Patti Smith 1969-1976


Judy Linn - 2011
    I felt protected in the atmosphere we created together. We had an inner narrative, producing our own unspoken film, with or without a camera." -Patti Smith, from her afterword Like a scene in Godard's Vivre sa vie or Dreyer's La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, Patti Smith posed for the lens of a young photographer, Judy Linn. It was 1969, some years before Patti Smith entered the arena of rock and roll. Smith was a struggling poet, harboring a romantic ideal of the collaborative possibilities between an artist and model- a dream happily fulfilled within this intimate and high-spirited body of work. Linn's images of Smith range from the vulnerable to the iconic. Focusing on shifting influences and spotlighting her profound relationships with artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Shepard, Linn has captured Smith like no one else, in the grainy atmosphere of a bygone New York. Judy Linn's photographs document the blooming of an enduring friendship and the evolution of two unique artists: gritty and visionary, fragile and tough.Praise for Patti Smith 1969-1976:"a striking new book, Patti Smith: 1969-1976 (out March 1) . . . collects photographs of the coolly photogenic star taken by her talented friend Judy Linn during the same time Kids describes. They're wonderfully composed shots of Smith looking like the star of a Godard film of her own making. The pictures show her fully ready for a closeup that would cement her boho image just a few years later, on the iconic cover of her first album, Horses, shot, of course, by Mapplethorpe himself." -New York Daily News "Here is Smith's acclaimed 2010 memoir, Just Kids, come to life-the shrines to Bob Dylan, the dress up-and the photos strike the same wistful note; as Smith writes in her afterword: 'once upon a time, we were young and beautiful and anyone we imagined we could be.'" -Publishers Weekly"Anticipating a new generation's excitement for Smith and Mapplethorpe, their friend Judy Linn has published a new book of her photographs, Patti Smith 1969-1976, that centers on the era covered in Just Kids, the time before Patti and Robert were famous. The book's a nice visual testament to their friendship, but it's also a bible of good clothing, an early record of one of the most stylish couples of all time." -The Fader.com"Linn's collection of photographs is the perfect complement to Smith's National Book Award-winning memoir, Just Kids . . . like Smith's memoir, the photos-uninterrupted by titles, captions, or any other text-serve two purposes: they tell the story of young artists finding their voice and style and serve as a love letter to '70s New York, four decades later." -Flavorwire.com

Eight American Poets: An Anthology


Joel ConarroeRobert Lowell - 1994
    The 164 selections in Eight American Poets include widely anthologized works like Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," several of Berryman's "Dream Songs," and Anne Sexton's "Ringing the Bells," as well as poems that are less familiar but just as haunting. Prefaced with a discerning introduction and individual biographical essays.

Death and Fame: Last Poems, 1993-1997


Allen Ginsberg - 2000
    Famous for energizing the Beat Generation literary movement upon his historic encounter with Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs in mid-century New York City, Ginsberg influenced several generations of writers, musicians, and poets. When he died on April 5, 1997, we lost one of the greatest figures of twentieth-century American literary and cultural history. This singular volume of final poems commemorated the anniversary of Ginsberg's death, and includes the verses he wrote in the years shortly before he died.

Barbara the Slut and Other People


Lauren Holmes - 2014
    She tackles eros and intimacy with a deceptively light touch, a keen awareness of how their nervous systems tangle and sometimes short-circuit, and a genius for revealing our most vulnerable, spirited selves. In “Desert Hearts,” a woman takes a job selling sex toys in San Francisco rather than embark on the law career she pursued only for the sake of her father. In “Pearl and the Swiss Guy Fall in Love,” a woman realizes she much prefers the company of her pit bull—and herself—to the neurotic foreign fling who won’t decamp from her apartment. In “How Am I Supposed to Talk to You?” a daughter hauls a suitcase of lingerie to Mexico for her flighty, estranged mother to resell there, wondering whether her personal mission—to come out—is worth the same effort. And in “Barbara the Slut,” a young woman with an autistic brother, a Princeton acceptance letter, and a love of sex navigates her high school’s toxic, slut-shaming culture with open eyes. With heart, sass, and pitch-perfect characters, Barbara the Slut is a head-turning debut from a writer with a limitless career before her.

Torey Hayden Collection (Somebody Else's Kids, One Child, Ghost Girl, Beautiful Child)


Torey L. Hayden - 2011
    

Sunshine


Melissa Lee-Houghton - 2016
    A writer of startling confession, her poems inhabit the lonely hotel rooms, psych wards and deserted lanes of austerity Britain.Sunshine combines acute social observation with a dark, surreal humour born of first-hand experience. Abuse, addiction and mental health are all subject to Lee-Houghton’s poetic eye. But these are also poems of extravagance, hope and desire, that stake new ground for the Romantic lyric in an age of social media and internet porn. In this new book of poems, Melissa Lee-Houghton shines a light on human ecstasy and sadness with blinding precision.Includes ‘i am very precious’ – Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2016.

Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee


Megan Boyle - 2011
    Megan Boyle's debut poetry collection is at once confessional, sociological, emotional, detached, funny, sad, delightful, reckless, and meditative. Written in the naturally meticulous, defaultedly complex, always affecting voice of a person too imaginative and self-aware and intelligent to be fully consumed by depression and loneliness but too aware of the meaninglessness and ephemeral nature of existence (and too depressed and lonely) to write on any level but an existential, emotionally-driven, unsimplified one, Megan Boyle's debut poetry collection is the rare work of art that conveys troubling and scary information, undiluted, about humans and the universe but in a way, ultimately, that makes you excited to be alive, eager to be troubled and scared, grateful to simply be here....unbelievably engaging and mesmerizing. Boyle writes with such openness about living in a world that constantly mystifies you, the strange act of watching yourself do things you can't quite understand, making a mess of things and figuring out how to keep living [...] I can't think of another book quite like it, can't think of a voice as distinctive and strange as Boyle's.--Kevin Wilson, author of The Family FangJust reading this collection, [Megan Boyle] immediately became one of my favorite modern poets.--Benn Ray, WYPR's The Signal[O]ne of the funniest, most satisfying, most original, most satisfying books of poetry I've come across in years.--Rachel Whang, Atomic Books[A] blunt work that challenges the reader, dares the reader to find out what this woman has on her mind. Boyle exhibits a generous exhibitionist quality that leaves one wondering if she might be the next Laurie Anderson.--Nicolle Elizabeth, The Brooklyn Rail

101 Places to Get F*cked Up Before You Die: The Ultimate Travel Guide to Partying Around the World


Matador Network - 2014
    Part guide, part social commentary, part party invitation, 101 Places gives you all the info and inspiration you'll need to:* Blowout one (or several) of the year's biggest festivals * MacGyver your way into underground clubs and backcountry raves* Throw down with people from the Himalayas to the salt flats to Antarctica* Travel in every conceivable style—from baller to dirtbag—to some of the most epic spots on earthDo you really know where to go out in San Francisco or Tel Aviv? How about preparing for Burning Man or Oktoberfest? The award-winning journalists and photographers at Matador Network let you know what's up at each spot, whether it's drug policies, how to keep safe, special options for LGBT travelers, or simply where to find the kind of music you like to dance to. No matter if you want to rage at Ibiza or just chill on some dunes smoking shisha, 101 Places has something for you.So, hop a flight, raise a glass, and join us as we breach security, ride ill-recommended ferries, and hike miles into the wilderness all in search of the parties and places going off right now.

The Country Between Us


Carolyn Forché - 1981
    This is a major new voice.” — Margaret AtwoodThe Country Between Us opens with a series of poems about El Salvador, where Carolyn Forché worked as a journalist and was closely involved with the political struggle in that tortured country in the late 1970's. Forché's other poems also tend to be personal, immediate, and moving. Perhaps the final effect of her poetry is the image of a sensitive, brave, and engaged young woman who has made her life a journey. She has already traveled to many places, as these poems indicate, but beyond that is the sense of someone who is, in Ignazio Silone's words, coming from far and going far.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, Retold: Classic Love Poems with a Modern Twist


James Anthony - 2018
    This drew him to the rewarding 14-line structure of Shakespeare's sonnets, yet he often found their abstract language frustratingly unintelligible. One day, out of curiosity, he rewrote Sonnet 18--Shall I compare thee to a summer's day--line-by-line, in the strict five-beat iambic pentameter and rhyming patterns of the original, but in a contemporary language a modern reader could easily understand. The meaning and sentiment--difficult to spot, initially--came to life, revealing new intricacies in the workings of Shakespeare's heart.And so, James embarked on a full-time, year-long project to rewrite all 154 of the Bard's eternal verses creating SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS, RETOLD. This collection of masterful reinterpretations brilliantly demystifies and breathes new life into Shakespeare's work, demonstrating the continued resonance of a playwright whose popularity remains over 400 years after his death. Now, the passion, heartbreak, deception, reconciliation, and mortality of Shakespeare's originals can be understood by all, without the need to cross reference to an enjoyment-sapping study-guide. Coming with a foreword by Stephen Fry, this is a stunning collection of beautiful love poems made new.

Self-Help


Lorrie Moore - 1985
    Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.

Loud


Tana Douglas - 2021
    While still a teenager she headed to the UK and later the US to work for a who's who of bands and artists. Life on the road was exhilarating, hard work, occasionally surreal but never dull, particularly when you're the only woman in the road crew and the #metoo movement is still 40 years away.Whether wrangling Iggy Pop across Europe, climbing trusses while seven months pregnant, drinking shots of JD with Bon Scott backstage at Wembley, or donning a tailor-made suit to do lights for Elton at Windsor Castle, Tana did it all.Loud is rock 'n' roll like you've never seen it before, by a woman who not only survived the all-male world on the road but climbed to the top and lived to tell the tale.AC/DC * Deep Purple * ELO * Elton John * Ice Cube * Ice-T * Iggy Pop* INXS * Iron Maiden * Lenny Kravitz * Neil Diamond * Ozzy Osbourne * Patti Smith * Pearl Jam * Rage Against the Machine * Red Hot Chili Peppers * Santana * Status Quo * Suzi Quatro * The Offspring * The Police * The Runaways * The Who * Vanda & Young and more!

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018


Sheila HetiSeo-Young Chu - 2018
    Their compilation includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.Divine Providence / Quim Monzo --An excerpt from Notes of a Crocodile / Qiu Miaojin --This Rain / Catherine Pond --My Family's Slave / Alex Tizon --Eight Bites / Carmen Maria Machado --The Deaths of Henry King / Jesse Ball and Brain Evenson --A Refuge for Jae-In Doe: Fugues in the key of English major / Seo-Young Chu --In conversation with Vi Khi Nao / Stacey Tran --Come and Eat the World's largest shrimp cocktail in Mexico's Massacre Capital / Diego Enrique Osorno --The Uninhabitable Earth / David Wallace-Wells --An excerpt from Hunger / Roxane Gay --An excerpt from Blacks and the Master/Slave Relation / Frank B Wilderson III --A Tribute to Alvin Buenaventura / Andrew Leland, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes and Anders Nilsen --Six selected comics / Chris (Simpsons artist) --Artist's Statement / Kara Walker --Wave at the People Walking Upside Down / Tongo Eisen-Martin --Meanwhile, on Another Planet / Gunnhild Oyehaug --The David Party / David Leavitt --The Reenactors / Katherine Augusta Mayfield --Your Black Friend / Ben Passmore --Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild / Kathy Fish --Cat Person / Kristen Roupenian --An Excerpt from The Antipodes / Annie Baker --A Fair Accusation of Sexual Harassment or a Witch Hunt? / Lucy Huber --Lizard-Baby / Benjamin Schaefer --Chasing Waterfalls / László Krasznahorkai --Love, Death & Trousers: Eight Found Stories / Laura Francis and Alexander Masters --On Future and Working Through What Hurts / Hanif Abdurraqib --The Universe Would Be So Cruel / Souvankham Thammavongsa --A Love Story / Samantha Hunt

Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories


Megan Mayhew Bergman - 2012
    Megan Mayhew Bergman's twelve stories capture the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, when love or fear collide with good sense, or when our attachment to an animal or wild place can't be denied. In "Housewifely Arts," a single mother and her son drive hours to track down an African Gray Parrot that can mimic her deceased mother's voice. A population control activist faces the ultimate conflict between her loyalty to the environment and her maternal desire in "Yesterday's Whales." And in the title story, a lonely naturalist allows an attractive stranger to lead her and her aging father on a hunt for an elusive woodpecker. As intelligent as they are moving, the stories in Birds of a Lesser Paradise are alive with emotion, wit, and insight into the impressive power that nature has over all of us.

Late Wife


Claudia Emerson - 2005
    Though not satisfied in her first marriage, she laments vanishing from the life she and her husband shared for years. She then describes the unexpected joys of solitude during her recovery and emotional convalescence. Finally, in a sequence of sonnets, she speaks to her new husband, whose first wife died from lung cancer. The poems highlight how rebeginning in this relationship has come about in part because of two couples' respective losses.The most personal of Claudia Emerson's poetry collections, Late Wife is both an elegy and a celebration of a rich present informed by a complex past.