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America Is ...
by Louise BordenIn words and pictures, this is a great salute to a great country, the land of freedom for us, and for people all over the world. In her poetic text, Louise Borden evokes with bold strokes the many aspects of our nation-its farmlands, its prairies, its cattle country, its cities, its rivers and the many kinds of people who live and work here. Mountains and deserts, waterfalls and beaches-each of our states has special things to see and enjoy. And all over this country our flag flies, with fifty stars for our current fifty states and thirteen broad stripes for our original thirteen colonies.
America, My Love, America, My Heart
by Daria Peoples-RileyAmerica, do you love me? Acclaimed author-artist Daria Peoples-Riley invites readers to answer timely—and timeless—questions beating inside the hearts of children across America. Exquisitely illustrated, with a powerful, lyrical text, America, My Love, America, My Heart will challenge readers of all ages to examine and evaluate personal beliefs and attitudes toward the many different colors of America. America, do you love me? My black. My brown. My pride. My crown. What begins as a single question from a single child multiplies as America, My Love, America, My Heart sweeps across the country with every page turn, inviting in more and more children of color—and their questions. Does America love them when they speak? Or whisper? Or shout? When they stand? Does America love them just as they are? Inspired by the questions of her own childhood, author and artist Daria Peoples-Riley has created a powerful and important book for Americans of all ages—an essential addition to every bookshelf and classroom. Her poetic text encourages readers to confront bias, prejudice, and discrimination and invites readers to reflect and respond with their own answers, while honoring the identities of black and brown children and people of color.The unforgettable monochromatic oil paintings incorporate patriotic colors—red, white, and blue—to evoke deeply felt emotion and unique perspective. This rich, resonant book is a conversation starter for children, for families, for classrooms, and for communities.
America the Beautiful
by Wendell MinorClassic Americana and patriotism meet in this picture book version of the beloved song "America the Beautiful."Katharine Lee Bates's timeless and beloved poem alongside art by award-winning author and artist Wendell Minor, capturing the magnificent beauty of the United States. Celebrate America's ideals of togetherness and marvel at classic illustrations of her natural and historical wonders: from Yosemite National Park and the Garden of the Gods, to Mount Rushmore and Plymouth Plantation. This reissued edition includes an updated introduction, information about the poet, the composer of the song, the sheet music, a map and brief information about all twenty-one American locations depicted in the book.
America the Beautiful in the Words of Walt Whitman
by Editors of Country BeautifulThe editors of Country Beautiful take the readers into the life of Walt Whitman by sharing Whitman’s writings at different levels of his development. Interspersed with his writings, are editorial historical comments that place Whitman’s poems and prose within the appropriate historical context. From this, the readers gain a glimpse into Whitman’s mind, heart, and spirit, and view of social justice. The photographs that the editors chose to put into this volume add to the vibrancy of Whitman’s work.
America! What’s My Name: The "Other" Poets Unfurl the Flag
by Frank X. WalkerA multi-cultural anthology of modern poetry.
The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth
by R.W.B. LewisIntellectual history is viewed in this book as a series of "great conversations"—dramatic dialogues in which a culture's spokesmen wrestle with the leading questions of their times. In nineteenth-century America the great argument centered about De Crèvecoeur's "new man," the American, an innocent Adam in a bright new world dissociating himself from the historic past. Mr. Lewis reveals this vital preoccupation as a pervasive, transforming ingredient of the American mind, illuminating history and theology as well as art, shaping the consciousness of lesser thinkers as fully as it shaped the giants of the age. He traces the Adamic theme in the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Henry James, and others, and in an Epilogue he exposes their continuing spirit in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, J. D. Salinger, and Saul Bellow.
American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets
by David WalkerThis anthology introduces readers to twenty-five American poets of the last decades of the twentieth century. Each poet is introduced by a short critical essay, followed by a representative sample of their work. Poets include Agha Shahid Ali, Rita Dove, Mark Doty, and Linda Gregerson.
American Bards Walt Whitman and Other Unlikely Candidates for National Poet
by Edward WhitleyWalt Whitman has long been regarded as the quintessential American bard, the poet who best represents all that is distinctive about life in the United States. Whitman himself encouraged this view, but he was also quick to remind his readers that he was an unlikely candidate for the office of national poet, and that his working-class upbringing and radical take on human sexuality often put him at odds with American culture. While American literary history has tended to credit Whitman with having invented the persona of the national outsider as the national bard, Edward Whitley recovers three of Whitman's contemporaries who adopted similar personae: James M. Whitfield, an African American separatist and abolitionist; Eliza R. Snow, a Mormon pioneer and women's leader; and John Rollin Ridge, a Cherokee journalist and Native-rights advocate. These three poets not only provide a counterpoint to the Whitmanian persona of the outsider bard, but they also reframe the criteria by which generations of scholars have characterized Whitman as America's poet. This effort to resituate Whitman's place in American literary history provides an innovative perspective on the most familiar poet of the United States and the culture from which he emerged. Walt Whitman has long been regarded as the quintessential American bard, the poet who best represents all that is distinctive about life in the United States. Whitman himself encouraged this view, but he was also quick to remind his readers that he was an unlikely candidate for the office of national poet, and that his working-class upbringing and radical take on human sexuality often put him at odds with American culture. While American literary history has tended to credit Whitman with having invented the persona of the national outsider as the national bard, Edward Whitley recovers three of Whitman's contemporaries who adopted similar personae: James M. Whitfield, an African American separatist and abolitionist; Eliza R. Snow, a Mormon pioneer and women's leader; and John Rollin Ridge, a Cherokee journalist and Native-rights advocate. These three poets not only provide a counterpoint to the Whitmanian persona of the outsider bard, but they also reframe the criteria by which generations of scholars have characterized Whitman as America's poet. This effort to resituate Whitman's place in American literary history provides an innovative perspective on the most familiar poet of the United States and the culture from which he emerged.
American Cycle: Version 2
by Larry BeckettAmerican Cycle, a sequence of long poems inspired by our folklore and past, was written over forty-seven years. Its themes are love, local mythology, history, justice, memory, accomplishment, time. "The books are extraordinary, sustained explosions of authentic American language and energy. Each is entirely different from the others in style, voice, form and narrative content; each so rich in imagery and nuance and texture and event and so finely crafted. . . " —Paul Williams, author of Bob Dylan: Performing Artist.American Cycle holds Spanish words loaned from Old California, rough colloquialisms in Paul Bunyan, the power of African-American vernacular English in John Henry, bare oratory in Chief Joseph, old west phrases in Wyatt Earp, circus ballyhoo in P. T. Barnum, aviation jargon in Amelia Earhart, backwoods dialect in Blue Ridge. As Walt Whitman says, "I hear America singing, the varied carols. . .”
American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman
by Max CavitchPracticed and read form of verse in America, "elegies are poems about being left behind," writes Max Cavitch. American Elegy is the history of a diverse people's poetic experience of mourning and of mortality's profound challenge to creative living.
American Ghost Roses
by Kevin SteinIn his first book as the poet laureate of Illinois, Kevin Stein shoulders an array of poetic forms, blending pathos, humor, and social commentary. These poems--ranging from meditative narratives to improvisational lyrics--explore art's capacity to embody as well as express contemporary culture. Stein embraces subjects as various as his father's death, magazine sex surveys, Kandinsky's theory of art, the dangling modifier, Jimi Hendrix's flaming guitar, racial bigotry, and a teacher's comments on a botched poem. Presiding over this miscellany are ghosts of a peculiarly American garden of dreamers and beloved misfits, those redeemed and those left fingering the locked gate
American Inquisitors
by Walter LippmannAmerican Inquisitors is one of the small gems among Walter Lippmann's larger books. Written in response to the trials of John Scopes and William McAndrew in 1925 and 1927, this volume contains a succinct analysis of a basic problem of democracy: the conflict between intellectual freedom and majority rule. In both cases, the state, acting in the name of popular sovereignty, sought to suppress teaching that was contrary to the tenets of religious fundamentalism and patriotic tradition. In distilling the arguments surrounding both trials, Lippmann sounds a warning against the tyranny of the majority and challenges people to rethink their theories of liberty and democracy.American Inquisitors consists of five related dialogues, each exploring a different dilemma at the heart of democratic political theory. The first two establish the principles of majority rule and freedom of the mind in the persons of William Jennings Bryan and Thomas Jefferson, with Socrates urging a reexamination of all principles..These dialogues debate the will and the rational capacity of the people to rule and demonstrate the relative nature of freedom in democratic society.The third and fourth dialogues set a fundamentalist against a modernist and an Americanist against a scholar. Lippmann resists easy stereotyping and puts challenging insights and plausible arguments into the mouths of all the parties. These dialogues ask whether commitment to community comes before intellectual inquiry, 'or whether the search for truth precedes identity. The final dialogue, between Socrates and a conscientious teacher, attempts to define the mission of teaching and determine when and how to face the consequences of truth. Lippmann concludes that the program of liberty is to deprive the sovereign of absolute and arbitrary rule. Taken as a whole, the dialogues constitute an essential consistency within Lippmann's political thought, and delineate a recurring problem hi American politcal culture. American Inquisit
American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time
by Tracy K. SmithA landmark anthology envisioned by Tracy K. Smith, 22nd Poet Laureate of the United StatesAmerican Journal presents fifty contemporary poems that explore and celebrate our country and our lives. 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith has gathered a remarkable chorus of voices that ring up and down the registers of American poetry. In the elegant arrangement of this anthology, we hear stories from rural communities and urban centers, laments of loss in war and in grief, experiences of immigrants, outcries at injustices, and poems that honor elders, evoke history, and praise our efforts to see and understand one another. Taking its title from a poem by Robert Hayden, the first African American appointed as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, American Journal investigates our time with curiosity, wonder, and compassion. Among the fifty poets included are: Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Matthew Dickman, Mark Doty, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Joy Harjo, Terrance Hayes, Cathy Park Hong, Marie Howe, Major Jackson, Ilya Kaminsky, Robin Coste Lewis, Ada Límon, Layli Long Soldier, Erika L. Sánchez, Solmaz Sharif, Danez Smith, Susan Stewart, Mary Szybist, Natasha Trethewey, Brian Turner, Charles Wright, and Kevin Young.
American Literature
by George KearnsAmerican Literature is an anthology, a collection of fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction. The purpose of American Literature is to introduce you to some highly enjoyable writing and to help you think logically and creatively about it. In fact, as the writers in this book so powerfully demonstrate, the more you think about literature the richer your insights will be.
American Melancholy: Poems
by Joyce Carol OatesA new collection of poetry from an American literary legend, her first in twenty-five yearsJoyce Carol Oates is one of our most insightful observers of the human heart and mind, and, with her acute social consciousness, one of the most insistent and inspired witnesses of a shared American history. Oates is perhaps best known for her prodigious output of novels and short stories, many of which have become contemporary classics. However, Oates has also always been a faithful writer of poetry. American Melancholy showcases some of her finest work of the last few decades. Covering subjects big and small, and written in an immediate and engaging style, this collection touches on both the personal and political. Loss, love, and memory are investigated, along with the upheavals of our modern age, the reality of our current predicaments, and the ravages of poverty, racism, and social unrest. Oates skillfully writes characters ranging from a former doctor at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army hospital to Little Albert, a six-month-old infant who took part in a famous study that revealed evidence of classical conditioning in human beings.
American Metempsychosis: Emerson, Whitman, and the New Poetry
by John Michael CorriganThe “transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were, but men and women are only half human.” With these words, Ralph Waldo Emerson confronts a dilemma that illuminates the formation of American individualism: to evolve and become fully human requires a heightened engagement with history. Americans, Emerson argues, must realize history’s chronology in themselves—because their own minds and bodies are its evolving record. Whereas scholarship has tended to minimize the mystical underpinnings of Emerson’s notion of the self, his depictions of “the metempsychosis of nature” reveal deep roots in mystical traditions from Hinduism and Buddhism to Platonism and Christian esotericism. In essay after essay, Emerson uses metempsychosis as an open-ended template to understand human development. In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman transforms Emerson’s conception of metempsychotic selfhood into an expressly poetic event. His vision of transmigration viscerally celebrates the poet’s ability to assume and live in other bodies; his American poet seeks to incorporate the entire nation into his own person so that he can speak for every man and woman.
American Modernist Poetry and the Chinese Encounter
by Zhang Yuejun Stuart ChristieAmerican Modernist Poetry and the Chinese Encounteroffers a framework for understanding the variety of imagined encounters by eight different American poets with their imagined 'Chinese' subject. The method is historical and materialist, insofar as the contributors to the volume read the claims of specific poems alongside the actual and tumultuous changes China faced between 1911 and 1979. Even where specific poems are found to be erroneous, the contributors to the volume suggest that each of the poets attempted to engage their 'Chinese' subject with a degree of commitment that presaged imaginatively China's subsequent dominance. The poems stand as unique artifacts, via proxy and in the English language, for the rise of China in the American imagination. The audience of the volume is international, including the growing number of scholars and graduate students in Chinese universities working on American literature and comparative cultural studies, as well as already established commentators and students in the west.
The American Night: The Writings Of Jim Morrison
by Jim MorrisonTHE AMERICAN NIGHT presents Morrison's previously unpublished work in its truest form. With their nightmarish images, bold associative leaps, and volcanic power of emotion, these works are the unmistakable artifacts of a great, wild voice and heart.
American Originality: Essays on Poetry
by Louise GlückA luminous collection of essays from one of our most original and influential poets Five decades after her debut poetry collection, Firstborn, Louise Glück is a towering figure in American letters. Written with the same probing, analytic control that has long distinguished her poetry, American Originality is Glück’s second book of essays—her first, Proofs and Theories, won the 1993 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Glück’s moving and disabusing lyricism is on full display in this decisive new collection. From its opening pages, American Originality forces readers to consider contemporary poetry and its demigods in radical, unconsoling, and ultimately very productive ways. Determined to wrest ample, often contradictory meaning from our current literary discourse, Glück comprehends and destabilizes notions of “narcissism” and “genius” that are unique to the American literary climate. This includes erudite analyses of the poets who have interested her throughout her own career, such as Rilke, Pinsky, Chiasson, and Dobyns, and introductions to the first books of poets like Dana Levin, Peter Streckfus, Spencer Reece, and Richard Siken. Forceful, revealing, challenging, and instructive, American Originality is a seminal critical achievement.
American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to Stevens
by Mark NobleIn American Poetic Materialism from Whitman to Stevens, Mark Noble examines writers who rethink the human in material terms. Do our experiences correlate to our material elements? Do visions of a common physical ground imply a common purpose? Noble proposes new readings of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, George Santayana and Wallace Stevens that explore a literary history wrestling with the consequences of its own materialism. At a moment when several new models of the relationship between human experience and its physical ground circulate among critical theorists and philosophers of science, this book turns to poets who have long asked what our shared materiality can tell us about our prospects for new models of our material selves.
American Poetry: The Next Generation
by Gerald Costanzo Jim DanielsThis book is an anthology of the many young poets, all born since 1960.
American Poetry: States of the Art (Conjunctions #35)
by Bradford MorrowWith work from the seventy-five poets who are the game-changing, bar-setting voices of our time first published in this volume, Conjunctions: 35, American Poetry is the definitive collection for the contemporary poetic landscape. Includes astonishing uncollected work from masters of the form, as well as breathtaking new ventures from risk takers such as Juliana Spahr and Kevin Young. Contributors include John Ashbery, Susan Wheeler, and James Tate.
American Poetry after Modernism
by Albert GelpiAlbert Gelpi's American Poetry after Modernism is a study of sixteen major American poets of the postwar period, from Robert Lowell to Adrienne Rich. Gelpi argues that a distinctly American poetic tradition was solidified in the later half of the twentieth century, thus severing it from British conventions. In Gelpi's view, what distinguishes the American poetic tradition from the British is that at the heart of the American endeavor is a primary questioning of function and medium. The chief paradox in American poetry is the lack of a tradition that requires answering and redefining - redefining what it means to be a poet and, likewise, how the words of a poem create meaning, offer insight into reality, and answer the ultimate questions of living. Through chapters devoted to specific poets, Gelpi explores this paradox by providing an original and insightful reading of late-twentieth-century American poetry.
American Poetry in Performance: From Walt Whitman to Hip Hop
by Tyler Hoffman"Tyler Hoffman brings a fresh perspective to the subject of performance poetry, and this comes at an excellent time, when there is such a vast interest across the country and around the world in the performance of poetry. He makes important connections, explaining things in a manner that remains provocative, interesting, and accessible. " ---Jay Parini, Middlebury College American Poetry in Performance: From Walt Whitman to Hip Hop is the first book to trace a comprehensive history of performance poetry in America, covering 150 years of literary history from Walt Whitman through the rap-meets-poetry scene. It reveals how the performance of poetry is bound up with the performance of identity and nationality in the modern period and carries its own shifting cultural politics. This book stands at the crossroads of the humanities and the social sciences; it is a book of literary and cultural criticism that deals squarely with issues of "performance," a concept that has attained great importance in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology and has generated its own distinct field of performance studies. American Poetry in Performance will be a meaningful contribution both to the field of American poetry studies and to the fields of cultural and performance studies, as it focuses on poetry that refuses the status of fixed aesthetic object and, in its variability, performs versions of race, class, gender, and sexuality both on and off the page. Relating the performance of poetry to shifting political and cultural ideologies in the United States, Hoffman argues that the vocal aspect of public poetry possesses (or has been imagined to possess) the ability to help construct both national and subaltern communities. American Poetry in Performance explores public poets' confrontations with emergent sound recording and communications technologies as those confrontations shape their mythologies of the spoken word and their corresponding notions about America and Americanness.
American Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics of Social Engagement (American Poets In The 21st Century Ser.)
by Claudia Rankine Michael DowdyPoetics of Social Engagement emphasizes the ways in which innovative American poets have blended art and social awareness, focusing on aesthetic experiments and investigations of ethnic, racial, gender, and class subjectivities. Rather than consider poetry as a thing apart, or as a tool for asserting identity, this volume’s poets create sites, forms, and modes for entering the public sphere, contesting injustices, and reimagining the contemporary. Like the earlier anthologies in this series, this volume includes generous selections of poetry as well as illuminating poetics statements and incisive essays. This unique organization makes these books invaluable teaching tools. A companion website will present audio of each poet’s work.Poets included:Rosa AlcaláBrian BlanchfieldDaniel BorzutzkyCarmen Giménez SmithAllison Hedge CokeCathy Park HongChristine HumeBhanu KapilMauricio Kilwein GuevaraFred MotenCraig Santos PerezBarbara Jane ReyesRoberto TejadaEdwin TorresEssayists included: John Alba CutlerChris NealonKristin DykstraJoyelle McSweeneyChadwick AllenDanielle PafundaMolly BendallEunsong KimMichael DowdyBrent Hayes EdwardsJ. Michael MartinezMartin Joseph PonceDavid ColónUrayoán Noel