Best of
Poetry

1978

And Still I Rise


Maya Angelou - 1978
    An ode to the power that resides in us all to overcome the most difficult circumstances, this poem is truly an inspiration and affirmation of the faith that restores and nourishes the soul. Entwined with the vivid paintings of Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican artist, Angelou's words paint a portrait of the amazing human spirit, its quiet dignity, and pools of strength and courage. An ideal gift for a friend, lover, or family member, this special edition will be treasured by all who receive it.

The Dream of a Common Language


Adrienne Rich - 1978
    . . . No one is writing better or more needed verse than this."--Boston Evening Globe

The Black Unicorn: Poems


Audre Lorde - 1978
    Her rhythms and accents have the timelessness of a poetry which extends beyond white Western politics, beyond the anger and wisdom of Black America, beyond the North American earth, to Abomey and the Dahomeyan Amazons. These are poems nourished in an oral tradition, which also blaze and pulse on the page, beneath the reader's eye."

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day


Nikki Giovanni - 1978
    Moving from the emotionally fraught political arena to the intimate realm of the personal, the poems in this volume express a conflicted consciousness and the disillusionment shared by so many during the early 1970s, when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated. First published in 1978, this classic will remind her readers why they were first drawn to Nikki Giovanni and enthrall new readers who are just now coming to these timeless poems.As a witness to three generations, Nikki Giovanni has perceptively and poetically recorded her observations of both the outside world and the gentle yet enigmatic territory of the self. When her poems first emerged from the Black Rights Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately became a celebrated and controversial poet of the era. Written in one of the most commanding voices to grace America'ss political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century, Nikki Giovanni's poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which she is beloved and revered.A pivotal work in Nikki Giovanni's career, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day is one of the most poignant and introspective of all Giovanni's collections. Moving from the emotionally fraught political arena to the intimate realm of the personal, the poems in this volume express a conflicted consciousness and the disillusionment shared by so many during the early 1970s, when the dreams of the Civil Rights era seemed to have evaporated. First published in l978, this classic will remind her readers why they were first drawn to Nikki Giovanni and enthrall new readers who are just now coming to these timeless poems. As a witness to three generations, Nikki Giovanni has perceptively and poetically recorded her observations of both the outside world and the gentle yet enigmatic territory of the self. When her poems first emerged from the Black Rights Movement in the late 1960s, she immediately became a celebrated and controversial poet of the era. Written in one of themost commanding voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape at the end of the twentieth century, Nikki Giovanni's poems embody the fearless passion and spirited wit for which she is beloved and revered."Nikki Giovanni is one of our national treasures. For decades she has offered her wit and wisdom, her bruising honesty, and, above all, her unbounded love through these poems as a healing for herself, her community, and her country." --Gloria Naylor

Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann


Ingeborg Bachmann - 1978
    Bachmann is considered one of the most important poets to emerge in postwar German letters, and this volume represents the largest collection available in English translation. Influencing numerous writers from Thomas Bernhard to Christa Wolf to Elfriede Jelinek (winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature), Bachmann’s poetic investigation into the nature and limits of language in the face of historical violence remains unmatched in its ability to combine philosophical insight with haunting lyricism.Bachmann was born in 1926 in Klagenfurt, Austria. She studied philosophy at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna. In 1953 she received the poetry prize from Gruppe 47 for her first volume, Borrowed Time (Die gestundete Zeit). Her second collection, Invocation of the Great Bear (Anrufung des großen Bären), appeared in 1956. Her various awards include the Georg Büchner Prize, the Berlin Critics Prize, the Bremen Award, and the Austrian State Prize for Literature. Writing and publishing essays, opera libretti, short stories, and novels as well, she divided her time between Munich, Zurich, Berlin, and Rome, where she died from a fire in her apartment in 1973.Peter Filkins has published two volumes of poetry, What She Knew (1998) and After Homer (2002), and has translated Bachmann’s The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann. He is the recipient of an Outstanding Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association and the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. He teaches at Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems


Eloise Greenfield - 1978
    Riding on a train, listening to music, playing with a friend...each poem elicits a new appreciation of the rich content of everyday life. The poems are accompanied by both portrait and panorama drawings that deepen the insights contained in the words.This beloved book of poetry is a Reading Rainbow Selection, an ALA Notable Children's Book, and the winner of George C. Stone Center for Children's Books' Recognition of Merit Award.

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing


Richard Hugo - 1978
    The Triggering Town is Hugo's now-classic collection of lectures, essays, and reflections, all "directed toward helping with that silly, absurd, maddening, futile, enormously rewarding activity: writing poems." Anyone, from the beginning poet to the mature writer to the lover of literature, will benefit greatly from Hugo's sayd, playful, profound insights and advice concerning the mysteries of literary creation.

“A”


Louis Zukofsky - 1978
    No other poem in the English language is filled with as much daily love, light, intellect, and music. As William Carlos Williams once wrote of Zukofsky’s poetry, “I hear a new music of verse stretching out into the future.”

The Work of a Common Woman: The Collected Poetry of Judy Grahn, 1964-1977


Judy Grahn - 1978
    Introduction by Adrienne Rich

The Poetry of Rilke


Rainer Maria Rilke - 1978
    The Poetry of Rilke—the single most comprehensive volume of Rilke’s German poetry ever to be published in English—is the culmination of this effort. With more than two hundred and fifty selected poems by Rilke, including complete translations of the Sonnets to Orpheus and the Duino Elegies, The Poetry of Rilke spans the arc of Rilke’s work, from the breakthrough poems of The Book of Hours to the visionary masterpieces written only weeks before his death. This landmark bilingual edition also contains all of Snow’s commentaries on Rilke, as well as an important new introduction by the award-winning poet Adam Zagajewski. The Poetry of Rilke will stand as the authoritative single-volume translation of Rilke into English for years to come.

Movement in Black


Pat Parker - 1978
    To honor her work and call attention to the significance of her contributions, Firebrand Books is publishing a new, expanded edition of her classic, Movement In Black.With an incisive introduction by Cheryl Clarke, celebrations/ remembrances/tributes from ten outstanding African American women writers, and a dozen previously unpublished pieces, Movement In Black is a must read/ must have on your book shelf.Whether she was presenting her poetry on street corners, performing with other women -- writers, musicians, activists -- in bars and auditoriums, rallying the crowd at political events, preaching to the converted, or converting the ill-informed, Pat Parker was a presence.She wrote about gut issues: the lives of ordinary Black people, violence, loving women, the legacy of her African American heritage, being queer. She was a woman who engaged life fully, both personally and as a political activist, linking the struggles for racial, gender, sexual, and class equality long before it was "PC" to do so. She died as she lived -- fighting forces larger than herself.The publication of Movement In Black is an opportunity, both for those who were around the first time and those who are new to her work, to experience and enjoy Pat Parker's power.

The Collected Poems


Muriel Rukeyser - 1978
    She earned an international reputation as a powerful voice against enforced silences of all kind, against the violence of war, poverty, and racism. Her eloquent poetry of witness-of the Scottsboro Nine, the Spanish Civil War, the poisoning of the Gauley Bridge laborers-split the darkness covering a shameful world.In addition to the complete texts of her twelve previously published books, this volume also features new poems discovered by the editors; Rukeyser's translations, including the first English translations of Octavio Paz's work; early work by Rukeyser not previously published in book form; and the controversial book-length poem Wake Island. An introduction by the editors traces Rukeyser's life and literary reputation and complements discerning annotations and textual notes to the poems.

Jejuri


Arun Kolatkar - 1978
    Jejuri is a site of pilgramage in author Arun Kolatkar's native state of Maharashtra, and Jejuri the poem is the record of a visit to the town -- a place that is as crassly commercial as it is holy, as modern and ruinous as it is ancient and enduring. Evoking the town's crowded streets, many shrines, and mythic history of sages and gods, Kolatkar's poem offers a rich description of India while at the same time performing a complex act of devotion. For the essence of the poem is a spiritual quest, the effort to find the divine trace in a degenerate world. Spare, comic, sorrowful, singing, Jejuri is the work of a writer with a unique and visionary voice.

The Complete Posthumous Poetry


César Vallejo - 1978
    Eshleman and his present collaborator, Jose Rubia Barcia, have not only rendered these complex poems into brilliant and living English, but have also established a definitive Spanish test based on Vallejo's densely rewritten manuscripts. In recreating this modern master in English, they have also made a considerable addition to poetry in our language."

Honey, I Love


Eloise Greenfield - 1978
    Now, twenty-five years later, she and celebrated children's book artist Jan Spivey Gilchrist present a stunning, newly illustrated anniversary edition that invites readers to celebrate the simple joys of loving and living.

Dylan Thomas Reading His Poetry


Dylan Thomas - 1978
    A collection of poetry, written and read by Dylan Thomas.

Own Face


Clark Coolidge - 1978
    In this long out-of-print collection, one can glimpse an important shift in Coolidge's remarkable poetic career, spanning over twenty-seven years and twenty-three book publications.

Nappy Edges


Ntozake Shange - 1978
    . . A leading black poet [who] ranks [with] Giovanni, Baraka, Brooks, and Hughes" (Emery Lewis, The Record). Indeed, nappy edges is "extraordinary and wonderful [in its] lyric, tragic exploration into black women's loneliness . . . [Shange] writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her" (Clive Barnes, The New York Times).

Elimination Dance/La Danse Eliminatoire


Michael Ondaatje - 1978
    Instructions: An elimination dance begins with a crowded dance floor. At a signal, the band stops playing and the announcer reads an elimination, say, "Any lover who has gone into a flower shop on Valentine's Day and asked for clitoris when he meant clematis." Any dancer answering this description must sit down, and his partner is also disqualified. The process continues (e.g. "Any person who has burst into tears at the Liquor Control Board") until a single couple remains. And now, the post-Meech Lake edition.

The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings, 1927-1939


W.H. Auden - 1978
    The reader recaptures the excitement of a young poet who struck readers first by the austere saga-like strangeness of his poetry, and then by his intoxication with disruptive, uninhibited ideas. The English Auden is the resurrection of the body of the poetry as it existed in England between 1927 and 1939.'-Stephen Spender, Sunday Telegraph

Clairvoyant Journal


Hannah Weiner - 1978
    weiner actually typewrote the manuscript, and the layout is inventive. it actually reminds me of test press runs - i.e. when you test print something, and then reprint again on the same sheet of paper. you have lines that are weirdly condensed; letters structurally manuevering the page, diagonally, to create both a visual mishap and open field to create new meanings. it's wonderful. i think perhaps i'm more into the physical layout as opposed to the writing, which is courageous no doubt (interjections of thoughts from others, mixed with her observations and a monolog-ic voice).

Epica Magna


Nichita Stănescu - 1978
    This was the 500th title issued by Junimea publishing house.Cover and 31 illustrations by Sorin Dumitrescu.

The Love Poems of Marichiko


Kenneth Rexroth - 1978
    

The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing: Poems


Marge Piercy - 1978
    

Happy as a Dog's Tail


Anna Świrszczyńska - 1978
    

The Five Stages of Grief


Linda Pastan - 1978
    Nothing is here for effect. There is no self-pity, but in this new book she has reached down to a deeper layer and is letting the darkness in." —May Sarton

Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry (New York Review Books Classics)


Paul Blackburn - 1978
    Their poetry was also a central inspiration for Dante and his Italian contemporaries, propagators of the modern vernacular lyric, and seven centuries later it was no less important to the modernist Ezra Pound. These poems, a source to which poetry has returned again and again in search of renewal, are subtle, startling, earthy, erotic, and supremely musical.The poet Paul Blackburn studied and translated the troubadours for twenty years, and the result of that long commitment is Proensa, an anthology of thirty poets of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, which has since established itself not only as a powerful and faithful work of translation but as a work of poetry in its own right. Blackburn’s Proensa, George Economou writes, “will take its place among Gavin Douglas’ Aeneid, Golding’s Metamorphoses, the Homer of Chapman, Pope, and Lattimore, Waley’s Japanese, and Pound’s Chinese, Italian, and Old English.”

Now and Then: Poems 1976-78


Robert Penn Warren - 1978
    Thirty-seven of Warren's poems written between 1976 and 1978, presented in reverse chronological order.

A Guide to The Maximus Poems of Charles Olson


George F. Butterick - 1978
    Author Biography: George F. Butterick had a long familiarity with Olson's writings. He studied with the poet at the State University of New York at Buffalo, prepared the definitive Guide to "The Maximus Poems" of Charles Olson, and served as Curator of Literary Archives at the University of Connecticut (Storrs), which houses Charles Olson's papers.

The Late Hour


Mark Strand - 1978
    

Haiku Master Buson


Yosa Buson - 1978
    Buson (1716–1783), along with Basho and Issa, is recognized as one of the three Japanese masters of the haiku. In addition to a large selection of haiku, the book also includes a selection of Buson’s prose and a critical introduction.Edith Shiffert is a poet who has lived in Kyoto, Japan, since the 1960s. Her most recent volume is titled Pathways.The late Yuki Sawa was a professor at Kyoto Seika University.

From Room to Room


Jane Kenyon - 1978
    Her vision apprehends the mystery beneath everyday circumstances and objects, from the thimble to the edges of the map. The final section is translations of six poems by Anna Akhmatova.

A Circus of Needs: Poems


Stephen Dunn - 1978
    A collection of poems by Stephen Dunn.

Out-of-the-Body Travel


Stanley Plumly - 1978
    

Clean Asshole Poems and Smiling Vegetable Songs


Peter Orlovsky - 1978
    

Howling at the Moon: poems and prose of Hagiwara Sakutarō


Sakutarō Hagiwara - 1978
    Although he did not finish college, he read Western authors, including Poe, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dostoevsky. His major works of poetry, written in 1917 and 1923, were Howling at the Moon and Blue, collected in this volume. These books transformed modern Japanese poetry, and changed forever the face of the future poetic landscape in Japan.Brilliantly translated by Hiroaki Sato, this book was originally published by the University of Tokyo Press, and has long been out of print.

Selected Poems


May Sarton - 1978
    It is in her poetry, however, where she achieves the full extent of her revelation as artist and human. The poems in this first selection from her whole work were written over a period of forty years. They convey a wonderfully energetic alternation of mood, idea, and experience that are part of her unique creative process.

Alien Worlds: A Dream Within a Dream


Lee Hansen - 1978
    The haunting works of Edgar Allen Poe provide the clues to a 21st century mystery.

Walking Down the Stairs: Selections from Interviews


Galway Kinnell - 1978
    Collects Kinnell's thoughts about poetry

Abiding Appalachia: Where Mountain and Atom Meet


Marilou Awiakta - 1978
    Fusing her Cherokee/Appalachian heritage with the experience of growing up on the atomic frontier in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Awiakta explores humanity's dilemma -- and hope -- through the legendary Awi Usdi, Little Deer, a Cherokee spirit-teacher of reverence. She follows his trail as he circles through the saga of Tsali and the Cherokee removal, then into the thoughts of early pioneers and the vision of John Hendrix, who foretold the coming of Oak Ridge with such accuracy. Winding through the poet's childhood, when the atom was split in secret, the trail leads to the retired Graphic Reactor and, finally, into the heart of the atom itself -- and into our hearts, where we must ultimately resolve the question of reverence for life.

The Monument


Mark Strand - 1978
    The isbn on this book is 0-912-94650-4

The Complete Poems


Keith Douglas - 1978
    This title offers a collection of his poems.

Once When I Was Drowning: Poems


Al Pittman - 1978
    

Brothers, I Loved You All: Poems, 1969-1977


Hayden Carruth - 1978
    

New & Selected Things Taking Place


May Swenson - 1978
    

Favorite Poems Of Emily Dickinson


Emily Dickinson - 1978
    A delightful facsimile of a volume published by two of Dickinson's close friends shortly after her death.

The Ruined Cottage and the Pedlar


William Wordsworth - 1978
    

Banished Immortal: Visions of Li T'Ai-Po


Sam Hamill - 1978
    

School of Eloquence


Tony Harrison - 1978
    This generous selection of Tony Harrison's poems includes sixty-three poems from his famous sonnet sequence "The School of Eloquence" and the remarkable long poem 'v', a meditation in a vandalized Leeds graveyard, written during the miners' strike, which created such a stir when it was broadcast on television in the late 1980s.

15 Canadian Poets X 3


Gary Geddes - 1978
    All of the poets included in the previous editions have been retained, although their selections have been carefully reconsidered. Among new poets added to this edition are Anne Carson, Dionne Brand, Daphne Marlatt, and Fred Wah

Life In the Forest


Denise Levertov - 1978
    Ms. Levertov’s work holds that tenuous yet inspiring ground between reflection and discourse. The dynamics of this sensitive balance is pointed up in Life in the Forest by a thematic grouping which invites internal association from poem to poem and section to section. “The poems I had been moving towards,” she explains, “were impelled by two forces: first, a recurring need…to vary a habitual lyric mode; not to abandon it, by any means, but from time to time explore more expansive means; and second, the decision to try to avoid over use of the autobiographical, the dominant first-person singular of so much American poetry—good and bad—of recent years.”

Collected Poems


Austin Clarke - 1978
    His work is distinguished by the influence of Gaelic poetry and was important in drawing the public's attention to the Irish modernists. This collection was compiled in 1974—the year of Clarke's death—and has been updated with a new introduction and expanded notes.