Special Collections
Verse Come, Verse Served
Description: An eclectic collection of poetry added to Bookshare through the generous gift by Carole Lake. #adults
- Table View
- List View
You Can Make Anything Sad
by Adam RobinsonPoetry. "When I read Spencer Madsen's poetry, I not only feel awe because he's so good, one of the best, but I also think about how everything in the world is happening at the same time, and how the world we get to know is so heavily edited down.
It's the hugest, weirdest feeling.
I wish Spencer Madsen could be everywhere at once.
Whiskey Words And A Shovel I
by R. H. SinWhiskey, Words, and a Shovel, Vol. 1, is about reclaiming your power on the path to a healthy relationship.
It is a testament to choosing to love yourself, even if it means heartbreak.
Originally released in 2015, this re-rerelease packs the same punch as the first version, but makes an even greater connection with the soul of the reader.
Each piece has been re-seen and revamped to reflect the author's continuing journey with his partner, Samantha King, without whom this book would not exist.
Samantha is the muse, the "she" the writer speaks of; she is every woman who has felt like she wasn't good enough, and every woman who struggles to find love.
What We Buried
by Caitlyn SiehlThis book is a cemetery of truths buried alive. The light draws you in where you will find Caitlyn there digging. When you get close enough, she'll lean in and whisper, Baby, buried things will surface no matter what, get to them before they get to you first. Her unbounded love will propel you to pick up a shovel & help- even though the only thing you want to do is kiss her lips, kiss her hands, kiss every one of her stretch marks and the fire that is raging in pit of her stomach. She'll see your eyes made of devour and sadness, she'll hug you and say, Baby, if you eat me alive, I will cut my way out of your stomach. Don't let this be your funeral. Teach yourself to navigate the wound.
Wade In The Water
by Tracy K. SmithIn Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. 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.
The various connotations of the title, taken from a spiritual once sung on the Underground Railroad which smuggled slaves to safety in 19th-century America, resurface throughout the book, binding past and present together.
Collaged voices and documents recreate both the correspondence between slave owners and the letters sent home by African Americans enlisted in the US Civil War.
Survivors' reports attest to the experiences of recent immigrants and refugees. Accounts of near-death experiences intertwine with the modern-day fallout of a corporation's illegal pollution of a major river and the surrounding land; and, in a series of beautiful lyrical pieces, the poet's everyday world and the growth and flourishing of her daughter are observed with a tender and witty eye.
Marrying the contemporary and the historical to a sense of the transcendent, haunted and holy, this is a luminous book by one of America's essential poets.
Uncaged Wallflower
by Jennae CeceliaUncaged Wallflower is for those who feel trapped in the thoughts their minds produce, unable to express them with the rest of the world out of fear of critique or disagreement. For the people who need an extra dose of positivity in their day. This is not a poetry book for you to read and relate to in a sorrow filled way. It is for you to read and say yes, I can be better, and I will.
Today Means Amen
by Sierra DeMulderDear you:
Whoever you are,
However you got here,
This is exactly where you are supposed to be.
This moment has waited its whole life for you.
These are the opening lines of "Today Means Amen," YouTube star Sierra deMulder’s immensely powerful and virally popular poem, which lends its title to this collection. Like her fellow Millennial poets Tyler Knot Gregson, Clementine von Radics, and Lang Leav, Sierra has the gift of speaking directly to the reader. “Today Means Amen” has become an anthem of sorts to thousands, who find themselves reflected in its pain, its fierceness, its tenderness — but also in its triumphant culminating refrain:
You made it
You made it
You made it
Here.
The poems in Sierra's new book explore the rocky terrains of love, family, and womanhood with this same remarkable honesty and generosity. Today Means Amen brings this important young poet's work to an even broader audience.
Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately
by Alicia CookStructured like an old-school mix-tape, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately is Alicia Cook's lyric message to anyone who has dealt with addiction.
"Side A" touches on all aspects of the human condition: life, death, love, trauma, and growth.
"Side B" contains haunting black-out remixes of those poems.
Sea Of Strangers
by Lang LeavSea of Strangers by Lang Leav picks up from her previous international bestselling books including Love & Misadventure, Lullabies, and The Universe of Us, and sets sail for a grand new adventure.
This completely original collection of poetry and prose will not only delight her avid fans but is sure to capture the imagination of a whole new audience.
With the turn of every page, Sea of Strangers invites you to go beyond love and loss to explore themes of self-discovery and empowerment as you navigate your way around the human heart.
Plum
by Hollie McNishHollie McNish has thrilled and entranced audiences the length and breadth of the UK with her compelling and powerful performances.
Plum, her debut for Picador Poetry, is a wise, sometimes rude and piercingly candid account of her memories from childhood to attempted adulthood. This is a book about growing up, about guilt, flesh, fruit, friendships, work and play - and the urgent need to find a voice for the poems that will somehow do the whole glorious riot of it justice.
Throughout Plum, McNish allows her recent poems to be interrupted by earlier writing from her younger selves - voices that speak out from the past with disarming and often very funny results.
Plum is a celebration, a salute to a life in which we are always growing, tripping, changing and discovering new selves to add to our own messy stores. It will leave the reader in no doubt as to why McNish is considered one of the most important poets of the new generation.
Pillow Thoughts
by Courtney PeppernellPillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions.
It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most.
New American Best Friend
by Olivia GatwoodOne of the most recognisable young poets in America, Olivia Gatwood dazzles with her tribute to contemporary American womanhood in her debut book, New American Best Friend.
Gatwood's poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy.
And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.
Nature Poem
by Tommy PicoNature Poem follows Teebs--a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet--who can't bring himself to write a nature poem.
For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky.
He'd slap a tree across the face.
He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole.
While he's adamant--bratty, even--about his distaste for the word "natural," over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature.
The closer his people were identified with the "natural world," he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush.
But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter.
Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.
Nature Poem
by Tommy PicoA book-length poem about how an American Indian writer can’t bring himself to write about nature, but is forced to reckon with colonial-white stereotypes, manifest destiny, and his own identity as an young, queer, urban-dwelling poet. A Best Book of the Year at BuzzFeed, Interview, and more. Nature Poem follows Teebs—a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet—who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant—bratty, even—about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.
Mouthful Of Forevers
by Clementine Von RadicsTitled after the poem that burned up on Tumblr and has inspired wedding vows, paintings, songs, YouTube videos, and even tattoos among its fans,Mouthful of Forevers brings the first substantial collection of this gifted young poet's work to the public.
Clementine von Radics writes of love, loss, and the uncertainties and beauties of life with a ravishing poetic voice and piercing bravura that speak directly not only to the sensibility of her generation, but to anyone who has ever been young.
Mind Platter
by Najwa ZebianMind Platter is a compilation of reflections on life as seen through the eyes of an educator, student, and human who experienced her early days in silence. It is written in the words of a woman who came from Lebanon to Canada at the age of sixteen and experienced what it was like to have fate push her to a place where she didn't belong. It is written in the voice of every person who has felt unheard, mistreated, misjudged, or unseen.
The book contains over 200 one-page reflections on topics we encounter in our everyday lives: love, friendship, hurt, inspiration, respect, motivation, integrity, honesty, and more. Mind Platter is not about the words it contains, but what the reader makes of them. May this book give a voice to those who need one, be a crying shoulder for those who yearn for someone to listen, and inspire those who need a reminder of the power they have over their lives.
Magic With Skin On
by Morgan Nikola-Wren and Alysia Nicole Harris and Julie Guzzetta and Kimberly Ito and Madeline Crowley and Catrin Welz-SteinIn her much-anticipated debut poetry collection, Morgan Nikola-Wren has woven her signature romantic grit through a stunning, modern-day fairy tale.
Chronicling the relationship between a lonely artist and her absent-albeit abusive-muse, Magic with Skin On will gently break you, then put you back together again.
"Morgan's words will transport you, touch your heart and soul, even, at times, cut you.
La Douleur Exquise
by J. R. RogueWhat happens when you meet your soul mate at the wrong time? What happens when you meet your soul mate but you aren't theirs? La douleur exquise, the exquisite pain of loving some unattainable. J.R. Rogue's bestselling debut poetry collection tells the tale of a once in a lifetime love unreturned.
Inward
by Yung PuebloInward is a collection of poetry, quotes, and prose that explores the movement from self love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It serves as a reminder to the reader that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.
Hard Child
by Natalie ShaperoThought-provoking and sardonically expressive, Shapero is a self-proclaimed "hard child"--unafraid of directly addressing bleakness as she continually asks what it means to be human and to bring new life into the world.Hard Child is musical and argumentative, deadly serious yet tinged with self-parody, evoking the spirit of Plath while remaining entirely its own.
Natalie Shapero has worked as a civil rights lawyer and is currently Professor of the Practice of Poetry at Tufts University. Her first poetry collection No Object was published in 2013, and her writing has appeared inThe Believer, The New Republic, Poetry, andThe Progressive. She lives in Massachusetts.
Even This Page Is White
by Vivek ShrayaAs a writer, musician, performance artist, and filmmaker, Vivek Shraya has, over the course of the last few years, established herself as a tour de force artist of the highest order.
Vivek's body of work includes ten albums, four short films, and three books, including the YA book God Loves Hair (A Quill and Quire and Canadian Children's Book Centre Best Book of the Year) and the adult novel She of the Mountains (a Lambda Literary Award finalist).
Vivek's debut collection of poetry, even this page is white, is a bold, timely, and personal interrogation of skin―its origins, functions, and limitations.
Poems that range in style from starkly concrete to limber break down the barriers that prevent understanding of what it means to be racialized.
Shraya paints the face of everyday racism with words, rendering it visible, tangible, and undeniable.
Don't Call Us Dead
by Danez SmithAward-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power.
Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth.
Smith turns then to desire, mortality—the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood—and a diagnosis of HIV positive.
The Dogs I Have Kissed
by Trista MateerWinner of the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award, The Dogs I Have Kissed is a collection of poetry about kissing the wrong people and sometimes just being the wrong person. It's a story about leaving until you learn how to stay. Known for her eponymous blog and her confessional style of writing, this is Trista Mateer's second collection of poetry.
Dirty Pretty Things
by Michael FaudetDirty Pretty Things is the international bestseller by Michael Faudet. A finalist in the 2015 Goodreads Readers Choice Awards, his whimsical and often erotic writing has already captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of readers from around the world.
He paints vivid pictures with intricate words and explores the compelling themes of love, loss, relationships, and sex. All beautifully captured in poetry, prose, quotes, and little short stories.
Michael lives in a house by the sea in New Zealand with his girlfriend, international bestselling author, Lang Leav.
Depression and Other Magic Tricks
by Sabrina BenaimDepression & Other Magic Tricks is the debut book by Sabrina Benaim, one of the most-viewed performance poets of all time, whose poem "Explaining My Depression to My Mother" has become a cultural phenomenon with over 50,000,000 views.
Depression & Other Magic Tricks explores themes of mental health, love, and family.
It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of living.
Benaim's wit, empathy, and gift for language produce a work of endless wonder.