Most particularly if she writes poems about death and violence. Or at least that is the lesson that the posthumous careers of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath seen to teach us.Reading this new volume of Sexton's previously uncollected poems, one has to wonder what will happen when there are no more half-finished poems left to be published. Will her grocery lists be next?I'm sure that the editor of this volume, Sexton's daughter Linda Gray Sexton, acts out of the desire to complete her mother's oeuvre, and apparently Anne Secton did leave instructions for at least some of her work, the section called "Letters for Dr. Y," to be published after her death. And in all fairness to Linda Gray Sexton I should mention that she and her co-editor Lois Ames did an excellent job of annotating and editing Anne Sexton's collected letters, putting together in A Self-Portroit in Letters (1977) a picture of a remarkably courageous woman and talented artist who fought her madness for many years.The heart of Anne Sexton's work lies in her earliest books - To Bedlam and Part Way Back, Live or Die, All My Pretty Ones. Here searing images take one by surprise, and the poems combine virtuoso technical skill with highly personal material is a way no one dies had ever done before. Yet as she grow older, worn down by her recurring bouts with insanity , Sexton's work grew sloppier, more self-indulgent , repetitive and heavy-handed. Her obsession with death and violence became more and more a part of some personal psychotic heil, more and more distorted each time she wrote, like a drawing one can't quite get right and finally ruins by constant erasure. The poems and the three horror stories in Words for Dr. Y are no exception.I would like to remember Anne Sexton for what I consider to be those extraordinary poems written in the face of great odds - poems like "Music Swims Back to Me," "You, Dr. Martin," "Her Kind." But the continuing publication of her inferior work tends to obscure her real achievement. [susan wood]

    The poetic and cultural tradition forged by the Symbolist poets -- Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Appollinaire, and others -- reverberated throughout the avant garde and counter-cultures of the twentieth century. Modernism, surrealism, abstract impressionism, and the Beat movement are unthinkable without the example of these poets and their theories of art, making this reissue possibly the hippest "dead white European male" anthology ever published.Including translations by Richmond Lattimore, W. S. Merwin, Dudley Fitts, and Richard Wilbur, this anthology has stood the test of time in terms of its selection and scholarly apparatus. Now back in print after twenty years in a fresh new edition, the book features an introduction by Patti Smith that testifies to its epochal impact on her own career, as well as those of other influential latter-day poets, including Lou Reed and Jim Carroll. This rediscovered gem is sure to inspire a new generation.

    Kids love him and his poetry...and so do adults, a combination of approbation that is unusual in today's world.

    In The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib: Selected Poems of Ghalib, poet Robert Bly and Urdu scholar Sunil Dutta collaborate to bring the delicacy and intensity of Ghalib's poetry to readers of English. This collection of thirty ghazals by Ghalib also serves as an introduction to the ghazal, the elegant and amazing poetic form revered for centuries in the Muslim world.

    This well-chosen and comprehensive collection offers a compact and affordable alternative to larger and more expensive anthologies.

    Martin Luther King called the "beloved community," a place where we see each other as the neighbors we already are. Healing the Divide urges us, at this fraught political time, to move past the negativity that often fills the airwaves, and to embrace the ordinary moments of kindness and connection that fill our days.

    Selections, with English translations, from the author's "El oro de los tigres" and "La rosa profunda".

    In this book, John Prine curates a selection of his best loved songs. Included are lyrics, guitar chords, commentary from John and over 100 photographs - may never before published - from his personal collection. John Prine has written songs that have become central to the American musical heritage. This former Maywood, Illinois mailman came to prominence with his debut record, 'John Prine' in 1971, which includes classics like, "Angel from Montgomery," "Sam Stone," "Paradise," and "Hello in There." His lyrics speak to the everyday experience of ordinary people, with a simple honesty and an extraordinary ability to connect with the heart.

    Culled from classic works of poetry, unpublished work solicited especially for the book, and poetry and erotica journals, these poems celebrate sexual connection and expression. Contributors include Sharon Olds, Gary Soto, E. E. cummings, Marge Piercy, Raymond Carver, Galway Kinnell, Pablo Neruda, and Tess Gallagher.

    From sweet to sizzling romances, 10 Timeless Heroes has a little something for everyone.P.L. Parker - FionaTime shifts in ever changing motion. But can love survive the ravages of time? Set against the backdrop of Ancient China, Fiona finds herself transported to a time of barbarian warriors and marauding nomads from the northern steppes. She discovers a new way of life in the arms of the handsome warrior Kellach, a man of noble stature among the Celtic settlements ringing the great Taklamakan. Desperate to return to the present while struggling against her mounting feelings, she finally accepts her fate, exulting in the rapture and delights to be found as Kellach’s mate. High Priestess Voadicia wants Lord Kellach for her own - and only the outsider Fiona stands in her way. Beth Trissel - Somewhere My Lass (Somewhere In Time #2) Will Mora and Neil be too late to save a love that began centuries before? '‘The MacDonald comes’ warns Mora Campbell when Neil MacKenzie finds the young Scotswoman lying unconscious at the top of his stairs after he discovers his murdered housekeeper slumped at the bottom. Mora’s claim that she’s his fiancé from 1602 and was chased to the future by clan chieftain, Red MacDonald, through ‘the door to nowhere’ seems utter nonsense. Neil thinks she’s addled from the blow to her head until his life spirals into chaos and the avenging Highlander shows up wanting blood. Mora knows the Neil of the future is truly her beloved Niall who disappeared from the past, but he must also remember. And fast. Although Niall’s kinsmen believe he’s dead, and Mora is now destined to marry his brother, she’s convinced that if she and Neil return to the past, all will be right. The balance of the present and future are in peril if she marries another, and the Neil of the present will cease to exist. The only problem is how to get back to 1602. An ancient relic, the ultimate geek friend, and a little Celtic magic help pave the way back to the enormous challenge that awaits them. If they’re in time. L.L. Muir - Going Back for Romeo (Muir Witch Project #1) Alone, with a Highlander, in his castle, on a cold dark night... (Okay, so it wasn't that cold.) Jillian MacKay is being conned by a pair of eighty-year-old lunatics. They’re convinced she’s the perfect sucker to test a prophecy and they’re willing to bury her alive to prove it. Once she escapes and finds herself in 15th Century Scotland, she believes her return home depends on a heroic deed - she must rescue a plaid-clad Romeo and Juliet before their romance can end in tragedy. The monster standing in her way, however, is a handsome Highlander who might just be her own Romeo... a Romeo she must leave behind. Rather than surrender his secrets, Montgomery Ross would prefer to go down in history as the heartless creature who betrayed one sister and buried the other alive. When he falls in love with the prophesied faery who has come to expose him, he'll have to learn a wee lesson from the star-crossed lovers or suffer the fate to which he once condemned them. Skhye Moncrief - Swordsong (Time Guardians #2) The most valiant time guardian saves his soul mate from an unorthodox time traveler wanting to steal her heart to gain control of the timeline. Murdo McEwen's stuck in present-day Scotland with a bent time-travel key and only swordsmith, Katie Innis, can repair it. Duty requires he return to his time. His ticket home relies on a lonely woman haunted by more than the apparitions visiting her. Her track record with men keeps her distant. And ghostly events keep pushing them closer together. Earning her trust will require the kind of patience only a valiant time guardian learns during his twenty years of apprenticeship. If time-travel duty, romance, and a bit of magic don't help them realize their destiny resonates in mysterious fairy SWORDSONG, all known history could change. Sky Purington - Highland Mystic (The MacLomain Series - Early Years #3)Alan Stewart loves the lasses. Beautiful all, he's never been one to settle. Until, that is, Caitriona appears. Shy yet alluring, her unexpected and rare gift gains his respect. Though his need to protect her grows, a dark ending looms. Only Alan knows that her death soon comes and he will not be able to save her. Caitriona Devereux is not who she seems. Her fate was foreseen long before birth and so important it will impact all future MacLomains. When dreams of Alan Stewart begin, she knows the time has come. But how to convince a Highland laird from another century that he must die for her? Especially when it soon becomes apparent that she couldn't bear his death. When their paths cross with Stephen and Arianna of the Broun clan, a powerful prophecy begins to unravel. Though promised to Iain MacLomain, Arianna Broun is in love with Stephen. They'll do anything to be together. Alan and Caitriona will afford them just such an opportunity. Betrayal and loss will intertwine with passion, friendship and new beginnings as the four race toward their destinies. All will discover how far they are willing to go for love. But will the journey be worth the ultimate sacrifice? Nancy Lee Badger - My Honorable Highlander (Highland Games Through Time #1)Bumbling present day herbalist, Haven MacKay, gets more than she bargains for when her love spell goes awry, is cast back in time, and meets her true love - Laird Kirkwall Gunn. Kirk’s plans go slightly off course when he falls in love with a woman wandering through the Scottish Highlands. After all, he has pledged to marry another, from an enemy clan, in order to end a century-old feud. Caroline Clemmons - Out Of The BlueDeirdre Dougherty never cursed at anyone, much less put a curse on the potato crop of her remote Irish village. She'd rather take her chances with the Atlantic lapping at the bottom of the cliff than the mob intent on burning her as they have her cottage. Deirdre leaps... and plops down over 160 years later in a Texas lake. She doesn't understand how she’s ended up with the man from her recent visions or why he has the same name as the saint to whom she prayed. She’s in danger of falling for the handsome policeman who rescued her, in spite of the fact that he thinks she’s lying to him. How can she convince him her story is true when she’s finding it difficult to believe the tale herself? Police Detective Brendan Hunter wants answers. Who shot him and killed his partner? Why? And why does Deirdre know details of the event? Her story has to be a colossal fabrication or else she’s a beautiful psycho. Either way, he wants her gone before he becomes even more fascinated with her. But he can't let her out of his sight until she confesses to how she learned details no one but he and his late partner knew. Bess McBride - A Train Through Time (Train Through Time #1)College teacher Ellie Standish thinks she's on a sleek modern train heading to a conference on women's studies in Seattle, but she awakens from a night's doze to find herself on a bizarre historical train full of late Victorian era reenactors who refuse to come out of character. When the leader of the group - one handsome, green-eyed Robert Chamberlain - finally convinces her the date is indeed 1901, a skeptical Ellie decries any eccentric theories of time travel and presumes she is smack dab in the middle of a very interesting historical dream. She turns the directorial reins of her dream over to one smitten and willing Robert, only to realize that dreams cannot last forever. Someday, she must wake up to reality, though Ellie no longer has any idea what reality is. She only knows that Robert must play an important part in her future. But how can he... if he's only a figment of her imagination or worse yet... a man who belongs to an era long past? Donna Michaels - Captive Hero (Time-Shift Heroes #1) Marine Corps pilot, Captain Samantha Sheppard changes history when a test flight takes her back in time, inadvertently saving the life of a WWII VMF Black Sheep pilot. To preserve the timeline, she abducts the flying Ace back to the present and hides him at her secluded cabin in the Colorado wilderness. Convincing her sexy, stubborn captive he’s now in another century proves harder than she anticipated - and soon it becomes difficult to tell who is captor and who is captive when the more he learns about the future, the more Sam discovers about the past, and their soul-deep connection. But as their flames of desire burn into overdrive, her flying Ace makes a historical discovery that threatens her family’s very existence, and Sam’s fears are taken to new heights when she realizes the only way to fix the timeline is to sacrifice her captive hero... or is it? Can love truly survive the test of time? Linda LaRoque - Desires Of The HeartLoren Fairchild longs for children, but is barren. At a cottage in Carlisle, UK, she puts her divorce behind her and begins a new life. In 1947 the former owner’s wife disappeared. That same week, according to local gossip, her husband took up with a dark-headed harlot. One morning in 2007, a simple-minded woman appears at Loren’s cottage and triggers events that change Loren’s life forever. Miles Chapeau misses the wife, the mother of his two children, he’d known before the war. When he returned from WWII in 1945, he learned she’d been hurt in an air raid and has the mind of a child. He loves her and would never forsake his duty, but misses the intimate side of marriage and a woman to share his life. One day she disappears and his existence is turned upside down

    Amazing in its thematic range and stylistic breadth, his poetry "leaps continents and covers war and peace, intolerance and human striving . . . a passionate and essential edition of his collected poems" ( The New York Times).

    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.

    Although Kathleen Norris’s best-selling Dakota: A Spiritual Geography has brought her to the attention of many thousands of readers, she is first and last a poet.  Like Robert Frost, another poet identified with a particular landscape, she can reveal the miraculous in the ordinary, and she writes with clarity, humor, and deep sympathy for her subjects.

    Here are stories culled from hundreds of writing programs such as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences such as Sewanee and Bread Loaf—as well as a complete list of contact information for these programs. This collection showcases tomorrow’s literary stars: Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. The best new American voices are heard here first.

    While haiku most often depicts the natural world, when focused on the elements of love and sensuality, haiku can be a powerful vehicle for evoking the universal experience of love. In this elegant anthology, love is explored through beautiful images that evoke a range of feelings—from the longing of a lover to the passion of a romantic relationship. Written by contemporary Japanese poets as well as by haiku masters such as Basho, Buson, and Issa, these poems share not only the haiku poets’ vision for love, but their vision of the poignant moments that express it.