But in the words of editor Honor Moore, what strikes the contemporary reader is not the sophistication of Lowell's feminist or antiwar stances, but the bald audacity of her eroticism. Her search for an imagist poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite, found its purest expression in sensual love poems that bristle with lyric intensity. This new selection explores Lowell's full formal range, including cadenced verse, polyphonic prose, narrative poetry, and adaptations from the Chinese, and gives a fresh sense of the passion and energy of her work.

    The linked poems in Klink's third collection, Raptus, search through a failed relationship, struggling with the stakes of compassion, the violence of the outside world, and the wish to anchor both in something true.

    Fresh and candid, by turns earthy, tender, defiant, and romantic, Cummings's poems celebrate the uniqueness of each individual, the need to protest the dehumanizing force of organizations, and the exuberant power of love.

    The Holy Forest, now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing "Image-Nation" and "Truth Is Laughter" series, and new work from 1994 to 2004. Blaser's passion for world making draws inspiration from the major poets and philosophers of our time—from friends and peers such as Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Charles Olson, Charles Bernstein, and Steve McCaffery to virtual companions in thought such as Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, among others. This comprehensive compilation of Blaser's prophetic meditations on the histories, theories, emotions, experiments, and countermemories of the late twentieth century will stand as the definitive collection of his unique and luminous poetic oeuvre.

    New and Selected Poems includes the best of his seven full-length collections, plus over 23 new poems previously unpublished in book form. From the charged, short-lined poems of Soto's early writing to an unflinching look at poverty and hard labor in California's Central Valley to the off-beat humor in his longer, more recent work, New and Selected Poems is a timely tribute to a brilliant writer whose work confirms the power of the human spirit to survive and soar.

    Author Robert Sabbag tells the tale of Allen Long, who got involved in this unsavory business in the 1970s because he wanted to provide high-quality cannabis for his buddies and also for the sheer adventure of it. Some readers will find Long a disconcerting protagonist--he's a drug smuggler, after all--though it may appeal to advocates of drug legalization and readers of High Times. Sabbag essentially romanticizes Long's activities, such as when he writes about the "rather consoling absence of gunplay" that marked the business of marijuana smuggling in its primitive past. The storytelling is adequate, but parts of Loaded are plainly padded. Here's a bit of sample dialogue: "This is really great pot." "You like that?" "I don't think I've ever smoked anything better." A better and more hardheaded book on Colombian drug smuggling is Mark Bowden's Killing Pablo. --John Miller

    It is in her poetry, however, where she achieves the full extent of her revelation as artist and human. The poems in this first selection from her whole work were written over a period of forty years. They convey a wonderfully energetic alternation of mood, idea, and experience that are part of her unique creative process.

    Her radio play 'Three Women', also included here, was written slightly earlier, in the transitional period between 'The Colossus' and 'Ariel'.

    Hejinian's characteristic linguistic intensity and philosophical approach are present in this book- length poem. "Reading Lyn Hejinian's HAPPILY can make one imagine a second, somewhat happier Stein telling stories in single long or short lines that are aware of one another as they go about their own affairs."--Bob Perelman "HAPPILY"...is a series of aphoristic statements interrogating 'hap' or, more prosaically, one's lot in life, one's fortune. This notion of chance as it is expressed through its root form, as in to happen, happenstance, happenings, haphazard, happenchance, happily, and happy happiness, becomes the generator that enlivens this ontological exploration of language's relationship to experience."--Claudia Rankine

    Whether she’s writing about unanticipated outcomes (“After the Midway Ride Collapsed”), her mother’s passing (“Somewhere, Over”), or absurd situations (“Preoccupation”), Gottlieb’s deeply personal insights into the complex areas where life and contemporary culture collide offer readers a unique, thought-provoking perspective."I Have Always Confused Desire with Apocalypse"We met over a smallearthquake. Now, my kneesshake wheneveryou come aroundand I’ve noticed your handhas a slight tremor.Daphne Gottlieb is the award-winning author of seven books including the critically acclaimed poetry collection Final Girl (Soft Skull Press) and the graphic novel Jokes and the Unconscious (Cleis Press), illustrated by Diane DiMassa. Gottlieb has performed and taught creative writing workshops throughout the United States. She received her MFA from Mills College, and currently resides in San Francisco.

    Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Sappho (c.630-570 BCE). Sappho's Stung with Love is available in Penguin Classics.

    This rare signed limited edition of that crucial work features his illuminating meditation on art—“The Idea of Order at Key West”—along with 32 additional poems, each the sublime expression of a body of work praised by critics as “drenched with the life of his senses. This vibrant fact forms the core of his exploration of the interplay between the mind and reality… What gives his best work its astonishing power and vitality is the way in which a fixed point of view, maturing naturally, eventually takes in more than a constantly shifting point of view could get at” (New York Times). Awarded the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, “no poet gives us more to think about or greater reward for thinking” (Chiasson, New York Review of Books).

    Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human.The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast—at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge.

    A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation, and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful “Song of Myself” and “I Sing the Body Electric” to the elegiac “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s art fuses oratory, journalism, and song in a vivid celebration of humanity. Containing all Whitman’s known poetic work, this edition reprints the final, or “deathbed,” edition of Leaves of Grass (1891–92). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 “Song of Myself.”Features a completely new—and fuller—introduction discussing the development of Whitman's poetic career, his influence on later American poets, and his impact on the American cultural sensibilityIncludes chronology, updated suggestions for further reading, and extensive notes

    Dugan’s new poems continue his career-long concerns with renewed vigor: the poet’s insistence that art is a grounded practice threatened by pretension, the wry wit, the jibes at the academic and sententious, and the arresting observations on the quotidian battles of life. All the while he peppers his poems with humorous images of the grim and daunting topics of existential emptiness.