That Wagner is in love with the world and its transactions--perceptions, superficial and otherwise; childbearing, painful and otherwise; gains, financial and otherwise--allows for a poetry that is full of song yet brazenly topical.

    We were never the same.   The title poem of Peter Balakian's Ozone Journal is a sequence of fifty-four short sections, each a poem in itself, recounting the speaker's memory of excavating the bones of Armenian genocide victims in the Syrian desert with a crew of television journalists in 2009. These memories spark others—the dissolution of his marriage, his life as a young single parent in Manhattan in the nineties, visits and conversations with a cousin dying of AIDS—creating a montage that has the feel of history as lived experience. Bookending this sequence are shorter lyrics that span times and locations, from Nairobi to the Native American villages of New Mexico. In the dynamic, sensual language of these poems, we are reminded that the history of atrocity, trauma, and forgetting is both global and ancient; but we are reminded, too, of the beauty and richness of culture and the resilience of love.

    Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I’m proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic.” (Lana Del Rey) Lana Del Rey brings her breathtaking poetry to life in an unprecedented audiobook. In this stunning spoken word performance, Lana Del Rey reads 14 poems from her debut book Violet Bent Backwards over the Grass accompanied by music from Grammy Award-winning musician Jack Antonoff. Lana’s debut book solidifies her further as “the essential writer of her times” (The Atlantic). This audiobook features Lana reading select poems from the book, including "LA Who Am I to Love You?", "The Land of 1,000 Fires", "Past the Bushes Cypress Thriving", "Never to Heaven", "Tessa DiPietro", "Happy", and several others. The result is an extraordinary poetic landscape that reflects the unguarded spirit of its creator.

    While focusing on the words from the project, new photography launches each section which speaks to the reader's journey through the world: Love Found, Being In Love, Love Lost, Hope, Despair, Living and Dying.

    This groundbreaking anthology documents 10 years of poetry slams, with 100 poems from national slam champions and a dozen essays on how to run a slam, winning strategies, tips for memorizing poems, and more.

    Whether he is evoking the blind carnage of the Tet offensive, the theatrics of his fellow Americans, or the unraveling of his own illusions, Wolff brings to this work the same uncanny eye for detail, pitiless candor and mordant wit that made This Boy's Life a modern classic.

    Felt—a fabric made of tangled fibers—becomes a metaphor for the interweavings of humans, animals, and planet. But Felt is also the past tense of "feel." This is a book of emotions both ordinary and untoward: the shadings of humiliation, obsession, love, and loneliness—as well as states so subtle they have yet to be named. Reticent and passionate, elliptical yet available, Fulton's poems consider flaws and failure, touching and not touching. They are fascinated with proximity: the painter's closeness to the canvas, the human kinship with animals, the fan's nearness to the star. Privacy, the opening and closing of doors, is at the heart of these poems that sing the forms of solitude-the meanings and feelings of virginity, the single-mindedness of fetishism, the tragedy of suicide. Rather than accept the world as given, Fulton encounters invisible assumptions with magnitude and grace. Hers is a poetry of inconvenient knowledge, in which the surprises of enlightenment can be cruel as well as kind. Felt, a deeply imagined work, at once visceral and cerebral, illuminates the possibilities of twenty-first century poetry.

    Marines." Hiding in buildings and mosques, wearing civilian clothes, and spread out for over a mile, Saddam Hussein's militants rained down bullets and rocket propelled grenades on the 1st Battalion. But when the smoke of the eight-hour battle cleared, only one Marine had lost his life. Some said the 1st Battalion was incredibly lucky. But in the hearts and minds of the Marines who were there, there was no question. God had brought them miraculously through that battle.As the 1st Battalion's chaplain, Lieutenant Carey Cash had the unique privilege of seeing firsthand, from the beginning of the war to the end, how God miraculously delivered, and even transformed, the lives of the men of the 1st Battalion. Their regiment, the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the Marines, was the first ground force to cross the border into Iraq, the first to see one of their own killed in battle, and they were the unit to fight what most believe to have been the decisive battle of the war-April 10th in downtown Baghdad. Through it all, Carey Cash says, the presence of God was undeniable. Cash even had the privilege of baptizing fifty-seven new Christians-Marines and Sailors-during the war in Iraq. The men of the 1st Battalion came to discover what King David had discovered long ago--that God's presence could be richly experienced even in the presence of enemies. Here is the amazing story of their experience.

    Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholarsBiographies of the authorsChronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural eventsFootnotes and endnotesSelective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the workComments by other famous authorsStudy questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectationsBibliographies for further readingIndices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. As an adolescent America searched for its unique identity among the nations of the world, a number of thinkers and writers emerged eager to share their vision of what the American character could be. Among their leaders was Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essays, lectures, and poems defined the American transcendentalist movement, though he himself disliked the term.Emerson advocates a rejection of fear-driven conformity, a total independence of thought and spirit, and a life lived in harmony with nature. He believes that Truth lies within each individual, for each is part of a greater whole, a universal “over-soul” through which we transcend the merely mortal.Emerson was extremely prolific throughout his life; his collected writings fill forty volumes. This edition contains his major works, including Nature, the essays “Self-Reliance,” “The American Scholar,” “The Over-Soul,” “Circles,” “The Poet,” and “Experience,”, and such important poems as “The Rhodora,” “Uriel,” “The Humble-Bee,” “Earth-Song,” “Give All to Love,” and the well-loved “Concord Hymn.”Includes a comprehensive glossary of names.Peter Norberg has been Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia since 1997. A specialist in New England transcendentalism and the history of the antebellum period, he also has published on Herman Melville’s poetry. He currently is writing a history of Emerson’s career as a public lecturer.

    His poems of spiritual love still speak directly to our hearts after more than seven hundred years. These classic selections contemplate separation and longing, intoxication and bliss, union and transcendence.

    This collection includes Advice to a Prophet and Other Poems, Things of This World, Ceremony and Other Poems, and The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems.  "One of the best poets of his generation, Richard Wilbur has imagined excellence, and has created it." —Richard Eberhart, New York Times Book Review

    Employing her trademark ferocity, these new dramatic monologues continue to mine this award-winning poet's "often brilliant" (Chicago Tribune) vision.

    In thirty-seven poems, using a variety of dramatic voices and visual techniques, she finds meaning in unexpected places, from a tour of a doll hospital to an ad for a CD of Beethoven symphonies to an earthy exploration of toast. Gerstler’s abiding interests—in love and mourning, in science and pseudoscience, in the idea of an afterlife, in seances and magic—are all represented here. Entertaining and erudite, complex yet accessible, these poems will enhance Gerstler’s reputation as an important contemporary poet.

    Her mind, body, and soul. This book might make you cry, fill you with nostalgia, empower you, or even give you hope. You might not see eye to eye with every idea inside, but with any luck you’ll see your soul reflected in its pages. You will question things. You will remember your past. You will be thankful for your present. You will dream a new dream. Above all, you will feel. Welcome to the journey of Eighteen Inches, a battlefield between a woman’s beat-up heart and her complex mind.

    (Continued from National Geographic's "Battlefield Afghanistan")This is undoubtedly the most honest and raw account of an Officer's thoughts and actions during combat that has ever been written. After publishing this book, Donny O'Malley's job options are now reduced to low level sales and day labor construction. It is still unclear how he ever made it out of the Marines without court martial.Senior officer's will slam him, military historians will be shocked, and all civilians will be 100% certain he's psychotic.Fortunately, the book is written for the opposite of those mentioned above. It’s written for Enlisted guys.Officers who are brave enough to read will either cry themselves to sleep, jerk themselves off to Donny's picture, or will ask their buddies to write them up for an award with V for having the moral courage to finish the book."My moto boner is still raging strong and I read this book three days ago. I'm certain that my dick is going to explode, and I really don't care, because this book was that fucking good."-Marine I served with."858-555-5555- Hey bro that's my wife's phone number. You can fuck her whenever you want, just wear a condom and try not to blow anywhere near the face. I understand mistakes happen, but do your best. Thanks for writing the book, I really needed that." -Marine I never served with"Just wanted to say that your book is cracking me up. I think the people on the subway think I'm nuts because I can't stop uncontrollably laughing. I think I crack up because I know your jabroni ass and know that the shit you write about that is going on in your head is true, no bullshit. You are completely fucked up, in the good way. If people were to question if you were making this up I could say that it's no bullshit because I spent enough time with you to know that you beat off 10 times a day. I slept above you on ship and heard you beating dick all the time. Fuck it, what man doesn't beat off constantly?It's raw and honest. Like you said, as professional as all of us try to be (officers especially) deep down we are fuckin animals, neanderthals who just love pussy and talking about sucking dick, in a gay way, and when we get the chance, killing bad guys. Anyone who denies that, other than maybe the Col, is a fuckin liar.......PS-your description of Major Dyce is spot on... fuckin moron. Someone should have blew him up." -Lieutenant I served with.A message from the author-This book is a reach-around to all enlisted, and a FUCK YOU to every Officer who has ever written a politically correct, full-of-shit, “I’m a great leader,” book about combat. Every single one of those fucking jerkoffs wrote a book for civilians that not a single enlisted guy ever gave two-shits about. The truth is that Marines love killing more than they love pussy; they fantasize about mowing down insurgents with a 240 on post while 70 virgins take turns blowing them.This is who we are, and I’m sick and tired of nerdy ass book writers hiding our reality from the public.