If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho


Sappho
    Carson presents all the extant fragments of Sappho's verse, employing brackets and white space to denote missing text - allowing the reader to imagine the poems as they were written.

The Loop


Nicholas Evans - 1998
    She struggles for survival and for self-esteem, embarking on a love affair with the 18-year-old son of her most powerful opponent, brutal and charismatic rancher, Buck Calder.

Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish


David Rakoff - 2013
    Here the characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty. A critic once called Rakoff "magnificent," a word which perfectly describes this wonderful novel in verse.

The Office of Historical Corrections


Danielle Evans - 2020
    With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters' lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight.In "Boys Go to Jupiter," a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain," a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend's unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk.

Afterlife


Melissa Jennings - 2017
    Afterlife is a journey from the darkness to the light again, and again, and again.This poetry collection discusses depression, anxiety, trauma flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, death, self-harm, suicidal ideations, strong language.Please practice self-care while reading this poetry collection.Please see appendix at the end of the collection for detailed page number content warnings.Also available for download on Payhip: https://payhip.com/b/hYbl

Desiderata of Happiness


Max Ehrmann - 1975
    

Beautiful Chaos


Robert M. Drake - 2014
    We all are broken and broken is its own kind of beautiful.

Poems and Prose


Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1953
    On entering the Society of Jesus at the age of 24, he burnt all his poetry and 'resolved to write no more, as not belonging to my profession, unless by the wish of my superiors.' The poems, letters, and journal entries selected for this edition were written in the following twenty years of his life and published posthumously in 1918.His verse is wrought from the creative tensions and paradoxes of a poet-priest who wanted to evoke the spiritual essence of nature sensuously, and to communicate this revelation in natural language and speech-rhythms while using condensed, innovative diction and all the skills of poetic artifice. Intense, vital, and individual, his writing is the 'terrible crystal' through which the soul--the inscape, the nature of things--may be illuminated.

Mortal Trash: Poems


Kim Addonizio - 2016
    In a section called “Over the Bright and Darkened Lands,” canonical poems are torqued into new shapes. “Except Thou Ravish Me,” reimagines John Donne’s famous “Batter my heart, Three-person’d God” as told from the perspective of a victim of domestic violence. Like Pablo Neruda, Addonizio hears “a swarm of objects that call without being answered”: hospital crash carts, lawn gnomes, Evian bottles, wind-up Christmas creches, edible panties, cracked mirrors. Whether comic, elegiac, or ironic, the poems in Mortal Trash remind us of the beauty and absurdity of our time on earth.From “Scrapbook”:We believe in the one-ton roseand the displaced toilet equally. Our bluesassume you understandnot much, and try to be alive, just as we do,and that it may be helpful to hold the handof someone as lost as you.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk


David Sedaris - 2010
    Though the characters may not be human, the situations in these stories bear an uncanny resemblance to the insanity of everyday life. In "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers commiserate about animal bureaucracy while waiting in a complaint line. In "Hello Kitty," a cynical feline struggles to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings. In "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," a pair of star-crossed lovers is separated by prejudiced family members.With original illustrations by Ian Falconer, author of the bestselling Olivia series of children's books, these stories are David Sedaris at his most observant, poignant, and surprising.

Love by Night: A Book of Poetry


S.K. Williams - 2021
    K. Williams breaks down stereotypes, sexism, relationship roles, and brings awareness to mental health, grief, anxiety, depression, how to move forward, how to love in a healthy way, and, most of all, how to love yourself when it feels impossible.