Swarm


Jorie Graham - 1999
    Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery -- and Jorie Graham. The New Yorker places Ms. Graham in this distinguished line of poets, heralding the Pulitzer Prize winner as a profound voice in American poetry. Now, in her eighth collection, she further enhances her reputation with a book-length sequence of verse that is a stunning work of grandeur.The New Republic writes, "for 'swarm,' in other words...read 'be born again.' Graham is writing about a spiritual turning point, a new beginning.... Beauty -- that is, the pure sense-perception which has long been a concern for Graham -- is no longer the most important criterion. Now goodness is...[and] the idea of submission, of obedience, without understanding: one must 'yield' before 'hearing the reason' for yielding."

Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy


Keith Waldrop - 2009
    In these quasi-abstract, experimental lines, collaged words torn from their contexts take on new meanings. Waldrop, a longtime admirer of such artists as the French poet Raymond Queneau and the American painter Robert Motherwell, imposes a tonal override on purloined materials, yet the originals continue to show through. These powerful poems, at once metaphysical and personal, reconcile Waldrop's romantic tendencies with formal experimentation, uniting poetry and philosophy and revealing him as a transcendentalist for the new millennium.

The Purple Palace & other poems


Shayna Klee - 2021
    The semi-autobiographical book is divided into two parts and takes place between two countries; Part I, “is a cloud a living thing?”, takes place during the Author’s tumultueuse teen years with tropical Florida as a backdrop. Part II, “Inside my Shell”, explores themes of transformation as the Author creates a new life in Paris, France. ​The poems in this collection explore the surreal rollercoaster of youth, the performance of identity, being an outsider and the tension between romantic idealism and the dystopic world in which the author finds herself. Her approach to her work as a visual artist is mirrored in her poetry style, which is accompanied by all original illustrations by the Author.

Three Stories


Alan Bennett - 2003
    Over 60,000 sold in small format. The Clothes They Stood Up In, has sold over 200,000 copies as a small novella and was 14 weeks in the Bestseller lists. It is the painful story of what happens to an elderly couple when their flat is stripped completely bare. The Laying on of Hands, a memorial service for a masseur to the famous that goes horribly wrong. Over 100,000 copies sold as a novella. Like everything Alan Bennett does, these stories are playful, witty and painfully observant of ordinary people's foibles. And they all have a brilliant and surprising twist; are immensely funny and profoundly moral.

Poems That Live Forever


Hazel Felleman - 1965
    Over 175,000 copies have been sold of this perennially popular collection of America's favorite poems.

Young Americans


Jordan Castro - 2012
    Then open up Young Americans, seems obvious what Jordan Castro is doing is revolutionary, he expressing emotions through poetry that have never been done before. The style, the way the subject matter is portrayed, even the meter, are new." - Noah Cicero (author of The Human War, The Insurgent, and more)“If you are a person who doesn’t really know what they are doing and you would like to read about another person who doesn’t really know what they are doing either, I recommend reading this poetry book. I enjoyed reading these poems. Or something.” - Chris Killen (author of The Bird Room)“I read these poems three times in one night, then put the duvet over my head and held my knees for a while. It’s good when something makes sense. I really really liked these poems.” - Ben Brooks (author of Grow Up)

The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart: Poems


Deborah Digges - 2010
    Here are poems that bring to life her rural Missouri childhood in a family with ten children (“Oh what a wedding train / of vagabonds we were who fell asleep just where we lay”); the love between men and women as well as the devastation of widowhood (“love’s house she goes dancing her grief-stricken dance / for his unpacked suitcases, . . . / . . . / his closets of clothes where I crouch like a thief”); and the moods of nature, which schooled her (“A tree will take you in, flush riot of needles light burst, the white pine / grown through sycamore”). Throughout, touching all subjects, either implicitly or explicitly, is the call to poetry itself.The final work from one of our finest poets, The Wind Blows Through the Doors of My Heart is a uniquely intimate collection, a sustaining pleasure that will stand to remind us of Digges’s gift in decades to come.

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience


Shaun Usher - 2013
    Kennedy, Groucho Marx, Charles Dickens, Katharine Hepburn, Mick Jagger, Steve Martin, Clementine Churchill, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut and many more.

Selected Poems


Patrick Kavanagh - 1997
    The first comprehensive selection of Kavanagh's poetry to be published, this volume offers a timely reassessment of a poet unfairly neglected outside Ireland.

Selected Poems


R.S. Thomas - 1973
    He was a passionate Welsh patriot, but also an outspoken critic of his countrymen. His poems are an expression of his lifelong argument with himself, of his insistent search for God. In them he grapples with ideas of Welshness, with issues of technology, pollution, the decline of culture. He wrote too about love, about landscape, nature and birds. His is an urgent, prophetic and unique voice.

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

A Poetry Handbook


Mary Oliver - 1994
    With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks readers through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind??—??a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

Last Poems


A.E. Housman - 1922
    Partial Contents: Beyond the moor and mountain crest; Her strong enchantments failing; In valleys green and still; Could man be drunk for ever; The night my father got me; The sigh that heaves the grasses; Onward led the road again; and When lads were home from labour.

Whose Turn For The Stairs?


Robert Douglas - 2009
    Following the end of the war, the close rebuilds its ties and the strong sense of community and friendly neighbourhood bonds are soon back in place. There is young love for Rhea and Robert; a surprising new start for James; a change of direction for George; and all overseen by the matriarch of the street - Granny Thomson. And of course, all buoyed up by a big helping of Scottish humour and strength of spirit. Yet it is all not perfect in their world: the families have to deal with poverty, religious bigotry, racism, heartbreak, lies, violence and death.But the powerful friendships cannot ultimately be broken. In Robert Douglas's first novel, he recreates a time and place particular to Glasgow but to which everyone will relate.

In The Middle of Middle America


David B. Lyons - 2021