The Last American Valentine is a unique anthology of non-sappy love poetry and flash fiction. Poet Laureates, rock musicians, actors, famed prose writers and a few talented American barfly's have been handpicked, hunted down and crammed together with an artist the world has never met.

    There was a woman.There was a cross. But in factthey have hung him too high to be touched.—from "A Woman Wipes the Face of Jesus"

    With compassionate wit and insight, Campbell McGrath transports us on a journey through contemporary society, transforming the commonplace into scenes of profound revelation. From late-night bars to early-morning diners, suburban malls to the Mojave Desert, McGrath's meticulously detailed vision defines singular moments of joy and melancholy.

    His third book in a decade, Some Values of Landscape and Weather revives poetic architectures such as elegy, song and litany, to build what he calls "a comprehensive music." Here musical and pictorial values perform against a backdrop of political, social and ethical values. These intense and exacting poems traverse a landscape of cultural memory that opens into the explosive, vibrant registers of the now. John Ashbery has written that Gizzi's poems are "simultaneously all over the page and right on target. He is the most exciting poet to come along in quite a while."

    Besides George Meredith and his wife Mary Ellen, Swinburne and his companion Theodore Watts-Dunton are among those who also find a place in the three poem-sequences that comprise the book: "Arisbe," "The Leisure of the Theory Class," and "Rückenfigur." Howe's historical linkings, resonant with the sorrows of love and loss and the tragedies of war, create a compelling canvas of associations. "It's the blanks and gaps," she says, "that to me actually represent what poetry is-the connections between seemingly unconnected things-as if there is a place and might be a map to thought, when we know there is not."

    This year's exceptional volume, edited by Robert Creeley, a figure revered across teh wide spectrum of American poetry, features a diverse mix of established masters, rising stars and the leading lights of a younger generation. The pleasure of the poems selected here, Creeley explains in his introduction, is "that they caught my fancy, some almost outrageously, some by their quiet, nearly diffident manner, some by unexpected turns of thought or insight, others by a confident authority and intent." With comments from the poets elucidating their work, a thought-provoking introduction from Creeley, and Lehman's always popular foreword assessing the current state of poetry, The Best American Poetry 2002 will prove as irresistible to new readers as it is indispensable for poetry fans everywhere.

    Beautifully crafted surfaces give way to sincere depth.Matthew Rohrer is the author of A Green Light (2004, shortlisted for the Griffin Prize), Satellite, and A Hummock in the Malookas. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing.

    From race car drivers, protective mountain men, hot doctors, and bikers, this armload of alphas will have you begging for more. Mega 21 Book Box Set just in time for the holidays! Includes FOUR box sets plus one EXCLUSIVE brand new book Rough Rider. The Alphas - The Nice Guy - The Client - The CEO - The Billionaire *new* Full Throttle Series - Scott - Mr. Gray - Cooper - Honey Boys: Alphas Vol 1. - Take Me - Preach to me Baby - Mr. Marine - The Italian - Doctor Her Boys: Alphas Vol 2 - Mount Me - In Deep - Sweet Revenge - Burn it Down - Breaking Red Rough Rider

    No slow burn, no filler. This couple gets right to the point.Nova Bradford and Mikhail Luther have a long history. They've known each other since they were students at Blythe T. Young Magnet High School. Mikhail was the handsome high school jock with the pretty homecoming queen on his arm and Nova, well Nova was the ugly duckling no one cared about. After years of working on her self-confidence thanks to a friend and therapy, she finally decides albeit reluctantly, to embark on a school reunion cruise to tropical paradise where she will come face to face with her former classmates that taunted her every day.What she doesn't expect to find is Mikhail, alone and not the same young man from school. What follows seems unlikely, but it's also the thing they both need ...

    Guest editor Lyn Hejinian, acclaimed for her own innovative writing, has chosen seventy-five important new poems and contributed a provocative introductory essay. Through her selections, Hejinian has created an essential nexus -- a meeting place for readers to encounter an extraordinary range of poets. With illuminating comments from the writers, and series editor David Lehman's insightful foreword evaluating the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2004 is an indispensable addition to a series that has established itself as the first word on what's new and noteworthy in the poetry of our times.

    Here is a volume of poetry approaching Carolyn Forche's The Angel of History as a stark meditation on Blanchot's sense of writing as the "desired, undesired torment which endures everything." Levine engages the traditional resources of lyric poetry in an exploration of historical and cultural landscapes ravaged by imponderable events. Enola Gay's "mission" can seem spiritual, imaginative, and militaristic as the speaker in these poems surveys marshes and fields and a land on the edge of disintegration. Levine sifts the psychological residue that accumulates in the wake of unspeakable acts and so negotiates that terrain between the banality of language and the need to stand witness and to speak. Levine's stunning second book, with its grave cultural implications and its surveillance of a distinctly postmodern malaise, offers multiple readings. Here are compact poems with uncanny power, rhythm, and a strange, formal beauty echoing and renewing the legacy of Wallace Stevens for a new era.

    Featuring brand new stories and some old favorites, many of these tell-all, gritty tales were originally published on the blog Make It MAD between 2010 and 2012, and have been rereleased in their originality for this special print and digital anthology.

    Spanning a period from Walt Whitman to Sherman Alexie, this collection is the first to review the twentieth century comprehensively. It presents not only the canonical poetry of the last hundred years but also numerous poems by women, minority, and progressive writers only rediscovered in the past two decades. Uniquely comprehensive, Anthology of Modern American Poetry represents Robert Frost with 23 poems, Wallace Stevens with 22, and Marianne Moore with 14, including her most ambitious long poems. William Carlos Williams is represented not only by his exquisite short lyrics, but also with an experimental combination of poetry and prose. With 29 poems, Langston Hughes is given full treatment for the first time in any comprehensive anthology. Substantial selections by contemporary poets like John Ashbery, Sylvia Plath, Frank O'Hara, Philip Levine, Lucille Clifton, Judy Grahn, Adrian Louis, Yusef Komunyakaa, Martin Espada, and Sherman Alexie are also included. Anthology of Modern American Poetry is the first anthology to give full treatment to American long poems and poem sequences. T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Gertrude Stein's "Patriarchal Poetry," William Carlos Williams's The Descent of Winter, Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree," Muriel Rukeyser's "The Book of the Dead," Melvin Tolson's Libretto for the Republic of Liberia, Theodore Roethke's "North American Sequence," Gwendolyn Brooks's "Gay Chaps at the Bar," Kenneth Rexroth's "The Love Poems of Marichiko," both Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and his "Wichita Vortex Sutra," and both Adrienne Rich's "Shooting Script" and her "Twenty-One Love Poems" are all included in their entirety. Anthology of Modern American Poetry offers the most detailed annotations available in an anthology of this type. Many works benefit from specially commissioned research that provides students with such help as the identification of the inventive references in Melvin Tolson's poetry, translation of all foreign language passages, and illumination of obscure references. This is also the only American poetry anthology to present selected poems in the beautifully illustrated form in which they first appeared. In addition, an accompanying website featuring readings of poems and historical background is available at http: //www.english.uiuc.edu/maps. Ideal for courses in modern American poetry, modern American literature, modern or contemporary poetry, creative writing-poetry, and American studies, Anthology of Modern American Poetry introduces students to the last 100 years of our poetic heritage in a uniquely rich and provocative format."

    "With this fine new collection," says Library Journal, Martín Espada "joins the top ranks of poets anywhere"; in the words of Earl Shorris, he is "well on his way to becoming the Latino poet of his generation."

    . . what's not to love about a military man? Meet these seven irresistible heroes who fight just as passionately for true love as they do for their country. Healing Beau: USA Today best-selling author Alicia Hunter Pace spins a poignant small-town story of healing and homecoming. After recklessly destroying his military career, Ranger Sergeant Beau Beauford retreats home to Beauford Bend . . . only to promptly impregnate his best and oldest friend. Christian Hambrick is made of guts, steel, and plain good sense, except for that lifelong torch she's held for Beau. When old secrets resurface, she'll wage full-scale war on Beau's past to preserve their future.Her Soldier's Touch by J.M. Stewart: When U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Colten Taylor returns briefly to Phoenix to bury his brother, he's shocked to see Rachel Madison waiting for him at the airport. He regrets the morning he walked away from her; coming from an abusive home taught Colt to put limits on all his relationships. But now that she has his son in tow, will he keep running?California Homecoming by Casey Dawes: After returning from duty in the Middle East wounded in both body and spirit, Hunter Evans volunteers to help Sarah Ladina fix up a run-down Victorian in the beach town of Costanoa. Can they get beyond their painful past and complicated present to find the love and respect they need?Island Pursuits by Heather Rodney-Diaz: Former U.S. Marine Adrian Mendez returns to his homeland of Trinidad and Tobago only to run into a feisty island goddess with one flaw - she has no love of anything military.Angel Without Wings by Mari Manning: After resigning from a promising army career to help his mother and wounded brother, Jesse McCormick struggles to save the family farm. Only one plan will earn him enough money to get his family out of debt - a dangerous assignment with a paramilitary group. But he's slowly losing his heart to Linnea Reyes, a war widow helping to save the farm. Can he give up her love just when he's found it?The Cormorant Club by Anji Nolan: When they're reunited by chance, Holly and Scott's attraction is as undeniable as when they met in a MASH unit in Vietnam. But when a murder-for-hire group starts targeting their war contacts, will they lose their second chance at love?Enlisted by Love by Jenny Jacobs: Ex-army officer Matthew Blake is eager to start a new career, until he comes up against the most challenging obstacle he's ever encountered: Greta Ferguson, the interior designer who challenges his every order.Sensuality Level: Sensual