Culled from classic works of poetry, unpublished work solicited especially for the book, and poetry and erotica journals, these poems celebrate sexual connection and expression. Contributors include Sharon Olds, Gary Soto, E. E. cummings, Marge Piercy, Raymond Carver, Galway Kinnell, Pablo Neruda, and Tess Gallagher.

    You don't need a fistful of statistics to know this. Visit any city, and evidence of our shattered social compact will present itself. From Appalachia to the Rust Belt and down to rural Texas, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest stretches to unimaginable chasms. Whether the cause of this inequality is systemic injustice, the entrenchment of racism in our culture, the long war on drugs, or immigration policies, it endangers not only the American Dream but our very lives.In Tales of Two Americas, some of the literary world's most exciting writers look beyond numbers and wages to convey what it feels like to live in this divided nation. Their extraordinarily powerful stories, essays, and poems demonstrate how boundaries break down when experiences are shared, and that in sharing our stories we can help to alleviate a suffering that touches so many people.

    Now, in "Dancing with Joy," he assembles 99 poems from 69 poets that celebrate the many colors of joy. Anything can be a catalyst for joy, these poems reveal. For Wislawa Szymborska, the catalyst is a dream; for Robert Bly, being in the company of his ten-year-old son; for Gerald Stern, it is a grapefruit at breakfast; for Billy Collins, a cigarette. "Dancing with Joy" includes English and Italian classical and romantic works; early Chinese and Persian verse; and poets from Chile, France, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and India, plus a range of contemporary American and English poets. Whether inspiration is what you need, or an affirmation of what is already joyful in life, "Dancing with Joy" is a welcome treat for Housden s numerous fans, as well as anyone looking for sheer happiness, marvelously expressed."

    More witty and stylish poetic therapy for the Venus and Mars generation.

    Guest editor Robert Bly, an award-winning poet and translator -- famous, too, for his leadership role in the men's movement and his bestselling book, Iron John -- has made selections that present American poetry in all its dazzling originality, richness, and variety. The year's poems are striking in their vibrancy; they all display that essential energy that Bly calls "heat," whether the heat of friendship, the heat of form, or the heat that results when a poet "brings the soul up close to the thing" he or she is contemplating. With comments from the poets illuminating their work, The Best American Poetry 1999 reflects the most exciting and memorable poetry being written at the end of the millennium.

    The result is a poetry that upends the deeply and dangerously assumed concepts of such a culture—that new knowledge is always better knowledge, that history is a steady progress, that humans are in control of the natural order. Nick Lantz’s poems hurtle through time from ancient theories of physics to the CIA training manual for the practice of torture, from the history of the question mark to the would-be masterpieces left incomplete by the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolai Gogol, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix. Selected by Linda Gregerson for the esteemed Bakeless Prize for Poetry, We Don’t Know We Don’t

    It’s a narrative, the story of an American innocent’s descent into hell and his excruciating return to life on the surface. Weigl may have written the best novel so far about the Vietnam War, and along the way a dozen truly memorable poems.” — Russell Banks

    Heid E. Erdrich has selected twenty-one poets whose first books were published after the year 2000 to highlight the exciting works coming up after Joy Harjo and Sherman Alexie. Collected here are poems of great breadth―long narratives, political outcries, experimental works, and traditional lyrics―and the result is an essential anthology of some of the best poets writing now.Poets included are Tacey M. Atsitty, Trevino L. Brings Plenty, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Laura Da’, Natalie Diaz, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Eric Gansworth, Gordon Henry, Jr., Sy Hoahwah, LeAnne Howe, Layli Long Soldier, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nalani McDougall, Margaret Noodin, dg okpik, Craig Santos Perez, Tommy Pico, Cedar Sigo, M. L. Smoker, Gwen Westerman, and Karenne Wood.

    With its pioneering introduction, this collection provides a comprehensive history of the development of the prose poem up to its current widespread appeal. Half critical study and half anthology, The Field Guide to Prose Poetry is a not-to-be-missed companion for readers and writers of poetry, as well as students and teachers of creative writing.

    He is a forceful, cogent, incisive phrase-maker."—Bill Knott"The yearning in these poems is awash in dense, spiritual sexuality buffeted by time and the mishandling of promises and breakable bonds."—apt The Truth Is We Are Perfect contains fifty-four lyrics exploring the loss of oneself through the loss of an other, and how we seek to recreate ourselves in that absence. Stucky journeys into nothingness and, consequently, into awareness. His meditative sensibilities and minimalist style create ritualized poems acting as spells—transcribed to be read aloud and performed in the service of realizing that which we seek to become: "Because I love a burning thing / I made my heart a field of fire."Janaka Stucky is the publisher of Black Ocean as well as the annual poetry journal Handsome. He is the author of two chapbooks: Your Name Is The Only Freedom, and The World Will Deny It For You. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by the Huffington Post and the Poetry Foundation. He is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 he was voted "Boston's Best Poet" in the Boston Phoenix.

    Soon after this, Dodie's brother Seth goes missing: the only trace of him is through postcards signed 'Yours in the Lord' addresses from the Soul Life Centre, New York state.When Stella hangs herself, Dodie must leave her baby Jake at home and cross the Atlantic to bring Seth beck from the mysterious Soul Life Centre. But when she arrives, Seth is always one day away from seeing her. She becomes drawn - not always willingly - into the Brothers and Sisters' communal living, meditation, fasting and chanting. Until baby Jake unexpectedly arrives at Soul Life and events take a shocking turn for Dodie.In a parallel narrative, Stella's sister Melanie tells the story of their teenage years in the 1970s and their shared affair with Bogart, a messianic hippy with shrewd ambition. These two compelling stories collide in a series of shocking revelations and an exhilarating conclusion. Heartfelt and frightening, Chosen is Lesley Glaister at the top of her game.

     Let me test my presumption with a preview of four these ‘old’ stories. If I told you there was once a west coast sex cult with dozens of young girls, single ladies, and married women, who all fornicated with one well-endowed “prophet,” and he occasionally found it necessary to carry-out bondage S&M sessions here and there, you may not be surprised at all. But what if that sex cult began in 1903 and ended in 1906 with a couple of murders and suicides, does that sound like anything you have read about before? Or, how about a cheater who murders his inconvenient wife, disassembles her over a fifteen hour period, then puts her bones in the same stove he cooks breakfast for his sons before sending them off to school? If that doesn’t surprise you, perhaps the ending will–but you’ll have to find out for yourself. In ‘The Dandy and the Squire,’ a smooth-talking peacock from Kentucky visits his northern ‘cousins,’ and charms three of the women into his bed. He’s a big time operator who talks fancy, dresses fancy, and tells great stories of his days as an adventurer, riverboat gambler, and sharp-minded deal maker. He’s so smooth, he’s able to murder the patriarch’s son, make him look like the bad guy, and marry the boy’s tender-hearted sister before the Yankees get wise to his lies. Good thing, too, because he had also talked the father into giving him the family farm. Chapter Five is the stranger-than-fiction story of ‘Shoebox Annie.’ During the early 20th Century, this trollish-looking woman introduced her freakish-looking son to a life of crime. Their decade’s long spree of lyin’, cheatin’, and stealin’ led them to become America’s first mother and son team of serial killers. They were so good at disposing of bodies, none of their four victims have ever been found. If ‘old’ stories sound boring to readers of contemporary true crime, I hope this book will change minds, and fully reveal just how wicked and decadent our ancestors were. And deadly. Volume II in the Vintage True Crime Stories series is a wrecking ball that smashes to pieces that phrase, “The Good Old Days.” Maybe you will believe me when you get to the last page.

    Extending this trend, Short Takes presents over seventy-five writers whose range and style demonstrate the myriad ways we humans have of telling our truths. Themes develop and speak to or collide with one another: musings about parents, childhood, sports, weather, war, solitude, nature, loss—and, of course, love. The stellar roster of contributors includes well-known writers—Verlyn Klinkenborg, Jo Ann Beard, David Sedaris, Dorothy Allison, Salman Rushdie, and Terry Tempest Williams—along with Michael Perry, Mark Spragg, Jane Brox, and others whose literary stars are clearly rising. Each short—whether a few paragraphs or reaching 2,000 words, and reflecting almost every way nonfiction can be written—invites us to experience the power of the small to move, persuade, and change us.

    They are stories about the woods, houses hidden in the gaps between mountains. Behind them, the skeletons of old and powerful machines rust into the slate and leaves. Water red with iron leeches from the empty mines and pools near a stone foundation. The boy there plays in the bones because he is a child and this will be his childhood. He watches while winter comes falling slowly down over the road. Sometimes he remembers a girl, her hair and the perfume she wore. These are stories about her and where she might have gone. He waits for sleep because in the next story he will leave. The boy watches an airplane blink red past his window. From here, you can't hear its violence.

     The prophecy neglects to mention she lacks something vital to his kind—wings. Kabril, King of the Buteos Regalis has no interest in taking a human mate. His kind believes humans are dirty, vile creatures who rely on machines to lift them into the air. The last place he wants to go in search of his mate is Earth, but he’s left no choice. Never did he expect to find love on a planet with one moon, people who lack wings and a stubborn vixen who makes his heart soar. When he does, he fears the truth about who and what he truly is will steal it away. Little does he know his enemies fully intend on doing the taking. A View to a Kill A trained assassin…a man even the deadliest of warriors fear. To cross him is foolish. To steal his heart is pure madness. Book two in King of Prey series. Sachin, head advisor to the king of the Accipitridae realm, has been forced to put his trips to Earth on hold. He’s not been honest with himself or King Kabril about his need to visit the primitive planet. The king thinks him to be a womanizer, out to bed as many human females as possible. In truth, a woman he should have been able to woo with little to no effort—his mate—has found someone else to fill that void in her life. She wasn’t supposed to be on Earth. She wasn’t supposed to be human. And she sure the hell wasn’t supposed to agree to marry another man while Sachin was away. Sachin must make a choice, give up the one woman he knows to be his true mate and let her live in ignorant bliss of what walks among her people, or fight for what’s his, taking it at all costs. A trained assassin…a man even the deadliest of warriors fear. To cross him is foolish. To steal his heart is pure madness. Master of the Hunt When the oracle warns Prince Aeson that his future mate is in the human realm and is in great danger, he wastes no time going in search of her. Problem is, he has no idea who he’s looking for. He’s never met her and the oracle couldn’t give him anything more than small clues as to who she is and where she might be. Sent to one of his favorite hangouts—Aeson is stunned when a beauty shows up on the arm of another man, a man void of emotion. He senses trouble surrounding her and something else—something that marks her as his. He doesn’t care if she is or isn’t the woman the oracle told him about, she’s the woman he wants. Anyone who dares to stand in his way will feel his wrath and, before the night is out, she’ll feel exactly what it’s like to be taken by a prince. Be sure to check out the following King of Prey Titles: Rise of the King Prince of Pleasure