Natural History


Dan Chiasson - 2005
    This collection suggests that a person is like a world, full of mysteries and wonders–and equally in need of an encyclopedia, a compendium of everything known. The long title sequence offers entries such as “The Sun” (“There is one mind in all of us, one soul, / who parches the soil in some nations / but in others hides perpetually behind a veil”), “The Elephant” (“How to explain my heroic courtesy?”), “The Pigeon” (“Once startled, you shall feel hours of weird sadness / afterwards”), and “Randall Jarrell” (“If language hurts you, make the damage real”). The mysteriously emotional individual poems coalesce as a group to suggest that our natural world is populated not just by fascinating creatures–who, in any case, are metaphors for the human as Chiasson considers them– but also by literature, by the ghosts of past poetries, by our personal ghosts. Toward the end of the sequence, one poem asks simply, “Which Species on Earth Is Saddest?” a question this book seems poised to answer. But Chiasson is not finally defeated by the sorrows and disappointments that maturity brings. Combining a classic, often heartbreaking musical line with a playful, fresh attack on the standard materials of poetry, he makes even our sadness beguiling and beautiful.

Cyprian Kamil Norwid: Selected Poems


Cyprian Kamil Norwid - 2004
    His unique poetry is now recognized as among Poland's finest. Largely self-taught, he left Poland at the age of 21, moving widely around Europe - befriended by Chopin among others - before travelling to America. Persistently dogged by financial crises, he was forced to return to Paris in 1854. There he spent the rest of his life, dying in a hostel for Polish insurrection veterans in Ivry in 1883. Norwid's work is introduced by Bogdan Czaykowski, the eminent Polish poet, who is also a noted scholar and critic. Adam Czerniawski, born in Warsaw in 1934, has translated widely from Polish (including Tadeusz Rózewicz's selected poetry, They Came to See a Poet', also from Anvil) as well as publishing poetry, stories, criticism and a memoir in his first language. He has lived in Palestine, Lebanon, Germany, England and Scotland, working in a variety of academic and literary posts.

The Concrete River: Poems


Luis J. Rodríguez - 1991
    They illuminate the gritty idiosyncrasies of immigrant life in urban barrios spanning Los Angeles to Chicago to Harlem. Rodríguez lends powerful voices to those struggling to keep the gas on, to find work, and to keep love.  Populated by a vibrant cast of characters, ranging from the drugged, to the eccentric, to the heartbroken, Rodríguez’s poems protest capitalism, violence, and exploitation while reveling in the potential of compassion.

The Dead Sea Poems


Simon Armitage - 2001
    The Dead Sea Poems, his fourth collection, culminates in a long visionary poem, 'Five Eleven Ninety Nine'. Elsewhere, questions of belief and trust, of identity and knowledge, dealt with as they occur in everyday domestic life, contribute to a picture of our contemporary world that is at once realistic and touched with a unique imaginative intensity.

Spar


Karen Volkman - 2002
    Volkman develops a new lyric density that marries the immediacy of image-centered poetry to the rhythmic resources of prose. Her first poem begins, Someone was searching for a Form of Fire, and this wild urge to seek form- and thus definition-in the most uncontainable of elements propels the book forward; each poem maps the mind's evolving positions in response to its variable and perilous encounters. Sometimes the encounter is romantic or purely carnal, a sensual landscape of human relations. At other times, nature itself has an almost humanly emotional connection to the speaker. While very much a living voice, the poems' speaker is not a consistent self but a mutable figure buffeted by tenderness, terror, irony, or lust into elaborate evasions, exclamations, verbal hijinks, and lyric flights. As its title suggests, Spar embodies both resistance and aspiration, while its epigraphs further emphasize the simultaneous allure and danger of the unknown within the sensual and material worlds and in the mind itself.

The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems


Olav H. Hauge - 2008
    Hauge deserves a larger American readership, and this book may summon it." —Publishers Weekly "(Hauge's) poetry is miniaturist, pictorial, and ruminative; personal in that his experience, cognitive and sensual observations, and intentions are everywhere in it. Yet it isn't at all confessional or self-assertive....He is a man who knows where he is and helps us feel that we can know where we are, too."—Booklist “If you have a tiny farm, you need to love poetry more than the farm. If you sell apples, you need to love poetry more than the apples.”—Robert Bly, from the introduction Olav H. Hauge, one of Norway’s most beloved poets, is a major figure of twentieth-century European poetry. This generous bilingual edition—introduced by Robert Bly—includes the best poems from each of Hauge’s seven books, as well as a gathering of his last poems. Ever sage and plainspoken—and bearing resemblance to Chinese poetry—Hauge’s compact and classically restrained poems are rooted in his training as an orchardist, his deep reading in world literatures, and a lifetime of careful attention to the beauties and rigors of the western fjordland. His spare imagery and unpretentious tone ranges from bleak to unabashedly joyous, an intricate interplay between head and heart and hand. The rose has been sung about. I want to sing of the thorns, and the root—how it gripsthe rock hard, hardas a thin girl’s hand. During a writing career that spanned nearly fifty years, Olav H. Hauge produced seven books of poetry, numerous translations, and several volumes of correspondence. A largely self-educated man, he earned his living as a farmer, orchardist, and gardener on a small plot in the fjord region of western Norway.

Regarding Wave: Poetry


Gary Snyder - 1970
    The title, Regarding Wave,reflects "a half-buried series of word origins dating back through theIndo-European language: intersections of energy, woman, song and 'GoneBeyond Wisdom.'" Central to the work is a cycle of songs for Snyder'swife, Masa, and their first son, Kai. Probing even further than Snyder'sprevious collection of poems, The Back Country, this newvolume freshly explores "the most archaic values on earth… the fertilityof the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, theterrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance,the common work of the tribe…”

Frowns Need Friends Too


Sam Pink - 2010
    Including such subjects as "I Heart Unending Paranoia," "Because You Know You're Avoiding Going Somewhere But Don't Even Know Where Yet," and "I'm Not Going To Change My Clothes Today," Pink's collection is bizarre, funny, and original.

Sour Honey & Soul Food


Billy Chapata - 2017
    Sometimes life is spiced up through natural events, sometimes life feels bland and tasteless. Sour Honey and Soul Food, is a book which explores the beauty and intricacies of love, life and connections, through poetry. Billy Chapata's third book looks to touch on the variety of flavors we taste, on this beautiful journey we call life.

Norbert's Little Lessons for a Big Life


Julie Steines - 2017
    With fifty adorable full-color photographs throughout the book, Norbert aims to continue spreading smiles, inspiring kindness, and bringing comfort to those in need.

The House in the Clouds


Victoria Connelly - 2021
    The only trouble is that businessman, Edward Townsend, has exactly the same idea.With its position high on the Sussex Downs, Winfield is a stunning house, but it hasn’t been a home for a long time and there’s a lot of work to do to restore it to its former glory. It’s going to take a lot of time and money, so Edward and Abi decide to take a risk and share the house, each living in their own wing. But can these two strangers agree on a vision that suits them both? And will free-spirited Abi ever get the rather reserved Edward to reveal the secret he’s been hiding for so long?The House in the Clouds is the first novel in a brand new trilogy from the bestselling author of The Rose Girls and The Book Lovers series.

The Sum and Total of Now


Don Robertson - 1966
    Funny, sarcastic, touching, and, yes, nostalgic, this is a novel of character to be enjoyed by all ages.--"Library Journal."

The Hour Between Dog and Wolf


Laure-Anne Bosselaar - 1997
    Old Europe still lives in Bosselaar's rich language: Entre chien et loup, as it's known in Flanders--the time at dusk when a wolf can be mistaken for a dog.Lyrical poetry that sings of farmers, families and nunneries in Belgium and Flanders.

Horse Latitudes


Paul Muldoon - 2006
    From Bosworth Field to Beijing, the Boyne to Bull Run, from a series of text messages to the nineteenth-century Irish poet Tom Moore to an elegy for Warren Zevon, and from post-Agreement Ireland to George W. Bush's America, this book presents us with fields of battle and fields of debate, in which we often seem to have come to a standstill, but in which language that has been debased may yet be restruck and made current to our predicament. "Horse Latitudes "is a triumphant new collection by one of the most esteemed poets of our time.

The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard


Beth May - 2021
    The topics may vary widely, from love to mental illness to the most recent "Florida Man" headline, but it's all in the same handwriting. Welcome to The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard.