This book chews with its open mouth full of the juiciest words, the most indigestible images. This book undoes me. . . . francine j. harris brilliantly ransacks the poet's toolkit, assembling art from buckets of disaster and shreds of hope. Nothing she lays her mind's eye on escapes. You, too, will be captured by her work."—Evie ShockleyLyrically raw and dangerously unapologetic, play dead challenges us to look at our cultivated selves as products of circumstance and attempts to piece together patterns amidst dissociative chaos. harris unearths a ruptured world dictated by violence—a place of deadly what ifs, where survival hangs by a thread. Getting by is carrying bruises and walking around with "half a skull."From "low visibility":I have light in my mouth. I hunger you. You wantwhat comes in drag. a black squirrel in a black tar lane,fresh from exhaust, hot and July's unearthed steam.You want to watch it run over. to study the sog. You want the stink of gristle buried in a muggy weather.I want the faulty mirage. a life of grass.we want the same thing. We want their deathsto break up the sun.francine j. harris is a 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellow whose first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery and PEN Open Book Award. Originally from Detroit, she is also Cave Canem fellow who has lived in several cities before returning to Michigan. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and currently teaches writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

    A comprehensive collection by one of the most intensely musical and visionary poets writing today.

    They have won 11 World Series titles and some of the most famousplayers in the history of the game have worn the storied “Birds on the Bat”uniform.While thaton-field success has been well documented, IntentionalWalk is the first book which goes beyond the story of what happens on thefield to take an in-depth look at the men inside the Cardinal uniforms, andexamine how their strong Christian faith is one of the driving forces behindtheir success.Intentional Walk features the stories of AdamWainwright, David Freese, Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, JasonMotte and other members of the 2012 Cardinals, written as those players and therest of the team tried to repeat the 2011 world championship. The book talksabout how they became Christians and offers their testimony about what it meansfor them to have God play such a prominent role in their lives.Playing forfirst-year manager Mike Matheny, a strong Christian as well, these men talkabout their success and failure, about the challenges that come from playingbaseball at the highest level, and how thankful and blessed they are to havethat God-given ability. In the end, however, what is far more important to themis their life-long relationship they have established with Jesus Christ.

    . . . Berryman becomes Everyman attempting, falling shortof, and often achieving greatness." Young's selection, the first newselection of Berryman's poems in over 30 years, encompasses the formalaccomplishments of his early work, epitomized in the masterful Homage toMistress Bradstreet, the explosive and mesmerizing diction of Dream Songs,and his wrenching religious poems. Kevin Young's poetry and essays haveappeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Paris Review,and elsewhere, and have been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered."

    . .--from "The Window"Lynda Hull's Collected Poems brings together her three collections--long unavailable--with a new introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa, and allows, for the first time, the full scale of her achievement to be seen. Edited with Hull's husband, David Wojahn, this book contains all the poems Hull published in her lifetime, before her untimely death in 1994.Collected Poems is the first book in the Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series, which brings essential books of contemporary American poetry back into print. Each volume--chosen by series editor Mark Doty--is introduced by a poet who brings to the work a passionate admiration. The Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series brings all-but-lost masterworks of recent American poetry into the hands of a new generation of readers.

    How Good Do We Have to Be? is for everyone who experiences that sense of guilt and disappointment. Harold Kushner, writing with his customary generosity and wisdom, shows us how human life is too complex for anyone to live it without making mistakes, and why we need not fear the loss of God's love when we are less than perfect. Harold Kushner begins by offering a radically new interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve, which he sees as a tale of Paradise Outgrown rather than Paradise Lost: eating from the Tree of Knowledge was not an act of disobedience, but a brave step forward toward becoming human, complete with the richness of work, sexuality and child-rearing, and a sense of our mortality. Drawing on modern literature, psychology, theology,,and his own thirty years of experience as a congregational rabbi, Harold Kushner reveals how acceptance and forgiveness can change our relationships with the most important people in our lives and help us meet the bold and rewarding challenge of being human.

    The title poem confronts a human ritual of marriage from the standpoint of a wedding photographer. Within the tedium and alienation of the ceremony, the speaker grapples with a strange human hopefulness. In this vein, Stone explores our everyday patterns and customs, and in doing so, exposes them for their complexities. Drawing on the neurological, scientific, psychological, and even supernatural, this collection confronts the difficulties of love and family. Stone rankles with a desire to understand, but the questions she asks are never answered simply. These poems stroll along the abyss, pointing towards the absurdity of our choices. They recede into the imaginative in order to understand and translate the distressing nature of reality. It is a bittersweet question this book raises: Why we are like this? There is no easy answer. So while we look down at our hands, perplexed, Someone Else’s Wedding Vows raises a glass to the future.

    In the privacy of their homes, who can save them from themselves? In the forests and hills and on the beautiful lakes, what could possibly be wrong? Even in the sweet hometown, with its kindly police, menace lurks in a thousand disguises. Mystery and magic surround this metropolis of the imagination. Once again, James Tate has given us a world of surprising pleasures:... lost in the interstellar space between teacups in the cupboard, found in the beak of a downy woodpecker, the lovers staring into the void and then jumping over it, flying into their beautiful tomorrows like the heroes of a storm.

    It finds its ferment at the intersection of ecological and economic catastrophe. Its feminist and celebratory energy is fueled by street protests and their shattered windows. Amid oil spills and austerity measures and shore birds and a child holding its mother’s hand and hissing teargas canisters, it reminds us exactly what we must fight to defend with a wild ferocity, and what we’re up against."In her poems, love does not resist the world beyond; love lets it in. Politics demands feeling rather than denuding it."  —Los Angeles Review of Books"Geography, economics, ecology, hydrology, local and international history; repetition, flat limited diction, lengthy chant; intersections of incompatible discourses, such as a field biologist’s checklist plus memoir, medical record plus ode, incantation plus site report: Spahr draws on these resources and procedures to make poems that feel like bizarre, careful essays, and essays that feel like sad, extended poems."  —The Nation"...a work of crisp wit, bizarre conjunctions and ultimately enduring moral authority."  —Publisher’s WeeklyExcerpt: It was Non-Revolution. Or it was me. Or it was Non-Revolution and me. I was unsure what it really was. Maybe it was my thoughts. My thoughts at one minute about Non-Revolution. About the smell of Non-Revolution. Sweat, urine, sage, pot, rotting food, hay, all mixed together. Perhaps about Non-Revolution’s body. I am sure I am not the only one who has thought it exceptional, but I am also just as sure that by the standards of bodies, Non-Revolution’s is fine but not exceptional. That is the point. That is why Non-Revolution is called Non-Revolution, why they have revolution as a possibility in their name but it is a modified and thus negated possibility so as to suggest they are possibly neither good nor fucked. Still something about Non-Revolution’s smell and body had gotten into me.

    . . . According to tradition and the testimony of Sufi mystics, The Prayer--or Salat--was first taught by the angels, who themselves practiced it in celestial adoration. The Prayer is God's gift to all humankind, and in this gorgeously illustrated volume, its simple, archetypal practice unfolds like a fragrant, many-petaled flower, joining words and movements into a single luminous event that engages our entire being. These ancient rituals are presented here as a gift for anyone with a heartfelt desire to set aside for a moment the concerns of every day and enter a sacred time and space in which to explore the beckonings of the spirit. The authors take us through the words, movements, and hidden meanings of the Call to Prayer, the Ablutions, The Prayer itself, and the Peaceful Embrace afterwards. Faithful practice lends a sacred rhythm to each day and creates a psychological force that helps us nurture and express a profound inner harmony. This first, marvelously accessible interpretation of The Prayer also offers a compelling introductin to the wisdom and teachings of the beloved contemporary Sufi master Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who brought new life to this mystical tradition by opening a passage to its deepest, universal realities. It is the loving handiwork of two of Bawa's best-known students, Coleman Barks and Michael Green, who also created The Illuminated Rumi. Like a jewel given extra brilliance by its setting, The Prayer is surrounded by the wisdom and understanding of the thirteenth-century Sufi master Rumi, whose generous poetry has become an essential canon for modern-day seekers in the West. The final gift is the Primeval Kalima, the core practice and most profound teaching of the Sufi, the "open secret" that leads to Divine Luminous Wisdom.

    / The elms made tents of solace over grimy / streets and alley cats purred me to sleep.” She writes in graphic, unflinching language about the poor, banished now by politicians because they are no longer “real people like corporations.” There are elegies for her peer group of poets, gone now, whose work she cherishes but from whom she cannot help but want more. There are laments for the suicide of dolphins and for her beloved cats, as she remembers “exactly how I loved each.” She continues to celebrate Jewish holidays in compellingly original ways and sings praises of her marriage and the small pleasures of daily life.This is a stunning collection that will please those who already know Marge Piercy’s work and offer a splendid introduction to it for those who don’t.

    Bringing together some of the most beloved Christian authors and songwriters of today, Faithful guides readers through the pages of Scripture to increase understanding of how God has always valued the integral role of females and how that shapes the lives of women today.   The Faithful project is a collaboration between three major ministry partners: David C Cook, Integrity Music, and Compassion International. The accompanying album and a 2021 tour of live events celebrates the contributions of women while recognizing their empowerment through the faithfulness of God.   This beautiful, creative book will invite readers to return again and again for reflection and inspiration through guided scripture reading and writing prompts.

    Whether it’s mountaineering, running ultramarathons, or just sitting by a stream, she finds her spirituality and Judaism thrive most in the wilderness. In her work as the Adventure Rabbi, leading groups toward spiritual fulfillment in the outdoors, Korngold has uncovered the rich traditions and lessons God taught our ancestors in the wild. In God in the Wilderness Korngold uses rabbinic wisdom and witty insights to guide readers through the Bible, showing people of all faiths that, despite the hectic pace of life today, it is vital for us to reclaim these lessons, awaken our inner spirituality, and find meaning, tranquillity, and purpose in our lives.

    In this second volume of a five-volume collection of parashat hashavua commentaries, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks explores these intersections as they relate to universal concerns of freedom, love, responsibility, identity, and destiny. Chief Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy, and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under God’s sovereignty. Erudite and eloquent, Covenant & Conversation allows us to experience Chief Rabbi Sacks’ sophisticated approach to life lived in an ongoing dialogue with the Torah.

    From the author of The Gospel According to Jesus comes a new adaptation of the psalms Leading biblical scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell translates fifty of the most powerful and popular bible psalms to create poems that recreate the music of the original Hebrew verse.