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When My Brother Was an Aztec
Natalie Díaz - 2012
These darkly humorous poems illuminate far corners of the heart, revealing teeth, tails, and more than a few dreams.I watched a lion eat a man like a piece of fruit, peel tendons from fascialike pith from rind, then lick the sweet meat from its hard core of bones.The man had earned this feast and his own deliciousness by ringing a stickagainst the lion's cage, calling out Here, Kitty Kitty, Meow!With one swipe of a paw much like a catcher's mitt with fangs, the lionpulled the man into the cage, rattling his skeleton against the metal bars.The lion didn't want to do it—He didn't want to eat the man like a piece of fruit and he told the crowdthis: I only wanted some goddamn sleep . . . Natalie Diaz was born and raised on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation in Needles, California. After playing professional basketball for four years in Europe and Asia, Diaz returned to the states to complete her MFA at Old Dominion University. She lives in Surprise, Arizona, and is working to preserve the Mojave language.
The Essential Rumi
Rumi
This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.
Actual Air
David Berman - 1999
His poems chart a course through his own highly original American dreamscape in language that is fresh, accessible, and remarkably precise. This debut collection has received extraordinary acclaim from readers and reviewers alike and is quickly becoming a cult classic. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Tate said, "These poems are beautiful, strange, intelligent, and funny. . . . It's a book for everyone."
The Captain Lands in Paradise
Sarah Manguso - 2002
The voice is consistently spare, honest, understated, and eccentric.
Almost Home: Poems
Madisen Kuhn - 2019
Whether it’s the garden, the bedroom, or the front porch, Madisen takes you into her own “home,” sharing some of the most intimate parts of her life so that you might also, someday, feel free to share some of yours. Filled with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations from Melody Hansen, this boldly intimate, preternaturally wise, and emotionally candid collection encourages you to consider what home means to you—whether it’s in the lush, green-lawned suburbs or a city apartment—and, more importantly, explores how you can find it even when home feels like it’s on the far-off horizon.
Turtle Island
Gary Snyder - 1974
All, however, share a common vision: a rediscovery of this land, and the ways by which we might become natives of the place, ceasing to think and act (after all these centuries) as newcomers and invaders. Of particular interest is the full text of the ever more relevant "Four Changes," Snyder's seminal manifesto for environmental awareness.
The Babies
Sabrina Orah Mark - 2004
Of The Babies, poet Claudia Rankine writes, “Rarely do we encounter poems that are so precisely framed, though on their surface seemingly whimsical and erratic. These poems are gorgeous, intelligent, and disturbing.”
[insert] boy
Danez Smith - 2014
In these poems, Smith opens the reader to a world of desire, longing, and deep mourning that picks up where his brothers Hopkins and Whitman left off. Startling in their formal range and virtuosity, these poems interrogate the ways the body not only inhabits but actually becomes public and private space: …tonight, I am no one’s pet, maybe an animal, wounded & hungry for revenge or sympathy but what’s the difference? Danez Smith lays down the gauntlet for all of us to speak our deepest truths with more elegance, more ferocity, and almost more beauty than a reader can bear.—Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Apocalyptic Swing, Poetry Editor for The LA Review of BooksDanez Smith is the crown prince of innovation and ferocity, a stunningly original voice that chooses not to recognize or respect those vexing artistic boundaries. Here is forte unleashed, an elicit glimpse of poetry's yet-to-be-turned page, a reason to stomp and romp in your church shoes. Hallelujah is an understatement.—Patricia Smith, Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah and Blood Dazzler
All of Us: The Collected Poems
Raymond Carver - 1996
This complete edition brings together all the poems of Carver’s five previous books, from Fires to the posthumously published No Heroics, Please. It also contains bibliographical and textual notes on individual poems; a chronology of Carver’s life and work; and a moving introduction by Carver’s widow, the poet Tess Gallagher.
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Ross Gay - 2015
That is, this is a book that studies the wisdom of the garden and orchard, those places where all—death, sorrow, loss—is converted into what might, with patience, nourish us.
Collected Poems
W.H. Auden - 1976
H. Auden endowed poetry in the English language with a new face. Or rather, with several faces, since his work ranged from the political to the religious, from the urbane to the pastoral, from the mandarin to the invigoratingly plain-spoken.This collection presents all the poems Auden wished to preserve, in the texts that received his final approval. It includes the full contents of his previous collected editions along with all the later volumes of his shorter poems. Together, these works display the astonishing range of Auden's voice and the breadth of his concerns, his deep knowledge of the traditions he inherited, and his ability to recast those traditions in modern times.
Prodigal: New and Selected Poems, 1976 to 2014
Linda Gregerson - 2015
Ten new poems introduce Prodigal, followed by fifty poems, culled from Gregerson's five collections, that range broadly in subject from class in America to our world's ravaged environment to the wonders of parenthood to the intersection of science and art to the passion of the Roman gods, and beyond. This selection reinforces Gregerson’s standing as “one of poetry’s mavens . . . whose poetics seek truth through the precise apprehension of the beautiful while never denying the importance of rationality” (Chicago Tribune). A brilliant stylist, known for her formal experiments as well as her perfected lines, Gregerson is a poet of great vision. Here, the growth of her art and the breadth of her interests offer a snapshot of a major poet's intellect in the midst of her career.
I Saw You As A Flower: A Poetry Collection
Ellen Everett - 2018
I Saw You As A Flower is a poetry collection that encompasses heartbreak, growth, and finding love. These poems are for those who love too deeply, for those who break too easily, and for those who continue to rise— time and time again. Ellen Everett's words enable readers to confront their deepest sorrows and piece together the parts that are broken. This is a story of heartbreak and love— but more importantly, a story of overcoming, empowerment, and survival.