Book picks similar to
Seasons in the Sun (A Star Book) by Rod McKuen
poetry
mckuen
lit-american
lit-and-poetry
Watching the Spring Festival
Frank Bidart - 2008
Narrative elaboration becomes speed and song. Less embattled than earlier work, less actively violent, these new poems have, by conceding time's finalities and triumphs, acquired a dark radiance unlike anything seen before in Bidart's long career. Mortality--imminent, not theoretical--forces the self to question the relation between the actual life lived and what was once the promise of transformation. This plays out against a broad landscape. The book opens with Marilyn Monroe, followed by the glamour of the eighth-century Chinese imperial court (seen through the eyes of one of China's greatest poets, Tu Fu). At the center of the book is an ambitious meditation on the Russian ballerina Ulanova, "Giselle," and the nature of tragedy. All this gives new dimension and poignance to Bidart's recurring preoccupation with the human need to leave behind some record or emblem, a made thing that stands, in the face of death, for the possibilities of art. Bidart, winner of the 2007 Bollingen Prize in American Poetry, is widely acknowledged as one of the significant poets of his time. This is perhaps his most accessible, mysterious, and austerely beautiful book.
Elegies
Douglas Dunn - 1985
Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1985, these poems were written after the death of Douglas Dunn's first wife in March 1981.
Slant Six
Erin Belieu - 2014
In the world of these poems, no one is innocent; everyone is confined to the complexity, absurdity, and, above all, fallibility of their human condition…. Anchoring the work is a conversational, lyrical speaker willing to implicate herself as part of the political and social constructs she criticizes, as when she depicts a Southern American culture still reeling from its history of social injustice, and even the Civil War: “Don’t tell us/ history. Nobody hearts a cemetery/ like we do.” It’s a fantastic collection; Belieu desires not to dress issues up but confront them.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review“A smart and nettling book of poems — about love, sex, social class and our free-floating anxieties — from a writer who is a comedian of the human spirit. Her crisp free verse has as many subcurrents as a magnetic field.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Politics, pop culture, and parenthood appear here along with reflections on our collective moments of hypocrisy and hope. '12-Step,' one of the most resonant entries, begins innocuously with a meditation about lighthouses, then the speaker gathers speed and confidence and reaches a risky but profound one-word stanza—'myself'—before ending with a haunting inversion of the Serenity Prayer used by Alcoholics Anonymous. Amid the quips and the elegant observations about immortality, Belieu's speakers never forget their responsibilities, or their possibilities." —Booklist"From poem to poem in the smart, savvy Slant Six, Belieu channels an updated American idiom, one of stubborn in-betweenhood. Like the plain-spoken poetry that plumbed the depths of American consciousness in the 20th century, Belieu trawls the shallows of today’s America and finds just as much caught in its oily reflections as in its murkier subcurrents. It’s '[b]etter,' she suggests, 'to forget perfection.'" —The Boston Globe“I’ve never read a poem by Erin Belieu that I didn’t want to immediately rip from its bindings so I could fold it up and carry around in my pockets and read so many times that the paper turned back into pulp. She’s just that good. That honest and brave and beautiful and wise and funny. She writes poems we need. Poems that say who I am and who you are and how and why we got to be this way. Poems that wonder if we can ever change. Poems that know us and show us and grace us. Poems that remember us and forget us and leave us dazzled in their dust. In Slant Six, she’s outdone herself. It’s a spellbinding, heart-opening beauty of a book.” —Cheryl Strayed"Erin Belieu . . . is always ready to surprise, to astonish, and, ultimately, to defy comparison."—Boston Book Review"[One] of America's finest poets."—Robert Olen ButlerErin Belieu's fourth collection, Slant Six, is an inundation of the humor and horror in contemporary American life—from the last saltine cracked in the sleeve, to the kitty-cat calendar in an office cubicle. With its prophecies of impending destruction, and a simultaneous flood of respect for Americans, Erin Belieu's poems close like Ziploc bags around a human heart.From "12-Step":I am consideringlighthousesin a completely new light—their butch neutrality, their grandbut modest surfaces.A lighthouse could appearhere at any moment.I have been making this effort,placing myself in uncomfortable positions,only for the documented health benefits . . .
Hamilton: Vocal Selections
Lin-Manuel Miranda - 2016
17 selections from the critically acclaimed musical about Alexander Hamilton which debuted on Broadway in August 2015 to unprecedented advanced box office sales. Our collection features 17 selections in piano/vocal format from the music penned by Lin-Manuel Miranda, including: Alexander Hamilton * Burn * Dear Theodosia * Hurricane * It's Quiet Uptown * My Shot * One Last Time * Satisfied * That Would Be Enough * Washington on Your Side * You'll Be Back * and more. Also includes a biography of Miranda.
Responsibilities and other poems
W.B. Yeats - 1914
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Violet Energy Ingots
Hoa Nguyen - 2016
Ryo Yamaguchi describes Nguyen’s writing as “a kind of stuttering with intelligences, impressions, and emotions flaring up as the words find their pathways.” As grounded in the earth as in the stars, her poems are reminders of the possibilities of contemplation in every space and moment.A Brief History of WarAnd what if Jupiteris your faitha balloonbut I call youby the impropernames I'm stainedby the world hereTo be brave and endurethe losing To be braveand be the losingLuck BrutalBorn in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, DC area, Hoa Nguyen studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen founded Skanky Possum, a poetry journal and book imprint in Austin, TX, their home for fourteen years. She is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Red Juice: Poems 1998-2008 and As Long as Trees Last. She lives in Toronto, Ontario where she curates a reading series and teaches poetics privately and at Ryerson University.
Piece of Poetry : Me&Me
Raviraj Mishra - 2020
We were made to sing and recite poetry in groups. The rhyming words somehow would bring a sense of enjoyment, and they won’t leave our mind even with the passing days. Poetry holds magic. A magic to change the moment and bring out the joyous hidden self. We all in some point or another had come across a poetry that either taught us the unlearned or brought back a memory or just a smile.Piece of poetry is an effort to share some thoughts through prose. Each poetry was written with a story in mind, willing to be talked about. The thoughts that didn’t need sophisticated words, but they were craving for rhythm.The idea was to point out some of the feelings and emotions that were desperate to be shared. Some untold words, a certain perspective that was always doubted by self and others. Piece of poetry is an honest attempt to format these feelings into a song, hoping that it would stick with everyone who decided to read it.
Yellow Tulips: Poems, 1968-2011
James Fenton - 2012
Yellow Tulips is a gathering from four decades of work by a writer described by the Observer as 'the most talented poet of his generation'.Winner of both the Queen's Gold Medal and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, James Fenton has given readers some of the most memorable lyric verse of the past decades, from the formal skill that marked his debut, Terminal Moraine, to the dramatic and political monologues of The Memory of War and Children in Exile, through to the unforgettable love poems of Out of Danger.This assembly, made by the author himself, includes a generous offering of his most recent, uncollected work: it is an essential selection by, as Stephen Spender put it, 'a brilliant poet of technical virtuosity'.
Phantom Noise
Brian Turner - 2010
These prophetic, osmotic poems wage a daily battle for normalcy, seeking structure in the quotidian while grappling with the absence of forgetting.
Best American Poetry 2018
Dana Gioia - 2018
Gioia has published five volumes of poetry, served as the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and currently sits as the Poet Laureate of California, but he is also a graduate of Stanford Business School and was once a Vice President at General Foods. He has studied opera and is a published librettist, in addition to his prolific work in critical essay writing and editing literary anthologies. Having lived several lives, Gioia brings an insightful, varied, eclectic eye to this year’s Best American Poetry. With his classic essay “Can Poetry Matter?”, originally run in The Atlantic in 1991, Gioia considered whether there is a place for poetry to be a part of modern American mainstream culture. Decades later, the debate continues, but Best American Poetry 2018 stands as evidence that poetry is very much present, relevant, and finding new readers.
The Complete Works of C. S. Lewis: Fantasy Classics, Science Fiction Novels, Religious Studies, Poetry, Speeches & Autobiography: The Chronicles of Narnia, ... Letters, Mere Christianity, Miracles…
C.S. Lewis - 2016
S. Lewis" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents:Novels:The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Prince Caspian The Voyage of the Dawn Treader The Silver Chair The Horse and His Boy The Magician's Nephew The Last BattleSpace Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet Perelandra That Hideous StrengthThe Screwtape LettersThe Pilgrim's RegressThe Great DivorceTill We Have FacesShort Stories:Screwtape Proposes a ToastMinistering AngelsReligious Studies:The Allegory of LoveThe Problem of PainA Preface to Paradise LostThe Abolition of ManMiraclesMere ChristianityReflections on the PsalmsThe Four LovesAn Experiment in CriticismA Grief ObservedLetters to Malcolm: Chiefly on PrayerPoetry: Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of LyricsAutobiography:Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early LifeSpeeches:TranspositionThe Weight of GloryMembershipLearning in War-TimeThe Inner RingDe Descriptione TemporumThe Literary Impact of the Authorised VersionHamlet: The Prince or The Poem?Kipling's WorldSir Walter ScottLilies that FesterPsycho-analysis and Literary CriticismThe Inner RingIs Theology Poetry?TranspositionOn Obstinacy in BeliefThe Weight of GloryClive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He is best known for his fictional work, especially The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters and The Space Trilogy, and for his non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.
Dante's Purgatorio; Adapted by Marcus Sanders
Marcus Sanders - 2005
The second book of Dante Alighieri's classic poem "The Divine Comedy," this version of "Purgatorio" couples a clever literary adaptation incorporating modern urban speech and contemporary references with powerful illustrations inspired by Gustave Dore's famous engravings. Whereas "Inferno" was primarily situated in a city that bears a curious resemblance to modern Los Angeles, "Purgatorio" is set in a surreal San Francisco Bay Area, an outlandish and hopeful milieu for those who have a chance to wash their sins away. Together, the sardonic yet playful combination of text and images comprise a vivid retelling of this masterpiece.
Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar and Poems (Writers and Their Works)
Rachel Haugrud Reiff - 2008
A biography of writer Sylvia Plath that describes her era, her major works--the novel The bell jar and her poetry--her life, and the legacy of her writing.
playtime
Andrew McMillan - 2018
Examining our teenage rites of passage: those dilemmas and traumas that shape us – eating disorders, masturbation, loss of virginity – the poet examines how we use bodies, both our own and other people’s, to chart our progress towards selfhood.McMillan’s award-winning debut collection, physical, was praised for a poetry that was tight and powerful, raw and tender, and playtime expands that narrative frame and widens the gaze. Alongside poems in praise of the naivety of youth, there are those that explore the troubling intersections of violence, masculinity, class and sexuality, always taking the reader with them towards a better understanding of our own physicality. ‘isn’t this what human kind was made for’, McMillan asks in one poem, ‘telling stories learning where the skin/is most in need of touch’. These humane and vital poems are confessions, both in the spiritual and personal sense; they tell us stories that some of us, perhaps, have never found the courage to read before.