VERA & LINUS is a series of short sketches. The book's theme is the love between the two protagonists, Vera and Linus. They are mischief makers and tricksters of the most daring sort, and they are constantly up to no good, but the language holds them with a clear restraint, a restraint born perhaps out of the peculiar nature of their love, a love both for each other and the things of the world. Their mastery, and shifting natures allow them to compel the workaday world as they see it, but not to rule over each other, and so their game begins, as Vera struggles to outwit Linus, and Linus to outwit Vera.

    Here is a poet talking to you instead of around himself, while doing absolutely brilliant and outrageous things with language."--Publishers WeeklyStarred Review in Booklist "[C]hoices of poems from each of Harrison's books are passionate and sharp... Of special note is a section from Letters to Yesenin, a book-length poem, and the title poem from The Theory and Practice of Rivers , which contains these echoing lines, 'I forgot where I heard that poems / are designed to waken sleeping gods.' Reading this essential volume, one might imagine that the gods are, indeed, staying up late, reading lights on, turning the pages."Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems is distilled from fourteen volumes--from visionary lyrics and meditative suites to shape-shifting ghazals and prose-poem letters. Teeming throughout these pages are Harrison's legendary passions and appetites, his meditations, rages, and love-songs to the natural world.The New York Times concluded a review from early in Harrison's career with a provocative quote: "This is poetry worth loving, hating, and fighting over, a subjective mirror of our American days and needs." That sentiment still holds true, as Jim Harrison's essential poems continue to call for our fiercest attention.Also included are full-color images of poem drafts--both typescripts and holographs--as well as the letter Denise Levertov sent to publisher W.W. Norton in the early 1960s, advocating for Harrison's debut collection.In his essay "Poetry as Survival," Jim Harrison wrote, "Poetry, at its best, is the language your soul would speak if you could teach your soul to speak." The Essential Poems is proof positive that Jim Harrison taught his soul to speak."In this unforgiving literary moment, we must deal honestly with [Harrison's] life and work, as they are inextricable in a way that is not true of other poets...These poems bear-crawl gorgeously after a genuine connection to being, thrashing in giant leaps through the underbrush to find consolation, purpose, and redemption. In his raw, original keening he ambushes moments of unimaginable beauty, one after another, line after line...The Essential Poems demonstrates perfectly why we should turn to Harrison again. He lived and breathed an American confrontation with the physical earth, married himself to a universe of bodies and stumps and birds, did not try to shuck his grotesque masculinity and stared hard with his one good eye (the left was blinded when he was seven) at the inescapable, beckoning finger of death." --Dean Kuipers, LitHub"The Essential Poems provides a good introduction--or reintroduction--to the work of this singular writer... these pieces illustrate Harrison's range and his ease with various formats, from lyric poems to meditative suites to prose poems. They also spotlight his deep, rugged kinship with rural landscapes and the natural world, where 'the cost of flight is landing.'" --The Washington Post"Jim Harrison's latest collection, The Essential Poems, contains...engaging and enlightening poems [that] should be taught, learned, and loved. Remember this."--New York Journal of Books"Had he been a chef, all the other foodies would have talked about how Jim Harrison dealt with big flavors. In his poems, they're all there -- love and death, remorse and longing, the rocket contrails of living. There's not a lot of small talk in The Essential Poems... this book grabs you by the collar and tells you in eleven hundred ways to wake up."--John Freeman, Executive Editor, "Recommended Reading from Lit Hub Staff""Jim Harrison had an appetite. He devoured the natural world with gusto and wrote about it with wild energy and sweetly caustic wit...Harrison was also a prodigious poet, and this thoughtfully curated collection [The Essential Poems] showcases him at his best. Like his fiction, the poems observe the collision between civilization and the wildness outside our cities; they act like geocaches both harrowing and beautiful... Organized chronologically, the material here becomes a time line distilling Harrison's signature concerns."--Alta"It is hard-boiled poetry, some of the best of its kind, and one is not surprised to know that Harrison has written very tough novels... His poetic vision is at the heart of it all."--Harper's

    After having her confidence unwound by her ex, she falls hard for a true gentleman. But once she realizes that her crush is her communications professor, her world is turned upside down.Haunted by dreams of the alluring Professor Hunter, Penny can't seem to dismiss her fantasies and the temptation to have him grows deeper. Will the excitement, danger, and mystery surrounding Professor Hunter bring her to her knees?ADDICTION (The Hunted Series Book 2)Temptation has quickly turned into addiction. Penny Taylor fell hard for the sexy, mysterious, exciting, and dangerous Professor Hunter. But scandalous affairs are meant to go down in flames. Now that he's not speaking to her, she feels numb. And what hurts the most is that he appears to be completely fine. As she struggles to accept that their relationship is really over, her best friend's crude advice is in the back of her mind- the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.Will she be able to move on, or is her addiction to her alluring professor only just beginning?JAMES THE GRINCH (Exclusive Short Story)Penny and James are newly engaged. In a new city. With new friends. For Penny, all this change doesn't put a damper on the excitement she's had for Christmas ever since she was a child. And she's thrilled to combine her childhood traditions with James' for their first Christmas together. The only problem is that she's just learned that her new fiancé is a total Grinch.The stockings are hung, the lights are aglow, and the mistletoe is ready for kisses to be stolen beneath it. The only problem is that none of those decorations are in their apartment. For years, James has been celebrating an anti-Christmas with his friends. He's lost the Christmas spirit that he had when he was a child. And he doesn't seem to want to thaw his frozen heart.Penny decides that it's her new mission to make him believe again. And with extra love and a little sprinkle of Christmas magic, it might just be possible.CITY OF SIN (The Hunted Series Book 2.5)Nothing seems to be going Bee's way. She's been knocked down by her ex, her job, and the city in general. Could a blind date really be the start to the much needed change she's been hoping for?When Bee is already running late, a sexy stranger steals her cab. And once she finally arrives at the restaurant and finds out that he's her date, the night takes an unexpected turn. Maybe this sexy stranger is exactly what she's needed this whole time...Except Mason Caldwell is not a good man. A renowned playboy, heir to his family's fortune, and willing to do whatever it takes to make his dreams come true, he's not looking for a change. He's looking for vengeance. And a woman he barely knows is definitely not going to get in his way. But he can't stop thinking about her.Sometimes you don't know what you really want until it's right in front of you.

    At least it is for a guy like me. As a talent agent in New York, I know how to wine and dine with the best of them. Unfortunately, work has been my main thing for a little too long. And my body is showing signs of it. Doc says I need to take a summer off. Hell yes, I do. Lucky for me, I run into my latest wedding fling as my time frees up. And the pretty girl just can’t get enough of me. She needs a plus-one for an upcoming wedding and wants to up the ante of our deception. Be her fake fiancé. She’s tired of being the bridesmaid and never the bride. Why would I ever say no? I’m a no-strings-attached kinda guy, but with her, I want to be tied up—forever. The more time I spend playing the part, the more I want to hit my knee and offer her a ring. It started with us promising nothing, but now, I want her to promise it all—to me.

    In Narcissus Leaves the Pool, he displays his signature verve and charm in sixteen agile, entertaining pieces. Among his targets in this collection are name-dropping, talent versus genius, the cult of youthfulness, and the information revolution.

    Ramanan is dramatic pastoral elegy and it is beautifully illustrated by Artist Madanan.

    We follow the progression of Daniel Boone's life, a life led in war and in the wilderness, and see the birth of a new nation. We track the bountiful animals and the great, undisturbed rivers. We stand beside Boone as he buries his brother, then his wife, and finds comfort in his friendship with a slave named Derry. Praised for his originality, Maurice Manning is an exciting new voice in American poetry. The darkest place I've ever beendid not require a name. It seemedto be a gathering place for the lintof the world. The bottom of a hollowbeneath two ridges, sunk like a stone.The water was surely old, the dregsof some ancient sea, but purifiedby time, like a man made better by his years, his old hurts absorbed intohis soul, his losses like a springin his breast. -from "Born Again"

    Robert Creeley, who was involved with the publication of this volume before his death in 2005, helped define an emerging counter-tradition to the prevailing literary establishment--the new postwar poetry originating with Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky and expanding through the lives and works of Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, and others. "The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975-2005" will stand together with "The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1975-2000" as essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century American poetry.

    Doughty’s poems are at once absurdist and matter-of-fact; the images he conjures are thrown into high relief through cutting wordplay. In a series of prose poems about showbiz, he reimagines Cookie Monster as a burned-out suicide, and cheesy talk-show host Joe Franklin as a cross-dressing witness to the apocalypse. And in “For Charlotte, Unlisted,” he wrenchingly tracks the elusive memory of a faded romance.

    frequently anthologized poem

    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."

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    The book teaches that a person's softness is their biggest strength and that having a big heart is not always a bad thing and that a glimmer of light can be found in the darkest places.A Handful of Stars is raw and unapologetic, soft and kind, reflective and inspirational all at the same time. Some of Ruby's most loved poems are shared within the pages of this book, in hope that they will have the same effect on readers the second time as they did the first.

    Rogue’s debut poetry collection tells the tale of a once-in-a-lifetime love unreturned. These heartwrenching and soul-crushing poems are confessional while also being relatable. This collection will make you feel seen in all your heartbreak.“I will write stories about how we lost each other, because that’s the part I will never get over. That’s the part I know best.”The Exquisite Pain of the Unrequited was previously published as La Douleur Exquise, which translates to the exquisite pain.

    Ted Kooser’s third book in the Pitt Poetry Series is a selection of poems published in literary journals over a ten year period by a writer whose work has been praised for its clarity and accessiblity, its mastery of figurative language, and its warmth and charm.