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Tayi Tibble - 2021
They ask us to think about our relationship to desire and exploitation. They are both nostalgic for, and exhausted by, the pursuit of an endless summer.‘The intricate politics woven into Tibble’s poetry give her writing strength and purpose.’ —Winnie Siulolovao Dunn, Cordite Poetry Review‘Tibble speaks about beauty, activism, power and popular culture with compelling guile, a darkness, a deep understanding and sensuality.’ —Hinemoana Baker‘The poetry is utterly agile on the beam of its making. There is brightness, daring and sure-footedness.’ —Paula Green, NZ Poetry Shelf‘It demonstrates the power of all paradigm-shifting books – which is to fold up previously knotty stumbling blocks like they are furniture left out in the rain, and then replace it with an enlarged space.’ —John Freeman, LitHubTayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui/Ngāti Porou) was born in 1995 and lives in Wellington. Her first book, Poūkahangatus, won the Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Award in 2019.
The Map That Contains Us
Marla Miniano - 2017
From Ann Siang Road in Singapore to Matnog in Sorsogon, from Amsterdam to Tokyo to Hawaii, they explore love, loss, life, and loneliness in this collection, hoping to finally find their place in this world.
Revolver
Robyn Schiff - 2008
The long, lavish, and utterly unpredictable sentences that Schiff has assembled contort as much to discover what can’t be contained as what can. This is a book of extremes relentlessly contemporary in scope. And like the eighty-blade sportsman’s knife also described here, Revolver keeps opening and reopening to the daunting possibilities of transformation—“Splayed it is a bouquet of all the ways a point mutates.”from “Silverware by J. A. Henckels”Let me beas streamlined as my knife when I say this.As cold as my three-pronged fork thatcools the meat even as it steadies it.A pettiness in me was honedin this cutlers’ town, later bombed,in which Adolf Eichmann, who was born therealongside my wedding pattern, could hearthe constant sharpening of kniveslike some children hear the corn in their hometownstalking to them through the wind.The horizon is just the score they breathe throughlike a box of chickensbreathing through a slit.
Des Vu
Swapna Sanchita - 2021
However there comes a time in every writer’s life when the need to have one’s work appreciated by others overcomes the reticence of their nature. With this book, I have reached the point where I can let you, the reader, enter. See me. Maybe some of the poems here will resonate with you, and that understanding, that secret “yes, I know what she means”, from a stranger, is what I seek.
Invisible Strings
Jim Moore - 2011
Two empty suitcases sit in the corner, if that’s any kind of clue. —from “Almost Sixty” Brief, jagged, haiku-like, Jim Moore’s poems in Invisible Strings observe time moving past us moment by moment. In that accrual, line by line, is the anxiety and acceptance of aging, the mounting losses of friends to death or divorce, the accounting of frequent flyer miles and cups of coffee, and the poet’s own process of writing. It is a world of both diminishment and triumphs. Moore has assembled his most emotionally direct and lyrically spare collection, one that amounts to his book of days, seasons, and stark realizations.
The Widening Spell of the Leaves
Larry Levis - 1991
He seems to be writing the poems we all need to read right now." --Antioch Review Larry Levis was born in Fresno, California, in 1946. His first book of poems, Wrecking Crew, won the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum, and was published in the Pitt Poetry Series in 1972. His second book, The Afterlife, won the Lamont Award from the American Academy of Poets in 1976. In 1981, The Dollmaker's Ghost was a winner of the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. Among his other awards were three fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Larry Levis died in 1996.
Boris by the Sea
Matvei Yankelevich - 2009
The world was 'somewhere inside his skull. And it hurt.' These poems and dramatic sketches, however, delight even when they hurt" -- ROSMARIE WALDROP"BORIS BY THE SEA was born when Aesop was reading Chekhov, and Chekhov was reading Nietzsche, and Nietzsche was watching The Brother From Another Planet. Actually Matvei Yankelevich wrote this book, but 'wrote' is incomplete... he seems more to inhabit this stateless, beautiful being who uses language to move his body or erase the sea: 'Boris looked over himself and realized there were many parts of him that he could not see. And only a small part of these parts was on the surface.' BORIS BY THE SEA could be a children's fable if it weren't so freakin' real, unreal, hyper-real: 'But people need each other to open each other up and see what is inside.' This is Boris--and he, like Pinnochio--has a clever master." -- ROBERT FITTERMANMatvei Yankelevich's first full-length book, BORIS BY THE SEA, is a work of existential theater that destroys the distance between puppeteer and puppet, between ego and id, between what is real and what is absurd. Consisting of prose, poems, and plays, the book creates its own world and then confronts the loneliness of having to exist within one's own creation. Like Daniil Kharms, Yankelevich has written a children's book for only the bravest of adults.
Sweating Blood: My Life in Squash: The Official Autobiography of Nick Matthew
Nick Matthew - 2013
That’s not physically possible, but if you could Nick Matthew would have done it by the bucket-load. Throughout his 15-year career, Matthew has fought his way to the top of the PSA World Rankings in his gladiatorial sport, winning 25 World Tour titles, including being crowned world champion on two occasions and British Open champion three times. Nick holds the record of five British National titles in addition to being crowned Men’s Singles and Men’s Doubles Gold Medalist at the 2010 Commonwealth Games making him England’s most successful player. Sweating Blood: My Life In Squash is much more than the tale of a squash player. In this brutally honest story: Nick psychoanalyses his own obsessive-compulsive personality and explains how it helps him win; He remembers how, as a late developer, he was constantly told he lacked the talent to succeed yet went on to become the most successful English player of all time; He gives an amazing behind-the-scenes access to the sport: the prize money, the anti-doping, the gruesome training, the post-match celebrations, the crazy players on the PSA World Tour and the far-flung corners of the globe where he competes; He remembers the career-threatening shoulder operation that eventually put him on the road to World Championship and Commonwealth Games glory; He tries to understand how his relationship with another top British player went so horribly wrong; He digs back into his Yorkshire upbringing and remembers the colourful characters who turned him into the champion he is today; And he pinpoints the most crucial moments in his career – the moments when he really felt like he was sweating blood.
An Aquarium
Jeffrey Yang - 2008
But deeper under the surface are his observations on war, environmental degradation, language, and history, as a father—troubled by violence and human mismanagement of the world—offers advice to a newborn son.
Contradictions in the Design
Matthew Olzmann - 2016
Matthew Olzmann's poetry is that rare thing that embraces complication while, at every turn, fil....
Strike Anywhere
Dean Young - 1995
The language, the invention, the imagination, and the sheer fun of his poems is astounding. It's not all dazzle either. The poems are also moving. This man reminds us that there is nothing more serious than a joke' - Charles Simic, final judge and author of "Jackstraws", "Walking the Black Cat", and "A Wedding in Hell".
Nice Weather: Poems
Frederick Seidel - 2012
Something is wrong.” Frederick Seidel—the “ghoul” (Chicago Review), the “triumphant outsider” (Contemporary Poetry Review)—returns with a dangerous new collection of poems. Nice Weather presents the sexual and political themes that have long preoccupied Seidel—and thrilled and offended his readers. Lyrical, grotesque, elegiac, this book adds new music and menace to his masterful body of work.
Blood Lyrics: Poems
Katie Ford - 2014
Blood Lyrics is a mother's song, one seared with the knowledge that her country wages long, aching wars in which not all lives are equal. There is beauty imparted, too, but it arrives at a cost: "Don't say it's the beautiful / I praise," Ford writes. "I praise the human, / gutted and rising."