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The Boys At Twilight: Poems 1990–1995
by Glyn MaxwellThe poems in this volume were selected by Glyn Maxwell from TALE OF THE MAYOR'S SON (published in 1990, when he was twenty-eight), OUT OF THE RAIN (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize), and REST FOR THE WICKED. Maxwell “is a formalist,” wrote Robert McIlwaine about his first book, “but . . . he is an outspoken anti-elitist social poet. His strenuous well-wrought poems . . . come from an English tradition of technical virtuosity with plain speech.” The Boys at Twilight shows, sometimes comically, men at war, boys at play, boys grown up, men overreaching and reverting. Other concerns are the dangers of authority and mob psychology, the absurdities of stardom and consumerism, the heroism of the decent, and the wisdom of doubt. His subjects range from biblical stories to the “Tale of the Chocolate Egg,” which is a long, “pitch-perfect description of a bored young man’s growing obsession with a new kind of candy” (Adam Kirsch, New Republic). Always in his work, “Maxwell knows that to see into is not necessarily to see through . . . His virtuosity has a ballast of sobriety” (Poetry Book Society).
A Boy's Will
by Robert FrostA Boy's Will is a poetry collection by Robert Frost. It is Frost's first commercially published book of poems. <P> <P> Frost admitted that much of the book was autobiographical. As the proof sheets were printed in January 1913, he wrote the poems were "pretty near being the story of five years" of his life.[1] Specifically, Frost noted that the first poem of the book, "Into My Own", expressed how he turned away from people and "Tuft of Flowers" showed how he "came back to them".[1] In fact, some of the poems were written as early as two decades earlier.[2] Frost was apparently pleased with the book and wrote to a friend shortly after its publication, "I expect to do something to the present state of literature in America."[3] <P> <P> Like much of Frost's work, the poems in A Boy's Will thematically associate with rural life, nature, philosophy, and individuality, while also alluding to earlier poets including Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, William Shakespeare, and William Wordsworth.[1] Despite the first section of poems having a theme of retreating from society, then, Frost does not retreat from his literary precursors and, instead, tries to find his place among them.[4] The title of the book comes from the repeated lines in the poem "My Lost Youth" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "A boy's will is the wind's will / And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts".[5] The line is, in turn, a quote from Olaus Sirma in Lapponia (1675).[6] Frost likely chose the title as a reflection of his own wayward early life.[2]
A Boy's Will and North of Boston (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Robert FrostAlthough Robert Frost (1874-1963) wrote poetry throughout his youth and early adult years, his first collection of poems was not published until he was nearly 40 years old. And, ironically, it was not in America that this quintessentially American poet was first published, but in England. In 1912, he settled his family in Buckinghamshire, determining to devote his full life to poetry. In 1913, Frost published A Boy's Will, his first collection of poems. A series of sharply observed impressions of New England rural life touching upon universal themes, it included such poems as "Into My Own," "Asking for Roses," "Spoils of the Dead," and "Reluctance." A second volume, North of Boston, followed in 1914 and contained several of Frost's finest and best-known works: "Mending Wall," "After Apple-Picking," "The Death of the Hired Man," and others. Both volumes are reprinted here complete and unabridged - a treasury of fine early verse by one of the 20th century's most admired poets.
bpNichol
by Stephen ScobieScobie illuminates bpNichol's relationship to Dadaism, contemporary French literary theory and the writing of Gertrude Stein, and argues strongly for Nichol's importance as a writer of fiction.Other titles in The New Canadian Criticism Series:ABC of Reading the TRGTimothy Findley and the Aesthetics of FascismMichael Ondaatje: Word, Image, ImaginationMargaret Atwood: A Feminist PoeticsGeorge Bowering: Bright Circles of Colour
Braided Creek
by Ted Kooser Jim HarrisonBraided Creek contains more than 300 poems exchanged in this longstanding correspondence. Wise, wry, and penetrating, the poems touch upon numerous subjects, from the natural world to the nature of time. Harrison and Kooser decided to remain silent over who wrote which poem, allowing their voices, ideas, and images to swirl and merge into this remarkable suite of lyrics.Each time I go outside the worldis different. This has happened all my life. *The moon put her handover my mouth and told meto shut up and watch.*A nephew rubs the sore feetof his aunt,and the rope that lifts us all toward gracecreaks on the pulley.*Under the storyteller's hatare many heads, all troubled.Jim Harrison, one of America's best-loved writers, is author of two dozen books of poetry, fiction, essays, food criticism, and memoir. He is best known for a collection of novellas, Legends of the Fall, and the epic novel Dalva. He lives in western Montana and southern Arizona.Ted Kooser is the author of eight collections of poetry and a prose memoir. His poetry appears regularly in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Nation. He lives in Nebraska.
Brain Fever: Poems
by Kimiko HahnRooted in traditional Japanese aesthetics and meditations on contemporary neuroscience, a stunning new volume from an essential American poet. Acclaimed as "one of the most fascinating female poets of our time" (BOMB), Kimiko Hahn is a shape-shifter, a poet who seeks novel forms for her utterly original subject matter and "stands as a welcome voice of experimentation and passion" (Bloomsbury Review). In Brain Fever, Hahn integrates the recent findings of science, ancient Japanese aesthetics, and observations from her life as a woman, wife, mother, daughter, and artist. Rooted in meditations on contemporary neuroscience, Brain Fever takes as its subject the mysteries of the human mind--the nature of dreams and memories, the possibly illusory nature of linear time, the complexity of conveying love to a child. In one poem, "A Bowl of Spaghetti," she cites a comparison that researchers draw between unraveling "the millions of miles of wires in the [human] brain" and "untangling a bowl of spaghetti," and thus she untangles a memory of her own: "I have an old photo: Rei in her high chair intently / picking out each strand to mash in her mouth. // Was she two? Was that sailor dress from mother? / Did I cook that sauce from scratch? If so, there was a carrot in the pot." Equally inspired by Sei Shonagon's tenth-century Pillow Book and the latest findings of cognitive research, Brain Fever is a thrilling blend of the timely and the timeless.
Brama di Luce
by Aimar Rollan Valeria BragantePer i Sufiti non c’è castigo peggiore che provare nostalgia, sapendo di essere separati dalla fonte, né maggiore ricompensa che sentirsi uniti ad essa. Così, l’emozione che predomina in quest’opera è la nostalgia, ed il conseguente desiderio di liberarsi da essa e fondersi con l’Unità. Questa è la storia di una caduta, di una perdita, di un recupero e di una ascensione. È la storia di una ricerca della luce dall’oscurità più profonda. È scritta in prosa poetica, con breve frammenti indipendenti tra loro, che si possono leggere in modo isolato ma che mantengono una certa coesione, dato che ogni frammento porta con sé, o brama, un po’più di luce del precedente. Parla di un uomo che ha perduto la propria luce, ma che conserva dentro di sé un lieve scintillio del ricordo di essa. Questa fugacità tortura la sua mente e gli fa intraprendere un cammino di ascensione per recuperare un tesoro tanto prezioso. Passa attraverso tutte le fasi di depressione, tristezza e malinconia, crogiolandosi nella propria perdita. Nelle fasi iniziali identifica questa luce perduta con l’amore di una donna, con l’amore di molte donne che per lui sono una, e l’origine della sua malinconia è la perdita di questo amore. Man mano che il suo tormento avanza, riconosce che questa luce desiderata appartiene a qualcosa di più sottile e profondo, al regno della sua anima … Riconosce che questo dolore emozionale proviene dal sentirsi separato dalla fonte primordiale. Questa opera è scritta con un linguaggio malinconico, ma sullo sfondo vuole trasmettere bellezza, speranza ed allegria.
The Branch Will Not Break: Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Program)
by James WrightA new poetry book from a Pulitzer Prize winning poet.
Branches
by Mark TruscottWinner of the 2020 Nelson Ball PrizeCareful attention reveals that, even in moments that seem insignificant, our minds are constantly navigating disjunctions among registers of experience. Our intellect silently reminds our eyes that the car that appears to be moving between leaves is actually behind them and much larger. The sound of the vacuum cleaner in the next room is noise to be ignored. The phrase that arises in mind belongs to a conversation earlier in the day. Clear thinking demands that these navigations remain unconscious. But what if they're meaningful, or productive, in themselves? What if they're necessary to help us find a more meaningful place in the world? Branches explores these questions.
Brand New Spacesuit (American Poets Continuum #179)
by John GallaherIn Brand New Spacesuit, John Gallaher writes with honesty, humor, and tenderness about caring for his aging parents. These poems offer snapshots of the poet’s memories of his adoption and childhood, his father’s heart attacks, his mother’s progressing Alzheimer’s disease and stroke, raising his own children, and his reflections on the complex mysteries of the universe within everyday moments. With exquisite attention to detail, Gallaher captures the losses, anxieties, and possibilities that come with caring for one another.
Brats
by X. J. KennedyThis is a book of short poems about mischievous children getting into all sorts of trouble, many times with animals or other aspects of nature.
A Brave and Startling Truth
by Maya AngelouA single poem calling for peace and balance in the world. Read by Angelou at the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, June 26, 1995
Brave Dave
by Giles AndreaeFrom the creators of the internationally bestselling Giraffes Can't Dance comes a life-affirming new story about a little bear who learns what it really means to find your inner brave and have the confidence to be yourself . . .Dave, the grizzly bear, is in awe of his big brother Clarence - he's big, brave and strong, all the things that Dave thinks a grizzly bear should be. How Dave wishes he could be more like Clarence until, one day, Dave discovers that bravery comes in different guises and that this grizzly bear doesn't need to be more Clarence, he needs to be more Dave! A celebration of individuality, self-acceptance and having the courage to stand out - the perfect book for encouraging all little ones to take pride in being themselves and showing them that they don't have to be like anyone else, not even their older brothers or sisters.GIRAFFES CAN'T DANCE is a beloved favourite that has found its way into the hearts, and onto the bookshelves, of a whole generation of children. With positive messages about self-esteem, the multi-million bestseller is a contemporary classic.
The Brave Never Write Poetry
by Daniel JonesFirst published in 1985, when Daniel Jones was just 26, The Brave Never Write Poetry, the poet/critic/novelist's lone collection of poems, was a cult hit, turning 'poetry' on its head before its author (then known simply as 'Jones') swore off verse entirely. Written in a direct, plainspoken, autobiographical and at times confessional style in the tradition of Charles Bukowski and Al Purdy, these confrontational poems about sex and boredom, drugs and suicide, document Jones' depressive, alcoholic years as an enfant terrible. This long-overdue revised edition brings Jones' unforgettable voice to a new generation of readers and includes the complete text of the original collection (including Jones' own sardonic assessments of his own poetry), a new preface by poet/critic Kevin Connolly, and postscript commentary from many of Jones' closest friends and literary colleagues.
The Brave Never Write Poetry
by Daniel JonesFirst published in 1985, when Daniel Jones was just twenty-six, The Brave Never Write Poetry, the poet/critic/novelist's lone collection of poems, was a cult hit, turning 'poetry' on its head before its author (then known simply as 'Jones') swore off verse entirely. Written in a direct, plainspoken, autobiographical and at times confessional style in the tradition of Charles Bukowski and Al Purdy, these confrontational poems about sex and boredom, drugs and suicide, document Jones' depressive, alcoholic years as an enfant terrible. This long overdue revised edition brings Jones' unforgettable voice to a new generation of readers and includes the complete text of the original collection (including Jones' own sardonic assessments of his own poetry) and a new postscript essay by poet/critic Kevin Connolly.
Brawl & Jag: Poems
by April Bernard"It is as if the poet set fire to her earlier work and wrote these poems in the light of those flames."--Mark Wunderlich April Bernard explores subjects ranging from childhood anger to adult grief, from a museum of skulls to the Western movie genre. By turns playful, sorrowful, and sharp-edged, Brawl and Jag stands as Bernard's most personal and accessible collection to date. From "Anger": I always lie when I always say I didn't know the gun was loaded.
Brazil, Lyric, and the Americas
by Charles A. Perrone"This is Perrone at his most brilliant. Erudite but accessible, thorough but playful: Brazil, Lyric, and the Americas is the latest contribution by the most knowledgeable U.S.-based scholar of the Brazilian lyric."--Severino Joao Albuquerque, University of Wisconsin "Perrone retraces the dialogue of the Brazilian lyric with the poetry of the Americas in the generous spirit that the poets' utopia of solidarity will serve as a counterpoint to the harsher side of globalization."--Luiza Moreira, Binghamton University In this highly original volume, Charles Perrone explores how recent Brazilian lyric engages with its counterparts throughout the Western Hemisphere in an increasingly globalized world. This pioneering, tour-de-force study focuses on the years from 1985 to the present and examines poetic output--from song and visual poetry to discursive verse--across a range of media. At the core of Perrone's work are in-depth examinations of five phenomena: the use of the English language and the reception of American poetry in Brazil; representations and engagements with U.S. culture, especially with respect to film and popular music; epic poems of hemispheric solidarity; contemporary dialogues between Brazilian and Spanish American poets; and the innovative musical, lyrical, and commercially successful work that evolved from the 1960s movement Tropicalia.
Breach: Poems (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War)
by Nicole CooleyIn Breach, New Orleans native Nicole Cooley recalls Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in gritty, poignant detail, bearing witness to the destruction of a region and to its recovery. Ranging from the urgent to the reflective, these poems speak not only to the horrors of the immediate disaster, but also to family dynamics in a time of crisis and to the social, political, and cultural realities that contextualized the storm and its wake. In the title poem, Cooley invokes the multiple meanings of the word “breach”—breach of the levees, breach of trust—which resonate with survivors in the Crescent City, and in “Evacuation,” she recounts her efforts to encourage her parents to leave the city and her harrowing three-day wait to hear from them after they refused. A number of poems, including “Write a Love Letter to Camellia Grill,” “The Superdome: A Suite,” and “Biloxi Bay Bridge Still Out,” offer a broad range of voices and experiences to expand the perspective beyond Cooley’s own family. With language and images both powerful and precise, this compelling collection dares us to “watch the surface of the city tear like loose skin.”
Bread and Circus
by Airea D. MatthewsA powerful collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia&’s Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class and its failures for those rendered invisible by it.As a former student of economics, Airea D. Matthews was fascinated and disturbed by 18th-century Scottish economist Adam Smith, and his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations. Bread and Circus is a direct challenge to Smith&’s theory of the invisible hand, which claims self-interest is the key to optimal economic outcomes. By juxtaposing redacted texts by Smith and the French Marxist Guy Debord with autobiographical prose and poems, Bread and Circus demonstrates that self-interest fails when people become commodities themselves, and shows how the most vulnerable—including the author and her family—have been impacted by that failure. A layered collection to be read and reread, with poems that range from tragic to humorous, in forms as varied and nuanced as the ideas the book considers, Bread and Circus explores the area where theory and reality meet. Timely, ambitious, and relevant, Bread and Circus is a brilliant intellectual and artistic contribution to an ongoing conversation about American inequality, for fans of Elizabeth Alexander, Natalie Diaz, Eve Ewing, and Gregory Pardlo.
Break, Blow, Burn
by Camille PagliaAmerica's most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis and appreciation to bear on the great poems of the Western tradition, and on some unexpected discoveries of her own. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia refreshes our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73" to Shelley's "Ozymandias," from Donne's "The Flea" to Lowell's "Man and Wife," and from Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" to Plath's "Daddy."Paglia also introduces us to less-familiar works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut-and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn will excite even seasoned poetry lovers, and create a generation of new ones.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Break the Glass
by Jean Valentine"As elliptical and demanding as Emily Dickinson, Valentine consistently rewards the reader."-Library JournalIn her eleventh collection-honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry-Jean Valentine characteristically weds a moral imperative to imaginative and linguistic leaps and bounds. Whether writing elegies, meditations on aging, or an extended homage to Lucy, the earliest known hominid, the pared-down compactness of her tone and vision reveals a singular voice in American poetry. As Adrienne Rich has said of Valentine's work, "This is a poetry of the highest order, because it lets us into spaces and meanings we couldn't approach in any other way."From "If a Person Visits Someone in a Dream, in Some Cultures the Dreamer Thanks Them":At a hotel in another star. The rooms were cold anddamp, we were both at the desk at midnight asking ifthey had any heaters. They had one heater. You areill, please you take it. Thank you for visiting my dream.*Can you breathe all right?Break the glass shoutbreak the glass force the roombreak the thread Openthe music behind the glass . . . Jean Valentine, a former State Poet of New York, earned a National Book Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, and the Shelley Memorial Prize. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence, New York University, and Columbia University. She lives in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City.
The BreakBeat Poets
by Kevin Coval Nate Marshall Quraysh Ali LansanaHip-Hop is the largest youth culture in the history of the planet rock. This is the first poetry anthology by and for the Hip-Hop generation.It has produced generations of artists who have revolutionized their genre(s) by applying the aesthetic innovations of the culture. The BreakBeat Poets features 78 poets, born somewhere between 1961-1999, All-City and Coast-to-Coast, who are creating the next and now movement(s) in American letters.The BreakBeat Poets is for people who love Hip-Hop, for fans of the culture, for people who've never read a poem, for people who thought poems were only something done by dead white dudes who got lost in a forest, and for poetry heads. This anthology is meant to expand the idea of who a poet is and what a poem is for.The BreakBeat Poets are the scribes recording and remixing a fuller spectrum of experience of what it means to be alive in this moment. The BreakBeat Poets are a break with the past and an honoring of the tradition(s), an undeniable body expanding the canon for the fresher.
Breaker
by Sue SinclairSue Sinclair is the direct inheritor of the great early 20th Century German poet, Rilke: she possesses intense lyrical vision, steeped in wonder at the existence of the world, and a kind of grief at our inability to lose ourselves in it completely. Her perception is acutely focused and rigorous; and she is acutely self-aware. She is not afraid of words like “beauty” or “being,” yet, because of the intensity of her vision, she never uses them as clichés. Her gift for metaphor is astonishing and may remind some readers of the young Roo Borson.
Breaking Silence
by Joseph BruchacThe Asian American experience is expressed poetically in a anthology of contributions from contemporary Asian American poets.
Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee (American Readers Series)
by Li-Young LeeIn the foreword to Li-Young Lee&’s first book, Rose (BOA Editions, 1986), Gerald Stern wrote, &“What characterizes Li-Young Lee&’s poetry is a certain kind of humility, a kind of cunning, a love of plain speech, a search for wisdom and understanding. . . . I think we are in the presence of a true spirit.&” Poetry lovers agree! Rose has gone on to sell more than eighty thousand copies, and Li-Young Lee has become one of the country&’s most beloved poets. Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee is a collection of the best dozen interviews given by Li-Young Lee over the past twenty years. From a twenty-nine-year-old poet prodigy to a seasoned veteran in high demand for readings and appearances across the United States and abroad, these interviews capture Li-Young Lee at various stages of his artistic development. He not only discusses his family&’s flight from political oppression in China and Indonesia, but how that journey affected his poetry and the engaging, often painful, insights being raised a cultural outsider in America afforded him. Other topics include spirituality (primarily Christianity and Buddhism) and a wide range of aesthetic topics such as literary influences, his own writing practices, the role of formal and informal education in becoming a writer, and his current life as a famous and highly sought-after American poet.