Book picks similar to
The Concrete River: Poems by Luis J. Rodríguez


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20thcentury
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Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths and Monsters


Nikita Gill - 2019
    Wonder at Medusa's potent venom, Circe's fierce sorcery and Athena rising up over Olympus, as Nikita Gill majestically explores the untold stories of the life bringers, warriors, creators, survivors and destroyers that shook the world - the great Greek Goddesses.Vividly re-imagined and beautifully illustrated, step into an ancient world transformed by modern feminist magic.'I watch Girl become Goddessand the metamorphosis is moremagnificent than anythingI have ever known.'

sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you


Catarine Hancock - 2021
    Following the success of Catarine's shades of lovers, sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you is a look into the process of recovering after a particularly bad love.sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you is a collection of poetry on the feeling of never getting closure, that lingering longing you still get even when you know you shouldn’t, and how it feels to finally be able to say, “I have finally let you go,” after years of struggling to find the words.

Churchill


Jacob Bannister - 2013
    His staunch patriotism, tenacity, appetite for a fight, and, above all, his towering rhetoric inspired the British people to mount a gallant defense of their island nation. Having set a new bar for national heroism, he earned a place in the pantheon of the world’s greatest leaders. Churchill, a fearless soldier, was a veteran of countless battles and a rider in one of Britain’s last cavalry charges. He was also a gifted writer, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, whose war reporting made his name and whose books outlived him. A bon vivant who loved his brandy and cigars, he was also a devoted husband whose marriage was a lifelong love affair. By any measure, Churchill was a giant. But the man was far from perfect. He was a hero, yes, but a human one. He could be petty, irascible, and self-centered; it was bred in his bone that white Englishmen were born to lead the world and all others to be led. His mistakes cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives, but he had courage and a born politician’s sense of the public stage. In the end, Churchill became a regal figure whose life came to symbolize defiance of tyranny in the face of impossible odds. Here is his story.

Emergency Brake


Ruth Madievsky - 2016
    This is a new voice made of sunlight, knives, emergencies, heat, honesty, bottles of vodka, and a tanker full of talent. Madievsky has created something we should not go without."- Matthew Dickman"Go ahead, try all you want pulling on Ruth Madievsky’s Emergency Brake—but just remember it won’t do you any good. This will be the most exciting and inventive first book you have read in years, and this poet’s take-no-prisoners attitude makes for an ecstatic joyride. These deeply moving poems reflect the raw darkness paring at the edges of our lives, and they reveal how that dark can sometimes move to the very centers of our being. Sexy, irreverent, sorrowful, thrilling—the poems of Emergency Brake become a young woman’s survival manual for the Twenty-First Century: ignore it at your own peril."- David St. John"...a metaphor-maker par excellence"- ZYZZYVA"The social importance of Emergency Brake doesn’t come at the cost of artful finesse; a cleverly engineered speaker who invites distrust through sly direction guides us through the collection’s gallery of sex and Los Angeles sprawl..."- Columbia Journal"Emergency Brake is filled with boxcar after boxcar of metaphors you’ll wish you wrote, but Madievsky got to them first. You’ll want to hate her if it wasn’t for that sugary child jumping up and down behind your ribs, yelling, 'Do it again! Do it again!'”- Harpur Palate

The Herapath Property


J.S. Fletcher - 1921
    Remarkably, his driver left him off at his home an hour later where he consumed a scotch and several sandwiches. Something is obviously amiss. Add an allegedly forged will, the hint of an old family scandal, and a former secretary of the murdered man whose motives are none too clear, and the mystery only deepens. J. S. Fletcher has put together an intriguing puzzle with plenty of twists and turns in . . . The Herapath Property!

Names Above Houses


Oliver de la Paz - 2001
    Fidelito’s mother, Maria Elena, tries to keep her son grounded while struggling with her own moorings. Meanwhile, Domingo, Fidelito's fisherman father, is always at sea, even when among them. From the archipelago of the Philippines to San Francisco, horizontal and vertical movements shape moments of displacement and belonging for this marginalized family. Fidelito approaches life with a sense of wonder, finding magic in the mundane and becoming increasingly uncertain whether he is in the sky or whether his feet are planted firmly on the ground.

Just Passing Through


Paco Ignacio Taibo II - 1987
    But everyone-including the baffled novelist-is trying to figure out exactly who San Vicente really is. There is some record of San Vicente in FBI records during the Wilson era, and some mention of him in anarchist records and rumors, but the rest has to be filled in. And who better to do this than Taibo? Meanwhile-with Taibo busy in the background trying to resolve the mystery of his hero's identity-San Vicente goes about his heroic avocation of organizing strikes against the capitalists, dodging thugs and hiding out from the Mexican Army."As an activist in Mexico in the '60s, Paco Ignacio Taibo II began a search for figures in leftist history that his generation could look up to. Today an internationally famous detective novelist (An Easy Thing, etc), the writer has validated his quest with a novel-documentary, in which he reimagines a historical figure-a mysterious Spanish anarchist named Sebastián San Vicente. Casting himself in a tale set 29 years before he was born, Taibo chronicles his present-day research and depicts a range of first person characters (some of them real figures) who engage with the elusive anarchist. Incorporating historical documents or documents based on fact-letters, telegrams, police files, etc.-the author further blurs the boundary between fact and fiction. Taibo's affectionate account of working-class culture in a phase of heroic struggle is a perfect little jeu d'esprit."-Publisher's Weekly"…a hilariously funny novel that satirizes every possible aspect of the politics and social fabric of 20th-century Mexico. Taibo is one of Mexico's most popular writers, known for his detective fiction and more mainstream novels like Leonardo's Bicycle. Then again, mainstream may be the wrong word-in the latter two titles, as in this, Taibo plays with the definitions of novel, history, politics and time. Very highly recommended."-Library Journal (starred review)"I am

Sylvia Plath: Selected Poems


Rebecca Warren - 2001
    Key Features: *Study methods *Introduction to the text *Summaries with critical notes *Themes and techniques *Textual analysis of key passages *Author biography *Historical and literary background *Modern and historical critical approaches *Chronology *Glossary of literary terms

The Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth Rexroth


Kenneth Rexroth - 1966
    This volume assembles Kenneth Rexroth's shorter poems from 1920 to 1966, bringing together work from seven earlier books and a group of previously unpublished poems.

Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately


Alicia Cook - 2016
    There is no Table of Contents. Instead, there is a "Track List," making it easy to refer to them to your friends with a, "Hey did you read track seven?!" There are no chapters. Instead, the book is divided into two parts, or as one would say in the 90's, two "sides." Side A holds poetry that touches on all aspects of the human condition like life, death, love, moving on, evolving, growing up, hometowns, family dynamic, life after trauma, and make-ups and breakups. Side B holds the "remixes" of these poems, in the form of blackout poetry, also known as "found poetry." Side B gives the material a fresh twist by creating new poetry out of Side A. There is also a very special surprise at the end of each track. Alicia decided to self publish this effort after leaving her publishing house. She views this book as her "independence" and official separation from that venture. She also drew the front and back cover herself. Alicia is a contributing writer for many blogs and news outlets, including the Huffington Post and multiple Gannett Publications. She writes regularly on drug addiction and how it directly affects families. Because of this, she has chosen to donate 100% of royalties to the Willow Tree Center in New Jersey. www.willowtree.org. Follow Alicia on Instagram: @thealiciacook or check out her website: www.thealiciacook.com.

The Victorious Attitude


Orison Swett Marden - 1997
    To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766127435.

Love Alone: Eighteen Elegies for Rog


Paul Monette - 1988
    An eighteen-poem cycle on the death of his lover from AIDS emphasizes the power of love and its survival through pain and anger, and the tragedy and magnitude of a terrifying twist of fate and its effect on a generation.

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez


Richard Rodríguez - 1981
    Here is the poignant journey of a minority student who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation--from his past, his parents, his culture--and so describes the high price of making it in middle-class America. Provocative in its positions on affirmative action and bilingual education, Hunger of Memory is a powerful political statement, a profound study of the importance of language and the moving, intimate portrait of a boy struggling to become a man.

Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings


Jorge Luis Borges - 1962
    In his preface, Andre Maurois writes: "Borges is a great writer who has composed only little essays or short narratives. Yet they suffice for us to call him great because of their wonderful intelligence, their wealth of invention, and their tight, almost mathematical style."Labyrinths is a representative selection of Borges' writing, some forty pieces drawn from various books of his published over the years. The translations are by Harriet de Onis, Anthony Kerrigan, and others, including the editors, who have provided a biographical and critical introduction, as well as an extensive bibliography.

Finding Dorothy


Elizabeth Letts - 2019
    Frank Baum's intrepid wife, Maud--from the family's hardscrabble days in South Dakota to the Hollywood film set where she first meets Judy Garland. Maud Gage Baum, widow of the author of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, met Judy Garland, the young actress playing the role of Dorothy on the set of The Wizard of Oz in 1939. At the time, Maud was seventy-eight and Judy was sixteen. In spite of their age difference, Maud immediately connected to Judy--especially when Maud heard her sing "Over the Rainbow," a song whose yearning brought to mind the tough years in South Dakota when Maud and her husband struggled to make a living--until Frank Baum's book became a national sensation.This wonderfully evocative two-stranded story recreates Maud's youth as the rebellious daughter of a leading suffragette, and the prairie years of Maud and Frank's early days when they lived among the people--especially young Dorothy--who would inspire Frank's masterpiece. Woven into this past story is one set in 1939, describing the high-pressured days on The Wizard of Oz film set where Judy is being badgered by the director, producer, and her ambitious stage mother to lose weight, bind her breasts, and laugh, cry, and act terrified on command. As Maud had promised to protect the original Dorothy back in Aberdeen, she now takes on the job of protecting young Judy.