Carry your sword, my prophetess. Obstinate contumacy training. Find the objective that is more draining. More strenuous tasks will make you grow. Pain upon you I bestow. I’ll take it all and nothing less. I claim it back; I repossess. Tip the scale; Turn it over. Mark the unused; What’s leftover. The main part no longer exists; Despite the reduction, it persists. Continued movement; A quest for traction. An opposite and negative reaction. Hex induced metamorphosis; Reoccur once again for us. Physically and internally changing. The process of rearranging. The alteration was so fitting. Now they’re pausing; They’re intermitting. In reaffirming the causation; Keep kempt, and maintain your original explanation. Wear our serpent, prophetess; Prior to you was profitless. The soil was sown with no reaping. Tear our hearts out for your keeping. Beyond the boundaries of what is permitted. Reward me for the sins I’ve committed. My acts were bold; Caress my flesh. I give it all and nothing less. The facsimile will shudder. Express what it is I utter. Amidst psychos and others. Among psychos and others. Live with vigor; Efficiently transfigure. Disfigure; Change his figure. Make it so; Mark the torso. Undergo; Nock the torso. Let it grow; Open the torso. Let him know; Carve the torso.

    The complete works of an extraordinary poet who consistently refines the notion of what constitutes an American sound.

    He is proof that poetry will find its writer."—Mary-Louise Parker, actress"Ryan Adams, one of America's most consistently interesting singer/songwriters, has written a passionate, arresting, and entertaining book of verse. Fans are going to love it, and newcomers will be pleased and startled by his intensity and originality."—Stephen King, on Infinity BluesRyan Adams may be acclaimed primarily for albums such as Cardinology, Heartbreaker, Gold (which includes the popular hit songs "When the Stars Go Blue" and "New York, New York"), and Easy Tiger, but the world-renowned singer/songwriter has always been a poet and fiction writer at heart.With the release of Hello Sunshine, Ryan continues to break literary ground beyond what he established with his wildly popular first book, Infinity Blues. Ryan's new work provides perhaps an even deeper insight into the man than is revealed through the songs that have resonated with his hundreds of thousands of fans.Where his debut was characterized by the bitterness of heartbreak, Hello Sunshine is a graceful, sensual assertion of the other side of the emotional coin. This is a 2009 fever dream—inside Ryan's heart and mind—replete with unforgettable verse that will shock and delight those expecting a mere continuation of where Infinity Blues left off.Ryan Adams is known for his prolific nature, which in the last ten years has resulted in various international hit albums. Ryan has also produced Willie Nelson's album Songbird and contributed to records by Toots and the Maytals, Beth Orton, the Wallflowers, Counting Crows, and Cowboy Junkies; additionally, he has appeared on CMT's Crossroads with Elton John.

    Among them: Suheir Hammad, Beau Sia, Steve Colman, Stacyann Chin, Mayda del Valle, Georgia Me, Poetri, and other well-established and up-and-coming Slam artists who have forever changed the face of poetry and offer a fresh, exuberant, insightful, and comedic look at who we are as Americans today.

    THE SINGING KNIVES, originally published in 1971 by Broughton's Mill Mountain Press, is Frank Sanford's first collection of poetry. Reprinted by his own press, Lost Roads Publisher, after his death, THE SINGING KNIVES, debuts the work of a twenty-something year old boy way ahead of his time and in a state of unrest, capturing "poetry's more primal and mysterious possibilities"-David Clewell. "It is astonishing to me that I was not even aware of this superbly accomplished and moving poet. There is a great deal of pain in the poems, but it is a pain that makes sense, a tragic pain whose meaning rises from the way the poems are so firmly molded and formed from within"- James Wright.

    Here is a poet talking to you instead of around himself, while doing absolutely brilliant and outrageous things with language."--Publishers WeeklyStarred Review in Booklist "[C]hoices of poems from each of Harrison's books are passionate and sharp... Of special note is a section from Letters to Yesenin, a book-length poem, and the title poem from The Theory and Practice of Rivers , which contains these echoing lines, 'I forgot where I heard that poems / are designed to waken sleeping gods.' Reading this essential volume, one might imagine that the gods are, indeed, staying up late, reading lights on, turning the pages."Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems is distilled from fourteen volumes--from visionary lyrics and meditative suites to shape-shifting ghazals and prose-poem letters. Teeming throughout these pages are Harrison's legendary passions and appetites, his meditations, rages, and love-songs to the natural world.The New York Times concluded a review from early in Harrison's career with a provocative quote: "This is poetry worth loving, hating, and fighting over, a subjective mirror of our American days and needs." That sentiment still holds true, as Jim Harrison's essential poems continue to call for our fiercest attention.Also included are full-color images of poem drafts--both typescripts and holographs--as well as the letter Denise Levertov sent to publisher W.W. Norton in the early 1960s, advocating for Harrison's debut collection.In his essay "Poetry as Survival," Jim Harrison wrote, "Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak." The Essential Poems is proof positive that Jim Harrison taught his soul to speak."In this unforgiving literary moment, we must deal honestly with [Harrison's] life and work, as they are inextricable in a way that is not true of other poets...These poems bear-crawl gorgeously after a genuine connection to being, thrashing in giant leaps through the underbrush to find consolation, purpose, and redemption. In his raw, original keening he ambushes moments of unimaginable beauty, one after another, line after line...The Essential Poems demonstrates perfectly why we should turn to Harrison again. He lived and breathed an American confrontation with the physical earth, married himself to a universe of bodies and stumps and birds, did not try to shuck his grotesque masculinity and stared hard with his one good eye (the left was blinded when he was seven) at the inescapable, beckoning finger of death." --Dean Kuipers, LitHub"The Essential Poems provides a good introduction--or reintroduction--to the work of this singular writer... these pieces illustrate Harrison's range and his ease with various formats, from lyric poems to meditative suites to prose poems. They also spotlight his deep, rugged kinship with rural landscapes and the natural world, where 'the cost of flight is landing.'" --The Washington Post"Jim Harrison's latest collection, The Essential Poems, contains...engaging and enlightening poems [that] should be taught, learned, and loved. Remember this."--New York Journal of Books"Had he been a chef, all the other foodies would have talked about how Jim Harrison dealt with big flavors. In his poems, they're all there -- love and death, remorse and longing, the rocket contrails of living. There's not a lot of small talk in The Essential Poems... this book grabs you by the collar and tells you in eleven hundred ways to wake up."--John Freeman, Executive Editor, "Recommended Reading from Lit Hub Staff""Jim Harrison had an appetite. He devoured the natural world with gusto and wrote about it with wild energy and sweetly caustic wit...Harrison was also a prodigious poet, and this thoughtfully curated collection [The Essential Poems] showcases him at his best. Like his fiction, the poems observe the collision between civilization and the wildness outside our cities; they act like geocaches both harrowing and beautiful... Organized chronologically, the material here becomes a time line distilling Harrison's signature concerns."--Alta"It is hard-boiled poetry, some of the best of its kind, and one is not surprised to know that Harrison has written very tough novels... His poetic vision is at the heart of it all."--Harper's

    Hailed as “an essential book for those seeking self-love,” this heartfelt anthology lends voice to the heartbreak and healing of our soul’s quest to reunite with whom we always hoped we could be—ourselves.

    What was supposed to be a summer fling turned into a toxic love affair. With Trayon away, how will she be able to cope? Does she wait for him or run into the arms of another man? Set on a path of revenge, Trayon wants nothing more than to get what he is owed and that's the throne. On his journey of revenge, he discovers some shocking secrets; family secrets that will cause him to lose sight of his original plan. Will he reach a point where not even, Asayi's love can save him? Stacy is stuck trying to balance his time between two women. When he finds himself giving one woman more time than the other, he might just regret that choice. Will he risk everything him and Tuchie built over a childhood love? This is the second installment to a heart-wrenching, tear-filled and an emotional journey. Secrets, lies, deceit and murder. Everyone has experienced damages in their love life. Will they overcome it or will they remain damaged? Get ready for a gritty and urban hood love novel.

    That's how they see me--all they'll ever see when they look at me. But I am more, so much more. We can't change the past, the hand we've been dealt, But we can play that hand and win in the end. And that's what I plan to do--what I've always planned to do. Then he came into my life. Jaxon Prescott. He's everything I want, But nothing I'm permitted to have. He's too good, too perfect, For someone like me. After all, I'm just a maid, To them. They don't know the real me, My dreams, my fears, my past, My secrets. Jax A rich playboy.... That's how they see me--all they'll ever see when they look at me. They've got it all wrong, So wrong. I've been living a lie, a fabrication of what they want, And I thought it was what I wanted. Then she came into my life. Ava Williams. She reminded me of what I want, What I need, And who I really am. She's everything, But nothing I'm supposed to have. She's not right, not polished enough For someone like me. After all, I'm high class society--better than everyone else, To them. They don't know the real me, My dreams, my fears, my past, My secrets.

    

    Cox weaves the exciting, authentic tale of Harry Nelson-Heron, a young midshipman in the British Navy in the early 1800s. Born in 1789 during the Irish Rebellion, Harry must overcome the prejudice against the Irish and the usual hazards of an active and inquisitive youth to realise his dream of becoming an officer in Britain’s Royal Navy. When he and his childhood friend Ferghal make the treacherous journey to London to be commissioned to a ship, fate smiles on them. Harry is appointed a midshipman on the HMS Bellerophon, and Ferghal joins him as a seaman. Corsairs, diplomacy, and exploration challenge their skills as the seafaring life takes Harry and Ferghal across the seas to worlds they never imagined and engages their ship in sea fights with the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

     Six people longing to mend broken hearts and shattered dreams… Three romances ready to blossom in the charming Midwest town of Clayburn. REMEMBER TO FORGET: Graphic designer Maggie Anderson has lived under her boyfriend's tyranny for nearly two years...until she's carjacked in New York. Will this terrifying experience be the end for Maggie—or the beginning of a freedom greater than she dares imagine? But to gain her freedom, she'll have to remember to forget everything about her old life… LEAVING NOVEMBER: Eight years ago, Vienne Kenney moved away from Clayburn and all its gossip to pursue a law degree in California. But now she has failed the bar exam…again. Is she destined to be stuck forever, a failure—just like her father—in this podunk Kansas town? YESTERDAY’S EMBERS: On Thanksgiving Day, Douglas DeVore kissed his beloved wife good-bye, unaware that it would be the last time he'd see her—or their precious daughter Rachel. Left with five kids to raise on his own, and already juggling two jobs to make ends meet, Doug wonders how he'll manage moment by moment, much less day after day, without Kaye's love and support.

    

    To divulge the private confession would violate holy canon law. When he refuses to go to the police, people begin to die, and the priest becomes the prime suspect. Elizabeth Monroe, a college professor who teaches forensic psychology, doesn’t believe the elder priest fits the killer’s profile. Elizabeth discovers a frightening thread woven within each killing—a thread that began thirty years ago. To stop the murders, she has to find where the seed of evil was first planted. Because the roots are penetrating deep within a small Mississippi town and they’re spreading dangerously close to Elizabeth.

    Aleta Williams spins a realistic tale that indeed is... Saltier Than Ever--- CA$H author of the urban classic Trust No Man trilogy, Thugs Cry, and Shorty Got A ThugSix months after her mother's death Jazz is determined to start the healing process and follow her dreams. It seems like things go from good.. to bad... to worse in a matter of time. How can you let go of the past and prepare for a future that is unknown to you; when you are not even sure of your present? Will Jazz be able to push through life's drama and find herself again or will she be left standing alone and hurt by those she trusted and love?Diesel lost his basketball contract, might have impregnated a stripper, and as quiet as its kept he's dealing with the stress the only way he knows how, by lashing out at the black b*tch he believes is responsible for his misery. Will Diesel take responsibility for his own actions?From a preacher to a gangster, Pastor G is out for revenge. He wants the man's head that he believes is the real reason for his wife's death. Will Pastor G succeed on the devils playground?Ken always seems to be in the right place at the wrong time. Trying to make sure a friend makes it home safe, turns into him being a suspect in crime that he claims he didn't commit; thus, making him less closer to winning over the one that has his heart. Will Ken clear his name and capture the heart of the one he loves?Yay-Yay and White-Girl are still the grimiest chicks in Los Angeles, but when karma pays them both a visit, they soon find out that she's the baddest b*tch of them all. Will these chicks ever learn the true reason for their downfall?Supported by the ghetto, grimy, and sassy characters of this novel. This installment is Saltier than Ever! ***Aleta is back with a juicy third installment of the Ghetto Soap Opera series. Saltier Than Ever is full of drama, twists and turns that you wont see coming. ---Karen Williams author of Harlem on Lock, Dirty to the Grave, The People vs Cashmere, Thug In Me, and Sweet Giselle.