The Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem


Mary Oliver - 2000
    As Stanley Kunitz has said: "Mary Oliver's poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations."

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty


Christine Heppermann - 2014
    But you are more than just a hero ora villain, cursed or charmed. You are everything in between. You are everything. In fifty poems Christine Heppermann places fairy tales side by side with the modern teenage girl. Powerful and provocative, deadly funny and deadly serious, this collection is one to read, to share, to treasure, and to come back to again and again.

How Lovely the Ruins: Inspirational Poems and Words for Difficult Times


Spiegel & Grau - 2017
    The past year has seen a resurgence of poetry and inspiring quotes--posted on social media, appearing on bestseller lists, shared from friend to friend. Honoring this communal spirit, How Lovely the Ruins is a timeless collection of both classic and contemporary poetry and short prose that can be of help in difficult times--selections that offer wisdom and purpose, and that allow us to step out of our current moment to gain a new perspective on the world around us as well as the world within.The poets and writers featured in this book represent the diversity of our country as well as voices beyond our borders, including Maya Angelou, W. H. Auden, Danez Smith, Rumi, Emily Dickinson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alice Walker, Adam Zagajewski, Langston Hughes, Wendell Berry, Anna Akhmatova, Yehuda Amichai, and Robert Frost. And the book opens with a stunning foreword by Elizabeth Alexander, whose poem "Praise Song for the Day," delivered at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, ushered in an era of optimism. In works celebrating our capacity for compassion, our patriotism, our right to protest, and our ability to persevere, How Lovely the Ruins is a beacon that illuminates our shared humanity, allowing us connection in a fractured world.Includes poetry, prose, and quotations from: Elizabeth Alexander - Marcus Aurelius - Karen Armstrong - Matthew Arnold - Ellen Bass - Brian Bilston - Gwendolyn Brooks - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Octavia E. Butler - Regie Cabico - Dinos Christianopoulos - Lucille Clifton - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Leonard Cohen - Wendy Cope - E. E. Cummings - Charles Dickens - Mark Doty - Thomas Edison - Albert Einstein - Ralph Ellison - Kenneth Fearing - Annie Finch - Rebecca Foust - Nikki Giovanni - Stephanie Gray - John Green - Hazel Hall - Thich Nhat Hanh - Joy Harjo - Vaclav Havel - Terrance Hayes - William Ernest Henley - Juan Felipe Herrera - Jane Hirshfield - John Holmes - A. E. Housman - Bohumil Hrabal - Robinson Jeffers - Georgia Douglas Johnson - James Weldon Johnson - Paul Kalanithi - Robert F. Kennedy - Omar Khayyam - Emma Lazarus - Li-Young Lee - Denise Levertov - Ada Limon - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Nelson Mandela - Masahide - Khaled Mattawa - Jamaal May - Claude McKay - Edna St. Vincent Millay - Pablo Neruda - Anais Nin - Olga Orozco - Ovid - Pier Paolo Pasolini - Edgar Allan Poe - Claudia Rankine - Adrienne Rich - Rainer Maria Rilke - Alberto Rios - Edwin Arlington Robinson - Eleanor Roosevelt - Christina Rossetti - Muriel Rukeyser - Sadhguru - Carl Sandburg - Vikram Seth - Charles Simic - Safiya Sinclair - Effie Waller Smith - Maggie Smith - Tracy K. Smith - Leonora Speyer - Gloria Steinem - Clark Strand - Wislawa Szymborska - Rabindranath Tagore - Sara Teasdale - Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Vincent van Gogh - Ocean Vuong - Florence Brooks Whitehouse - Walt Whitman - Ella Wheeler Wilcox - William Carlos Williams - Virginia Woolf - W. B. Yeats - Saadi Youssef - Javier Zamora - Howard Zinn

Night Sky with Exit Wounds


Ocean Vuong - 2016
    None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.

Empty Bottles Full of Stories


R.H. Sin - 2019
    Sin and Robert M. Drake. What are you hiding behind your smile? If those empty bottles that line the walls of your room could speak, what tales would they spill? So much of your truth is buried beneath the lies you tell yourself. There’s a need to scream to the moon; there’s this urge to go out into the darkness of the night to purge. There are so many stories living inside your soul, you just want the opportunity to tell them. And when you can’t find the will to express what lives within your heart, these words will give you peace. These words will set you free.

Love & Misadventure


Lang Leav - 2013
    Awarded a coveted Churchill Fellowship, her work expresses the intricacies of love and loss. Beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully conceived, Love and Misadventure will take you on a rollercoaster ride through an ill-fated love affair- from the initial butterflies to the soaring heights- through to the devastating plunge. Lang Leav has an unnerving ability to see inside the hearts and minds of her readers. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world.

A Poem for Every Night of the Year


Allie Esiri - 2016
    The poems - together with introductory paragraphs - have a link to the date on which they appear. Shakespeare celebrates midsummer night, Maya Angelou International Women's Day and Lewis Carroll April Fool's day.Perfect for reading aloud and sharing with all the family, it contains a full spectrum of poetry from familiar favourites to exciting contemporary voices. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, W. B. Yeats, A. A. Milne and Christina Rossetti sit alongside Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy and Benjamin Zephaniah.

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems


Caroline Kennedy - 2011
    Inspired by her own reflections on more than fifty years of life as a young girl, a woman, a wife, and a mother, She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry's eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman's life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life's journey.The collection includes works by Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Dorothy Parker, Queen Elizabeth I, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shahib Nye, and W.B. Yeats. Whether it's falling in love, breaking up, friendship, marriage, motherhood, or growing old, She Walks in Beauty is a priceless resource for anyone, male or female, who wants a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a woman.She walks in beautyGeorge Gordon, Lord ByronI She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow'd to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.II One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impair'd the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling-place.III And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow,But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below,A heart whose love is innocent!

To Make Monsters Out of Girls


Amanda Lovelace - 2018
    She poses the eternal question: Can you heal once you’ve been marked by a monster, or will the sun always sting?

Don't Call Us Dead


Danez Smith - 2017
    Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

Ain't Burned All the Bright


Jason Reynolds - 2022
    In America. Right Now. Written by #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds.Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW. And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.

Some Things I Still Can't Tell You: Poems


Misha Collins - 2021
    Trademark wit and subtle vulnerability converge in each poem; this book is both a celebration of and aspiration for a life well lived.This book is a compilation of small observations and musings. It's filled with moments of reflection and a love letter to simple joys: passing a simple blade of grass on the sidewalk, the freedom of peeing outdoors late at night, or the way a hand-built ceramic mug feels when it's full of warm tea on a chilly morning. It's a catalog and a compendium that examines the complicated experience of being all too human and interacting with a complex, confounding, breathtaking world … and a reminder to stop and be awake and alive in yourself.

Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul III: More Stories of Life, Love and Learning (Chicken Soup for the Soul)


Jack Canfield - 2000
    More and more, life is a struggle for teens. Not just dealing with the tragedies that seem to plague them so often, but also handling the daily pressures that pervade their lives. This book, like the first two volumes in the series, will help them, and will serve as their guide and constant companion. Chapters focus on love, friendship, family, tough stuff, growing up, kindness, learning lessons and making a difference. In keeping with the themes and content of the Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul series, teens will also find support, encouragement and understanding from their peers, as well as from caring and compassionate adults. This is a book you will read and reread, sharing your favorite stories with one another over and over again. About the Authors: Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, the #1 New York Times and USA Today best-selling co-authors, are professional speakers who have dedicated their lives to enhancing the personal and professional development of others. Kimberly Kirberger is president of Inspiration and Motivation for Teens, Inc. (I.A.M. for Teens) and speaks at high schools and to youth organizations. Jack, Mark and Kimberly have formed The Teen Letter Project, a foundation dedicated to encouraging troubled teens to reach out for help and guidance.

Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology


Robert Pinsky - 2002
    Poems to Read is a welcoming avenue into poetry for readers new to poetry, including high school and college students. It is also meant to be a fresh, valuable collection for readers already devoted to the art. This anthology concentrates on the actual pleasures of reading poems: hearing the poem in your voice, bringing it to other people, musing about it, taking excitement or comfort from it, wandering with it or—as in the Keats letter quoted in the Introduction—having it as a starting post. Many of these 200 poems are accompanied by comments from readers of various ages, regions, and backgrounds who participated in the Favorite Poem Project. Included are poems by John Donne, Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, Seamus Heaney, Allen Ginsberg, and Louise Glück, to name a few. The editors offer their own comments on some of the poems, which are arranged in thematic chapters.

2am Thoughts


Makenzie Campbell - 2017
    My emotions have bled out on each and every page with the ink of my pen. Your eyes will discover my soul. Your fingers casually flipping through my mind. I hope you find each delicate word as captivating as the stars. And I hope a piece of you feels the things I felt when creating this art. - 2:00 am This modern poetry book is an exploration of love, heartache, relationships, loss, finding one's self, and learning to love the life you've been given. 2am Thoughts is a poetry book similar to some titles such as milk and honey by Rupi Kaur and Buried Light by Beau Taplin.