Only 17 when he enlisted in 1964, Johnson deployed to Vietnam with the 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, and his tour included such now famous locations as Phu Bai, Khe Sanh, Nha Trang and Quang Tri, among others. With a sometimes humorous tone, Johnson describes a war of often terrified high school and college-aged youngsters faced with exotic plant and animal life, monsoon rains, harrowing reconnaissance missions and death. Details are plentiful about tactics, equipment, geography and, always, fellow Marines.

    S. Eliot Prize'Rich in form and reverent references, Us transports the reader from the hills of Pakistan to the schoolgrounds of Stratford-upon-Avon, from George Herbert to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.' (Maria Crawford, Financial Times, BOOKS OF THE YEAR)'Highlights of the year include the Heaney-esque lyricism of British-Indian poet Zaffar Kunial's accomplished debut Us.' (Tristram Fane Saunders, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year)'Zaffar Kunial possesses that rare quality of negative capability which Keats first identified in Shakespeare (a guiding spirit in this, Kunial’s first collection); the poems hold us among mysteries and doubts, without pronouncing or attempting to resolve. Their beauty lies in their indecisiveness – their quiet refusal to settle matters or hold to a single view.' (Rebecca Watts, Times Literary Supplement)'His first full book, which has come together slowly, patiently, over several years... He can do clear-eyed and tender inside a single poem, without any hint of glibness. Fun fact: he used to earn his living writing verse for Hallmark cards.'(The 20 best poetry books of 2018, The Spinoff, New Zealand)'Everyone in this book is honoured as complicated and contrary, while the writing of them is always subtle and deep, generous and empathetic.' (Tim Dee, Caught by the River)'Zaffar Kunial has been called “a guide for modern times”. His first collection Us travels from Pakistan to Stratford-upon-Avon to Orkney, as he explores his own cultural heritage through language. Kunial is interested in how two disparate elements can come together to create something new. He is more formal than many modern poets; he takes tradition seriously. His writing is subtle, thoughtful and precise, his view of the world utterly individual.' (FOLD magazine)'Zaffar Kunial is a poet whose work thrills me, who makes you return to the origins of things, places, language and people again and again. He's a poet who takes traditions seriously but makes of them something entirely new - a must.' (Jackie Kay)'Us by Zaffar Kunial abounds with poems which are witty, playful and heart-breaking by turns. Drawn to the place where things don't quite meet, which he describes as "a kind of abysmal underneathness/or usness/under the heights of language", his is a wondrous poetic of loopholes, portals and translations, and of the magic in-between.' (Sinead Morrissey, Chair of the T. S. Eliot Prize judges)'There's something about the precise, thoughtful, unhurried way in which he interrogates language that marks him out as a unique talent. A real find.' (Roger Cox, Scotsman)

    A little mystery, excitement, intrigue and magic. Some surprises for you, some joy and happiness too. Hope of another day, another life, another way for our future. 'As It Was' is most of all about hope. A hopeful now brings us a hopeful future.

    A thoughtful dog grants an interview. A caterpillar offers life advice. Amy Gerstler’s newest collection of poetry, Dearest Creature, marries fact and fiction in a menagerie of dramatic monologues, twisted love poems, and epistolary pleadings. Drawing on sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, as well as abnormal psychology, etiquette, and archaeology texts, these darkly imaginative poems probe what it means to be a sentient, temporary, flesh-and-blood beast, to be hopelessly, vividly creaturely.

    A work of rare beauty and lyric grace, The Ground is an entire world, drawn and revealed through contemplation of the post-9/11 landscape. With musicality and precision of thought, Phillips’s poems limn the troubadour’s journey in an increasingly surreal modern world (“I plugged my poem into a manhole cover / That flamed into the first guitar”). The origin of mankind, the origin of the self, the self’s development in the sensuous world, and––in both a literal and a figurative sense––the end of all things sing through Phillips’s supple and idiosyncratic poems. The poet’s subtle formal sophistication—toggling between flair and restraint—and sense of lyric possibility bring together the hard glint of the contemporary world and the eroded permanence of the archaic one via remixes, underground sessions, Spenserian stanzas, myths, and revamped translations. These are poems of fiery intelligence, inescapable music, and metaphysical splendor that concern themselves with both lived life and the life of the imagination—equally vivid and true––as they lay the framework for Phillips’s meditations on our connection to and estrangement from the natural world.

    On the high seas they are destined to meet on a voyage that spans continents. A captivating novel of quest, adventure and love.

    40 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Eleven Minutes. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho.

    Merwin's legacy is unquestionably secure: his best and most fierce poems are moody, visionary compositions that dive into the unconscious and the seeds of existence with an inwardness and scrutiny unique in American poetry."—Poetry"Merwin [is] fresh and awake with a simplicity that can only be called wisdom."—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewAn elaboration and response to his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Shadow of Sirius, W.S. Merwin examines everything from minute flowers to oceanic destruction, and weaves our complex relationship with the natural world with his own youth, memory, and intense engagement with the passing of days. With considered reverence, subtle might, and generous poetic imagination, Merwin presents a masterful and gorgeous collection.From "Wild Oats":All the beads have gonefrom the old stringand the string does not miss themI needed my mistakesin their own orderto get me hereIn my youth I believed in somewhere elseI put faith in travelnow I am becoming my own treeW.S. Merwin is one of the country's best-selling poets. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States, and his three most recent poetry collections each received a major award, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bobbitt Award from the Library of Congress. He lives in Hawaii.

    . . . No one is writing better or more needed verse than this."--Boston Evening Globe

    R. Ammons’s long, thin poem was written on a roll of adding-machine tape, then transferred foot by foot to manuscript. He chose this method as a serious experiment in making a poem adapt to something outside itself. The tape determined both the length of the poem’s lines and when it ends. Tape for the Turn of the Year is a poem of infinite variety, blessed by the rich resources of one of this century’s greatest poets. By turns witty, serious, lyrical, and meditative, it is at once a superbly entertaining book and a significant literary achievement.

    Ranging across history and continents, these poems operate in the spaces in between, their haunting lyrics creating new, hybrid territories.The Perseverance is a book of loss, contested language and praise, where elegies for the poet’s father sit alongside meditations on the d/Deaf experience.

    Seven neighbors inhabit the same London street, but are all unknown to each other. The clock freezes in the small hours, and one by one we see directly into their lives: lives that are damaged, disenfranchised, lonely, broken, addicted, and all, apparently, without hope. Then a great storm breaks over London, and brings them out into the night to face each other--and their own last chance to connect.Tempest argues that our alienation from one another has bred a terrible indifference to our own fate, but she counters this with a plea to challenge the forces of greed which have conspired to divide us, and mend the broken home of our own planet while we still have time. Let Them Eat Chaos is a cri de cœur and a call to action, and, both on the page and in Tempest's electric performance, one of the most powerful poetic statements of the year.

    It is deep dive into emotions, empathy, acceptance, healing and insights into a different perspective towards life. The book embraces you in silence and stillness of thoughts. The book is an attempt to connect to souls, to reflect upon them, unbiased and together embrace a new beginning and a beautiful journey called life.

    Brown wants is a nice cup of tea and a peaceful evening with his cat on his knee. He’s too old for love and adventure. Or so he thinks. This morning when Harold Brown woke up, it seemed like a normal day. Why would a 50-year old man feel anything about a circus coming to the quiet town of Limberlost? But BonBon Circus has brought a Bengal tiger, and Harold’s never seen a tiger before. When he decides to disrupt his routine to visit the circus, it sets in motion a few other changes, all leading up to one thrilling day. Will Mr. Brown’s life ever be the same again?

    In the process, he pitches estrangement against communion, examines the past as history versus the past as memory, and reflects on the past’s capacity both to teach and to mislead us—also to make us hesitate in the face of love, given the loss and damage that are, often enough, love’s fallout. How “to say no to despair”? How to take perhaps that greatest risk, the risk of believing in what offers no guarantee? These poems that, in their wedding of the philosophical, meditative, and lyric modes, mark a new stage in Phillips’s remarkable work, stand as further proof that “if Carl Phillips had not come onto the scene, we would have needed to invent him. His idiosyncratic style, his innovative method, and his unique voice are essential steps in the evolution of the craft” (Judith Kitchen, The Georgia Review).