This was Ireland of the 1970s and 80s before the arrival of the short-lived economic riches of the Celtic Tiger.Dwyer's vivid and colorful prose describes his hard but happy life as part of a isolated but close-knit community:Early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricityAn encounter with a violent sheep that literally turned his world upside downThe days spent cutting the turf and saving the hay by handAn Irish Christmas where nearly everything on the table was sourced from the farmHis exciting family history that brought his relations to the Klondike Gold Rush in CanadaComplemented by a collection of evocative photographs, each story tells of a way of life that has now largely disappeared.Sprinkled with a selection of fitting works by some of Ireland's best-known poets such as Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh, this gem of a book is a chronicle of the simple but happy life of an Irish farmer boy.

    Its rise to classic status has been unstoppable, and it is now widely considered the founding text of all South African prison writings. As readable as ever, it is now hailed as Bosman's masterpiece of irony as well, vivid and unforgettable.

    Michelle Latiolais has given us the rarest item, a splendidly articulated masterpiece.” —William Kittredge“In this luminous collection of stories, the gifted Michelle Latiolais writes of loss in all its surprising manifestations. Widow is a devastation and a wonder.” —Christine Schutt“There is something mysterious about this book, as there always is in the writing that matters most. It eludes explanation. It illumines terrifying realities. Only because these pages seem nakedly willing to take the imprint of every emotion, no matter how ugly, do they possess this great beauty.” —Elizabeth TallentThe stories of Widow conjure the nuances of inner sensations as if hitting the notes of a song, deftly played across human memory. These meditations bravely explore the physiology of grief through a masterful interweaving of tender insight and unflinching detail—reminding us that the inner life is best understood through the medium of storytelling. Among these stories of loss are interwoven other tales, creating a bridge to the ineffable pleasures and follies of life before the catastrophe. Throughout this collection, Latiolais captures the longing, humor, and strange grace that accompany life’s most transformative chapters.Michelle Latiolais is the author of Widow: Stories, a New York Times Editor's Choice selection, and two previous novels, including A Proper Knowledge, also published by Bellevue Literary Press. She is the recipient of the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California and an English professor and co-director of the Programs in Writing at the University of California at Irvine.

    When she married Theo van Gogh, Johanna had everything she wanted - a husband who adored her, an exciting life as part of Paris's thriving art scene, and escape from a doting but oppressive father. Her happiness evaporated with Vincent's suicide. Shattered by his brother's death, Theo suffered a mental collapse from which he never recovered. When he died, Johanna was left with an infant son and an art collection most thought worthless. The Impressionist and Independent artists Theo had championed, such as Monet and Gauguin, were considered incompetents by all but the most avant-garde critics. Determined not to live with her parents, Johanna supported herself and her child by opening a boardinghouse, which shortly became a gathering place for the literati and modern artists of Amsterdam, as well as the feminists of that period.

    These poems, many of them award-winning, span a wide range of styles-from plainsong free verse to sestinas to nearly epic works. The characters/speakers in Beers' poems range from the rural working class to mythological characters. These poems look at the world with an honest, unflinching eye. She is one of the up-and-coming poets from Generation X we will be hearing a great deal from in the future.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    So, with great resourcefulness, she advertised for a companion and eventually staked out a corner of her own—one with a view. Mildred Walker's skill as a storyteller never falters in this portrayal of an elderly woman who won't give up.

    In an effort to understand desire, beauty, and love as transient anodynes to metaphysical loneliness, he invokes Constantine Cavafy, Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, and Dante Rossetti.from “Jewel-Tongued”   The stillness of a lover’s mouth   assaulted me. I never wearied of anecdotes   on the Commons, gesturing until I scattered   myself into a luminance, shining over a city   of women. Was I less human or more? I hear still   my breathing echoing off their pillows. So many   eyes like crushed flowers. Our fingers splayed   over a bed’s edge. We were blown away.

    --from Coma The novelist and playwright Pierre Guyotat has been called the last great avant-garde visionary of the twentieth century, and the near-cult status of his work--because of its extreme linguistic innovation and its provocative violence--has made him one of the most influential of French writers today. He has been hailed as the true literary heir to Lautr?amont and Arthur Rimbaud, and his "inhuman" works have been mentioned in the same breath as those by Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud.Winner of the 2006 prix D?cembre, Coma is the deeply moving, vivid portrayal of the artistic and spiritual crisis that wracked Guyotat in the 1980s when he reached the physical limits of his search for a new language, entered a mental clinic, and fell into a coma brought on by self-imposed starvation. A poetic, cruelly lucid account, Coma links Guyotat's illness and loss of subjectivity to a broader concern for the slow, progressive regeneration of humanity. Written in what the author himself has called a "normalized writing," this book visits a lifetime of moments that have in common the force of amazement, brilliance, and a flash of life. Grounded in experiences from the author's childhood and his family's role in the French Resistance, Coma is a tale of initiation that provides an invaluable key to interpreting Guyotat's work, past and future.

    In this powerful collection of writing guru Natalie Goldberg's poetry and paintings, the celebrated author of Writing Down the Bones focuses her attention on the shifting rhythms of interior life in poems that bring a Zen-like insight into the wondrous simultaneity of all things past, present, and future. With the same uncompromising integrity and commitment of Natalie Goldberg's bestselling books on creativity and writing, full-color reproductions of the her brilliant original paintings, and the introductory essay "How Poetry Saved My Life," Top of My Lungs gives the reader complete access to a compelling vision, one that is both simple and complex, both withdrawn from and full of life.

    0 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Guide. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on The Guide by R. K. Narayan.

    Now Jaguar of Sweet Laughter presents the work of a poet with the precise and wondering eye of a gifted naturalist.Ackermans's Olympian vision records and transforms landscapes from Amazonia to Antarctica, while her imaginative empathy penetrates the otherness of hummingbirds, deer, and trilobites. But even as they draw readers into the wild heart of nature, Ackerman's poems are indelible reminders of what it is to be a human being -- the "jaguar of sweet laughter" that, according to Mayan mythology, astonished the world because it was the first animal to speak.

    The colorful artwork leaps off the page while the stories bring you right to the heart of how it feels to be alive today.

    Thompson, Joyce Johnson, Richard Hell, and others. It includes rare pieces from the Rolling Stone archives by William Burroughs, Lester Bangs, and Robert Palmer as well as intimate photographs by Robert Frank, Annie Leibovitz, and rarely seen photos taken by the Beats themselves. A rich tapestry of voices and a visual treat, this treasury of Beat lore and literature is a true collector's item whose entertainment value will go on...and on."A huge dim sum cart of a book...a first-rate companion." --Publishers Weekly"Compelling reading."--The Denver Post

    In the title poem, Bly addresses the "donkey"—possibly poetry itself—that has carried him through a writing life of more than six decades.from "Talking into the Ear of a Donkey"      "What has happened to the spring,"      I cry, "and our legs that were so joyful      In the bobblings of April?" "Oh, never mind      About all that," the donkey      Says. "Just take hold of my mane, so you      Can lift your lips closer to my hairy ears."