Book picks similar to
Take My Word For It: Poems by Nina Cassian


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In the Pockets of Small Gods


Anis Mojgani - 2018
    In the Pockets of Small Gods touches on many kinds of sorrow, from the suicide of a best friend to a broken marriage to the current political climate. Mojgani swings between the surreal imagery and direct vulnerability he is known for, all while giving the poems a direct frankness, softening whatever the weight may be. A book of leaves and petals as opposed to a book of stones, In the Pockets of Small Gods encapsulates the human experience in a way that is both deeply personal and astoundingly universal.

Black Book of Poems II


Vincent K. Hunanyan - 2018
    Hunanyan, the #1 bestselling author of Black Book of Poems, comes his highly-anticipated second collection of poetry.

Siste Viator


Sarah Manguso - 2006
    Her writing is gorgeous and cerebral (imagine Anne Carson) but she doesn't skimp on the wit (imagine Anne Carson's ne'er-do-well niece). Poetry-fearers, don't back away from this beautiful book; these might be the pages that bring you back into the form.” --Dave Eggers

Distance from Loved Ones


James Tate - 1990
    "Mr. Tate is an elegant and anarchic clown. A lord of poetic misrule with a serious, subversive purpose."-John Ash, New York Times Book Review "Tate brings to his work an extravagantly surrealistic imagination and a willingness to let his words take him where they will. Nonchalant in the midst of radical uncertainty, he handles bizarre details as though they were commonplace facts. [Tate's poetry draws upon] so rich a fund of comic energy that is may well prove an antidote to the anxiety some readers feel with poems that refuse to lend themselves to instant analysis."-David Lehman, Washington Post Book World

Glaring Through Oblivion


Serj Tankian - 2011
    For fans stirred by the cerebral lyrics of SOAD albums Hypnotize, Mesmerize, Steal This Album!, Toxicity, and their first, self-titled breakthrough—and for everyone enthusiastic about Serj’s solo album, Imperfect Harmonies—this essential, one-of-a-kind collection of Tankian’s innermost thoughts and feelings is a must-read. Unique illustrations punctuate nearly 70 poems—almost none of which have ever been published before. Glaring through Oblivion is an indispensable find for any true fan.

The Beautiful Life


Mark Anthony - 2017
    This is the poetry of a beautiful life.

It Shouldn't Have Been Beautiful (Poets, Penguin)


Lia Purpura - 2015
    The exquisitely rendered poems in this, her fourth collection, reach back to an early affinity for proverbs and riddles and the proto-poetry found in those forms. Taking on epic subjects—time and memory, metamorphosis and indeterminacy, the complicated nature of beauty, wordless states of being—each poem explores a bright, crisp, singular moment of awareness or shock or revelation.  Purpura reminds us that short poems, never merely brief nor fragmentary, can transcend their size, like small dogs, espresso, a drop of mercury.From the Trade Paperback edition.

3 Summers


Lisa Robertson - 2016
    What is form's time? Here the form of life called a poem speaks with the body's mortality, its thickness, its play. The 10 poem-sequences in 3 Summers inflect a history of textual voices — Lucretius, Marx, Aby Warburg, Deleuze, the Sogdian Sutras — in a lyricism that insists on analysis and revolt, as well as the pleasures of description. The poet explores the mysterious oddness of the body, its languor and persistence, to test how it shapes the materiality of thinking, which includes rivers and forests. But in these poems' landscapes, the time of nature is inherently political. Now only time is wild, and only time — embodied here in Lisa Robertson’s forceful cadences — can tell.‘Robertson proves hard to explain but easy to enjoy. . . . Dauntlessly and resourcefully intellectual, Robertson can also be playful or blunt. . . . She wields language expertly, even beautifully.’—The New York Times‘Robertson makes intellect seductive; only her poetry could turn swooning into a critical gesture.’— The Village VoiceLisa Robertson's books include Cinema of the Present, Debbie: An Epic, The Men, The Weather, R's Boat and Occasional Works and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture. Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip was named one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books. She lives in France.

Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved


Gregory Orr - 2005
    . . mystical, carnal, reflective, wry.”—San Francisco ReviewThis book-length sequence of ecstatic, visionary lyrics recalls Rumi in its search for the beloved and its passionate belief in the healing qualities of art and beauty.Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved is an incantatory celebration of the “Book,” an imaginary and self-gathering anthology of all the lyrics—both poems and songs—ever written. Each poem highlights a distinct aspect of the human condition, and together the poems explore love, loss, restoration, the beauty of the world, the beauty of the beloved, and the mystery of poetry. The purpose and power of the Book is to help us live by reconnecting us to the world and to our emotional lives.I put the beloved In a wooden coffin. The fire ate his body; The flames devoured her. I put the beloved In a poem or song. Tucked it between Two pages of the Book. How bright the flames. All of me burning, All of me on fire And still whole.There is nothing quite like this book—an “active anthology” in the best sense—where individuals find the poems and songs that will sustain them. Or the poems find them.Gregory Orr is the author of eight books of poetry, four volumes of criticism, and a memoir. He has received numerous awards for his work, most recently the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Orr has taught at the University of Virginia since 1975 and was, for many years, the poetry editor of The Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives with his family in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Eye Like a Strange Balloon


Mary Jo Bang - 2004
    Beginning with a painting done in 2003, the poems move backwards in time to 1 BC, where an architectural fragment is painted on an architectural fragment, highlighting visual art’s strange relationship between the image and the thing itself. The total effect is exhilarating—a wholly original, personal take on art history coupled with Bang’s sly and elegant commentary on poetry’s enduring subjects: Love, Death, Time and Desire. The recipient of numerous prizes and awards, Bang stands at the front of American poetry with this new work, asking more of the English language, and enticing and challenging the reader.

The Half-Inch Himalayas


Agha Shahid Ali - 1987
    His most recent volumes of poetry are Rooms Are Never Finished and The Country Without a Post Office. He is also the editor of Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English.

the moon will shine for us too


Jennae Cecelia - 2021
    

Rotten Perfect Mouth


Eva H.D. - 2015
    These poems are loose enough for the reader to flop down inside and stay awhile. They are plangent, personal, confessional, noisy, nostalgic, and maybe a little bit broken. They often contain boats and travel and Toronto (street names and railroad tracks, dives and parks and kitchens) because those are the sorts of things Eva H.D. is drawn to. In Rotten Perfect Mouth, readers will discover a writer with her heart on her sleeve and her hand on her pen, capturing the world around her with vibrant immediacy.

Words


Robert Zimmermann - 2014
    The poem started out as a simple observation of the snow in moonlight, and turned into a poem with more to offer. I'm offering it free to my readers. I've had it on my blog, where it's gotten much response, and wanted to give everyone another way to access it.

Mosquito


Alex Lemon - 2006
    Mosquito blends autobiography and poetry, bearing witness to a young man’s journey through serious illness and his emergence into a world where eroticism, hope, and wisdom allow him to see life in a wholly new way. Mosquito is a resilient meditation that is as much Zen as it is explosive, as clinical as it is philosophical and lyrical.