspora “that has left and is forever leaving.”
The Didactic Muse: Scenes of Instruction in Contemporary American Poetry
by Willard SpiegelmanFrom Horace to Robert Frost ("a poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom") the major current of Western poetics has flowed from the wells of pleasure to the depths of instruction. That poetry serves pedagogy seemed as unarguable in the classical and early modern worlds as it may appear untenable in the contemporary one. Poets traditionally held their mirrors up to nature not simply to reflect it but to occasion reflection and right action in their readers.
The Diener: Poems (Barataria Poetry)
by Martha SerpasThe Diener investigates loss and healing, change and permanence, in a hospital trauma center and the eroding landscape of southern Louisiana. The diener himself, the morgue attendant who assists the dead in the interstice between the living world and the world beyond, is the person with whom Martha Serpas most identifies in this collection. As a part-time hospital chaplain, Serpas possesses keen insight into the despair and resolve of patients and their families and friends. Yet the themes in The Diener go well beyond grief and loss, as Serpas finds deeper meaning in faith, humanity, and the celebration of life. The diener is preeminent in a cast of characters-a sailor, a clerk, roustabouts, mothers, nurses, and chaplains-that represents the paradoxes of body and soul. Loss is never just absence, and presence is not necessarily wholeness. Attending to the pastoral both as ecological advocacy and spiritual care, The Diener looks to the metaphysical world and the Gulf landscape as vehicles of change and stasis.
The Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems
by Al Filreis and Anna Strong SaffordSince its inception in 2012, the hugely successful online introduction to modern poetry known as ModPo has engaged some 415,000 readers, listeners, teachers, and poets with its focus on a modern and contemporary American tradition that runs from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson up to some of today's freshest and most experimental written and spoken verse. In The Difference Is Spreading, ModPo's Al Filreis and Anna Strong Safford have handed the microphone over to the poets themselves, by inviting fifty of them to select and comment upon a poem by another writer.The approaches taken are various, confirming that there are as many ways for a poet to write about someone else's poem as there are poet-poem matches in this volume. Yet a straight-through reading of the fifty poems anthologized here, along with the fifty responses to them, emphatically demonstrates the importance to poetry of community, of socioaesthetic networks and lines of connection, and of expressions of affection and honor due to one's innovative colleagues and predecessors. Through the curation of these selections, Filreis and Safford express their belief that the poems that are most challenging and most dynamic are those that are open—the writings, that is, that ask their readers to participate in making their meaning. Poetry happens when a reader and a poet come in contact with one another, when the reader, whether celebrated poet or novice, is invited to do interpretive work—for without that convergence, poetry is inert.
The Dirty Side of the Storm: Poems
by Martha Serpas"At once a love song and a dirge to a landscape being swallowed by the waters that define it."--St. Petersburg Times An evocative meditation on destruction and creation, the sacred and ephemeral, along Louisiana's coast. In poems that bear witness to the eroding bayou country and its Cajun culture, Martha Serpas venerates a vanishing landscape defined by water--sensuous, fecund, and destructive. As marsh turns into gulf, identity and consciousness are transformed as well. Serpas's verses invest paradox with her own defiantly spiritual meaning.
The Disappearing Alphabet
by Richard WilburPulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur turns his sharp eye to the noble alphabet and imagines what life would be like without these twenty-six little--but powerful--letters. Packed with humor and witty subtleties, the verse in this captivating picture book is splendidly matched by Caldecott Medal winner David Diaz's hilariously clever illustrations.
The Disappearing Trick
by Len RobertsIn The Disappearing Trick, Len Roberts wrestles with the loss of loved ones--whether that loss be through death, a son moving away to college, or simply how people fade from our lives and memories. Hybrids of the narrative and lyric form, these poems are models of indirect statement that have, as Sharon Olds has said, "emotional courage, powerful music, and a deep balance." Like the light shining on a face, or a girl's thigh back in a sixth-grade class, the poems often come as Proustian flashes--lasting just a second, but seeming eternal--amid an increasing darkness.
The Discourse of Nature in the Poetry of Paul Celan: The Unnatural World (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
by Rochelle TobiasPaul Celan has long been regarded as the most important European poet after 1945 but also the most difficult owing to the numerous references in his work to his personal history and to a cultural heritage spanning many disciplines, centuries, and languages. In this insightful study, Rochelle Tobias goes a long way to dispelling the obscurity that has surrounded the poet and his work. She shows that the enigmatic images in his poetry have a common source. They are drawn from the disciplines of geology, astrology, and physiology or what could be called the sciences of the earth, the heavens, and the human being. Celan’s poetry borrows from each of these disciplines to create a poetic universe—a universe that attests to what is no longer and projects what is not yet.This is the unnatural world of Celan's poetry. It is a world in which time itself takes physical form or is made plastic. Through a series of close readings and philosophical explorations, Tobias reflects on the experience of time encoded and embodied in Celan's work. She demonstrates that the physical world in his poetry ultimately serves as a showcase for time, which is the most elusive aspect of human experience because it is based nowhere but in the mind. Tobias's probing interpretations present a new model for understanding Celan's work from the early elegiac poems to the later cryptic texts.An interdisciplinary project, the study combines readings of Celan's poetry with discussions of ancient and modern science, mystical cosmology, and twentieth-century literature and thought. Tobias's original approach to Celan illuminates his complex verse and contributes significantly to the theory of metaphor as it applies to modern verse.
The Discovery of Poetry: A Field Guide to Reading and Writing Poems
by Frances MayesThe bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun brings poetry out of the classroom and into the homes of everyday readers. <P><P>Before she fell in love with Tuscany, Frances Mayes fell in love with verse. After publishing five books of poetry and teaching creative writing for more than twenty-five years, Mayes is no stranger to the subject. In The Discovery of Poetry, an accessible "field guide" to reading and writing poetry, she shares her passion with readers. Beginning with basic terminology and techniques, from texture and sound to rhyme and repetition, Mayes shows how focusing on one aspect of a poem can help you to better understand, appreciate, and enjoy the reading and writing experience. In addition to many creative and helpful composition ideas, following each lyrical and lively discussion is a thoughtful selection of poems. With its wonderful anthology from Shakespeare to Jamaica Kinkaid, The Discovery of Poetry is an insightful, invaluable guide to what Mayes calls "the natural pleasures of language-a happiness we were born to have."
The Dissonant Legacy of Modernismo: Lugones, Herrera y Reissig, and the Voices of Modern Spanish American Poetry (Latin American Literature and Culture #3)
by Gwen KirkpatrickThis title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1989.
The Distance
by Azza El WakeelAt the age of eleven, Azza El Wakeel wrote in her diary that she wished to become a poetess because poets are capable of expressing their deep feelings and thoughts in a wonderful style. Several years later she discovered that her simple lines could be considered poems – that the texts in her diaries are poetry! All at once, she became a poetess and writer. Through writing she discovers herself and understands her feelings; she enjoys forming new sentences, playing with words, drawing images and composing inner music between the lines. Sharing her words makes her happy and she’s pleased to leave a mark of beauty on the earth, because she believes that poetry is the most beautiful thing in the world!
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri Clive James"Under James's uncanny touch, seven long centuries drop away, and the great poem is startlingly fresh and new."--Stephen Greenblatt The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James's translation--decades in the making--gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent, and compulsively readable lyric poem. For the first time ever in an English translation, James makes the bold choice of switching from the terza rima composition of the original Italian--a measure that strains in English--to the quatrain. The result is "rhymed English stanzas that convey the music of Dante's triple rhymes" (Edward Mendelson). James's translation reproduces the same wonderful momentum of the original Italian that propels the reader along the pilgrim's path from Hell to Heaven, from despair to revelation.
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri John CiardiDante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise--the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. 10 illustrations
The Divine Comedy
by Dante AlighieriFor the first time in one volume, the most elegant and accessible translation of Dante&’s enduring masterpieceCharles Singleton&’s English-language translation of The Divine Comedy is widely considered to be one of the finest renderings of Dante&’s masterpiece. Singleton&’s prose is both faithful and scholarly, and sensitive to the subtle nuances of meaning and richness of reference in Dante&’s epic poem. Here for the first time is the single-volume edition of Singleton&’s celebrated translation.This beautifully illustrated book brings together all three volumes of Dante&’s poem, describing his travels down to the circles of Hell, up over the mountain of Purgatory, and his ultimate ascension through the celestial spheres of Paradise. Dante&’s divine tour provides a timeless allegory for the journey of one&’s soul toward union with God.Featuring an incisive introduction by Simone Marchesi, a glossary, and stunning illustrations by acclaimed artist Roberto Abbiati, this handsome edition of The Divine Comedy introduces a new generation of readers to what is perhaps the preeminent achievement of Italian literature.
The Divine Comedy
by Dante Alighieri“If there is an afterexistence in which the individual human consciousness continues, I imagine Dante Alighieri is thanking the Creator for giving him, at last, a Michael Palma.” —Marilyn Nelson, author of A Wreath for Emmett Till When Michael Palma’s translation of the Inferno appeared in 2002, it defied the conventional wisdom of literary commentators who had long argued that Dante’s intricate terza rima form simply could not be rendered in “rhyme-poor” English. But Palma’s achievement in rhyming tercets was quickly received as a spectacular feat of poetic artistry that was “accurate... admirably clear, and readable” (Richard Wilbur) and that, “in capturing the sense, sound, and spirit of the original... comes close to perfection” (X. J. Kennedy). Now, more than two decades later, Palma has applied the same virtuosic attention to the form and flow of the Purgatorio and Paradiso, attending to both the tiniest details and the grand design of the entire Commedia and offering a fluid and readable English version that reveals to contemporary readers the sound, sense, and awe-inspiring beauty of Italian literature’s greatest poem.
The Divine Comedy & Paradise
by Dante AlighieriIn Paradise, having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory, Dante ascends to Heaven, continuing his soul's search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise he grows in understanding, until he finally experiences divine love in the radiant presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, Dante exercised all his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.
The Divine Comedy - Hell
by Dante Alighieri Dorothy L. SayersGuided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God. Together they descend through the nine circles of the underworld and encounter the tormented souls of the damned - from heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals and seducers - who tell of their sad fates and predict events still to come in Dante's life. In this first part of his Divine Comedy, Dante fused satire and humour with intellect and soaring passion to create an immortal Christian allegory of mankind's search for self-knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.
The Divine Comedy Volume II: Purgatory
by Dante AlighieriBeginning with Dante's liberation from Hell, Purgatory relates his ascent, accompanied by Virgil, of the Mount of Purgatory - a mountain of nine levels, formed from rock forced upwards when God threw Satan into depths of the earth. <p><p> As he travels through the first seven levels, Dante observes the sinners who are waiting for their release into Paradise, and through these encounters he is himself transformed into a stronger and better man. For it is only when he has learned from each of these levels that he can ascend to the gateway to Heaven: the Garden of Eden. <p><p> The second part of one of the greatest epic poems, Purgatory is an enthralling Christian allegory of sin, redemption and ultimate enlightenment.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Aligheri: Volume 2 Purgatorio
by Dante Alighieri Robert M. Durling Ronald L. MartinezIn the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri set out to write the three volumes which make the up The Divine Comedy. Purgatorio is the second volume in this set and opens with Dante the poet picturing Dante the pilgrim coming out of the pit of hell. Similar to the Inferno (34 cantos), this volume is divided into 33 cantos, written in tercets (groups of 3 lines). The English prose is arranged in tercets to facilitate easy correspondence to the verse form of the Italian on the facing page, enabling the reader to follow both languages line by line. In an effort to capture the peculiarities of Dante's original language, this translation strives toward the literal and sheds new light on the shape of the poem. Again the text of Purgatorio follows Petrocchi's La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, but the editor has departed from Petrocchi's readings in a number of cases, somewhat larger than in the previous Inferno, not without consideration of recent critical readings of the Comedy by scholars such as Lanza (1995, 1997) and Sanguineti (2001). As before, Petrocchi's punctuation has been lightened and American norms have been followed. However, without any pretensions to being "critical", the text presented here is electic and being not persuaded of the exclusive authority of any manuscript, the editor has felt free to adopt readings from various branches of the stemma. One major addition to this second volume is in the notes, where is found the Intercantica - a section for each canto that discusses its relation to the Inferno and which will make it easier for the reader to relate the different parts of the Comedy as a whole.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 3 Paradiso
by Dante Alighieri Robert M. Durling Ronald L. MartinezRobert Durling's spirited new prose translation of the Paradiso completes his masterful rendering of the Divine Comedy. Durling's earlier translations of the Inferno and the Purgatorio garnered high praise, and with this superb version of the Paradiso readers can now traverse the entirety of Dante's epic poem of spiritual ascent with the guidance of one of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators.
The Divine Comedy, I. Inferno, Vol. I. Part 1: Text (Bollingen Series #677)
by DanteCharles S. Singleton's edition of the Divine Comedy, of which this is the first part, provides the English-speaking reader with everything he needs to read and understand Dante’s great masterpiece.The Italian text here is in the edition of Giorgio Petrocchi, the leading Italian editor of Dante. Professor Singleton’s prose translation, facing the Italian in a line-for-line arrangement on each page, is smooth and literate. The companion volume, the Commentary, marshals every point of information the reader may require: vocabulary; grammar; identification of Dante’s characters; historical sources of some of the incidents and, where pertinent, excerpts from those sources in their original languages and in translation; profound clear analysis of the Divine Comedy’s basic allegory. There is a complete bibliography of every aspect of Dante studies.This first part of the Divine Comedy which is illustrated with maps of Italy and the region Dante knew especially, diagrams of the circles of Hell, and plates showing some of the historic sites mentioned by Dante in his poem.
The Divine Comedy, I. Inferno, Vol. I. Part 2: Commentary (Bollingen Series #681)
by DanteCharles S. Singleton's edition of the Divine Comedy, of which this is the first part, provides the English-speaking reader with everything he needs to read and understand Dante’s great masterpiece.The Italian text here is in the edition of Giorgio Petrocchi, the leading Italian editor of Dante. Professor Singleton’s prose translation, facing the Italian in a line-for-line arrangement on each page, is smooth and literate. The companion volume, the Commentary, marshals every point of information the reader may require: vocabulary; grammar; identification of Dante’s characters; historical sources of some of the incidents and, where pertinent, excerpts from those sources in their original languages and in translation; profound clear analysis of the Divine Comedy’s basic allegory. There is a complete bibliography of every aspect of Dante studies.This first part of the Divine Comedy which is illustrated with maps of Italy and the region Dante knew especially, diagrams of the circles of Hell, and plates showing some of the historic sites mentioned by Dante in his poem.
The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio, Vol. II. Part 1: Text (Bollingen Series #675)
by DanteContinuing the paperback edition of Charles S. Singleton's translation of The Divine Comedy, this work provides the English-speaking reader with everything he needs to read and understand the Purgatorio. This volume consists of the prose translation of Giorgio Petrocchi's Italian text (which faces the translation on each page); its companion volume of commentary is a masterpiece of erudition, offering a wide range of information on such subjects as Dante's vocabulary, his characters, and the historical sources of incidents in the poem. Professor Singleton provides a clear and profound analysis of the poem's basic allegory, and the illustrations, diagrams, and map clarify points that have previously confused readers of The Divine Comedy.