I had finally no advice but the long held habit of our using one another, during his life, to act as a measure, a bearing, an unabashed response to what either might write or say."—Robert CreeleyA seminal figure in post-World War II literature, Charles Olson has helped define the postmodern sensibility. His poetry embraces themes of empowering love, political responsibility, the wisdom of dreams, the intellect as a unit of energy, the restoration of the archaic, and the transformation of consciousness—all carried in a voice both intimate and grand, American and timeless, impassioned and coolly demanding.In this selection of some 70 poems, Robert Creeley has sought to present a personal reading of Charles Olson's decisive and inimitable work—"unequivocal instances of his genius"—over the many years of their friendship.

    The Telfairs are stonemasons and have been for generations. Ben Telfair has given up his education to apprentice himself to his grandfather, Papaw, a man who knows that "true masonry is not held together by cement but...by the warp of the world." Out of the love that binds these two men and the gulf that separates them from the Telfairs who have forsaken -- or dishonored -- the family trade, Cormac McCarthy has crafted a drama that bears all the hallmarks of his great fiction: precise observation of the physical world; language that has the bite of common speech and the force of Biblical prose; and a breathtaking command of the art of storytelling.

    Montale is a love poet, whose deeply beautiful, individual work confronts the dilemmas of modern history, philosophy, and faith with courage and subtlety; he has been widely translated into English, and his work has influenced two generations of American and British poets. Jonathan Galassi's versions of Montale's major works--Ossi di seppia, Le occasioni, and La bufera e altro--are the clearest and most convincing yet, and his extensive notes discuss in depth the sources and difficulties of this dense, allusive poetry. This book offers English-language readers uniquely informed and readable access to the work of one of the greatest of all modern poets.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Yoshida Kenko (c. 1283-1352). Kenko's work is included in Penguin Classics in Essays in Idleness and Hojoki.

    Young Vincent Malloy's vivid imagination takes him on a macabre journey into a fantastical and weird world in which his home is filled with spiders and bats, his aunt becomes an exhibit in his wax museum, and his beautiful wife is buried in his mother's flower bed.

    As a poet who has achieved success in the realms of both grassroots popularity and national critical attention, Kocot is poised to claim her place as America’s boldest new poetic voice.

    Howe's theme is the exile of the spirit in this world and the painfully exciting, tiny margin in which movement out of exile is imaginable and perhaps possible. Her best poems are simultaneously investigations of that possibility and protests against the difficulty of salvation. Boston is the setting of some of the early poems, and Ireland, the birthplace of Howe's mother, is the home of O'Clock, a spiritually piquant series of short poems included in Selected Poems. The metaphysics and the physics of this world play off each other in these poems, and there is a toughness to Howe's unique, fertile nervousness of spirit. Her spare style makes a nest for the soul: Zero built a nest in my navel. Incurable Longing. Blood too— From violent actions It's a nest belonging to one But zero uses it And its pleasure is its own—from The Quietist

    The wildly inventive imagery in these cinematic pieces lodges them somewhere between the surreal and the pure symbol, colorful and smooth like the lyrics of John Ashbery or Linda Pastan. In Chelotti’s poems, diamonds talk and sheriffs balance frogs on the tips of pens.The rain says, Listen to Debussy,go ahead, Debussy will fix you.—From “Migraine Cure”The secret to including everythingis to intricately divide your mindand then, all of a sudden,undivide it.—From “Still Life on a Scrolling Background”

    A slow flicker at times, a wild dance at others, Taplin stokes the emotions with his usual verbal finesse. Unique to this collection is the story of Charlie Jones, told intermittently in post meridiem hours between smaller flares of poetry and prose. Falling in love has never been so easy, but neither has getting hurt. Taplin’s existential awareness burns throughout, reminding us that our pains and joys are not so different. His thought-provoking dialogues and brief poetic synopses will invite you to admire the human condition from fresh perspectives, teach you about letting go and new growth, and somehow manage to leave you feeling full even after you’ve been completely gutted.Playing with Fire will make the sap crackle from your veins, lift the burning leaves from your limbs in one hot breath, then let the ash fall on the top of your head, soft as snow.

    Impelled by metaphor and lilting repetition, Mulberry seeks a sense of the world, and ultimately, finds a sense of the Infinite. Affording continual discoveries, Mulberry is a major work for the new century by an assured and lavishly gifted poet. Dan Beachy-Quick is the author of North True South Bright and Spell, He is chair of the MFA Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and recipient of a Lannan Foundation Residency.

    Reflecting a new editorial approach, this volume demonstrates the breadth of Ted Berrigan's poetic accomplishments by presenting his most celebrated, interesting, and important work. This major second-wave New York School poet is often identified with his early poems, especially "The Sonnets, " but this selection encompasses his full poetic output, including the later sequences "Easter Monday" and "A Certain Slant of Sunlight, " as well as many of his uncollected poems. The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan provides a new perspective for those already familiar with his remarkable wit and invention, and introduces new readers to what John Ashbery called the "crazy energy" of this iconoclastic, funny, brilliant, and highly innovative writer.Praise for" The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan: ""This is a great, great book for all seasons of the mind and heart."--Robert Creeley"Thanks to this invaluable "Collected Poems, " one can hear, as never before, Ted Berrigan dreaming his dream."--"The Nation"""The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan "is not only one of the most strikingly attractive books recently published, but is also a major work of 20th-century poetry. . . . It is a book that will darken with the grease of my hands. There is no better way to praise it than by saying, 'If you enjoy poetry, you should have it.'" --"Bloomsbury Review ""It's a must-have, a poetic knockout."--"Time Out New York"

    On that afternoon, her husband of ten years crash-landed his malfunctioning single-engine plane in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Dr. Darrell Swank suffered multiple fractures, and third degree burns over sixty percent of his body when the gas tank exploded as he crawled away from the wreckage. Over the next five weeks, she struggled to be a mother to their children while she kept a near round-the-clock vigil at the hospital. Darrell’s survival was questionable from one day to the next, and even if he survived, would he be the same man he was before the crash? Did his fate depend on this test of her faith?The Death of Me is the true story of a wife and mother living day to day through a fog of shock and unimaginable agony. And, alone in the aftermath, fumbling for some way to not only survive, but to thrive. It is a story of pain, of release, of forgiveness. And of healing, resilience, and rebirth. It is a story of a writer finding her voice.

    From the narratives of army life during World War Two to the domestic and familial scenes of his final book, this selection presents Jarrell's art at its best, comparable in power and variety to that of his contemporaries Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop.

    . . profound, reflective, and enlightening. --Boston GlobeAccording to Deepak Chopra, Watts was a spiritual polymatch, the first and possibly greatest. Drawing on ancient and modern sources, Watts treats the Chinese philosophy of Tao in much the same way as he did Zen Buddhism in his classic The Way of Zen. Critics agree that this last work stands as a perfect monument to the life and literature of Alan Watts.Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, . . . Watts begins with scholarship and intellect and proceeds with art and eloquence to the frontiers of the spirit.--Los Angeles Times

    African American Studies. "The publication of Amiri Baraka's SOMEBODY BLEW UP AMERICA & OTHER POEMS makes one more mark in the development in modern Black radical & revolutionary cultural reconstruction... Readers of course will want as quick as possible to read for them-self the now controversial title poem..., but check-out, among the others, "In Town"--pure-pure dark post-Plantation molasses..."--Kamau Brathwaite.