With his trademark sense of humor, open-hearted empathy, and perceptive vision, Charles Simic roots his poetry in the ordinary world while still taking in the wide sweep of the human experience.From poems pithy, wry, and cutting—“Time—that murderer/that no has caught yet”—to his layered reflections on everything from love to grief to the wonders of nature, from the story of St. Sebastian to that of a couple weeding side by side, Simic’s work continues to reveal to us an unmistakable voice in modern poetry. An innovator in form and a chronicler of both our interior lives and the people we are in the world, Simic remains one of our most important and lasting voices on the page.

    The paintings are in brilliant color and each features the Japanese parasol.Matsuo Basho (1644 - 1694) was born Matsuo Kinsaku during the early Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Basho was recognized for his work in a poetic form that was a precursor to the haiku. Over the course of time, Basho became recognized as an unparalleled master of the haiku. His work is internationally renowned, and his poems are reproduced at many historical sites in Japan.

    P. Lovecraft is best known for his fiction, but he spent a great portion of his creative energy on his poetry. The Ancient Track collects the complete poetry of one of the twentieth centuries most iconic writers. The great majority of these poems were written between 1914, and 1920, the period of Lovecraft's heaviest concentration on poetry.Lovecraft's poetry may be regarded as the lesser of is literary output, but it merits collection precisely because it is an important ancillary to his other more well known forms of creative endeavor. Prior to the publication of The Ancient Track, Lovecraft's poetry had been scattered across several different volumes whose textual accuracy has not always been exemplary, while several poems had been uncollected."The Ancient Track"By H. P. LovecraftThere was no hand to hold me backThat night I found the ancient trackOver the hill, and strained to seeThe fields that teased my memory.This tree, that wall-I knew them well,And all the roofs and orchards fellFamiliarly upon my mindAs from a past not far behind.I knew what shadows would be castWhen the late moon came up at lastFrom back of Zaman's Hill, and howThe vale would shine three hours from now.And when the path grew steep and high,And seemed to end against the sky,I had no fear of what might restBeyond that silhouetted crest.Straight on I walked, while all the nightGrew pale with phosphorescent light,And wall and farmhouse gable glowedUnearthly by the climbing road.There was the milestone that I knew-"Two miles to Dunwich"-now the viewOf distant spire and roofs would dawnWith ten more upward paces gone. . . .There was no hand to hold me backThat night I found the ancient track,And reached the crest to see outspreadA valley of the lost and dead:And over Zaman's Hill the hornOf a malignant moon was born,To light the weeds and vines that grewOn ruined walls I never knew.The fox-fire glowed in field and bog,And unknown waters spewed a fogWhose curling talons mocked the thoughtThat I had ever known this spot.Too well I saw from the mad sceneThat my loved past had never been-Nor was I now upon the trailDescending to that long-dead vale.Around was fog-ahead, the sprayOf star-streams in the Milky Way. . . .There was no hand to hold me backThat night I found the ancient track.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    They celebrate the wonders of nature and explore the nature of love and friendship.

    The misunderstandings caused by language recur throughout the book: contemplating what "yes" means in different cultures; watching Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" with a husband who grew up in the Philippines and never saw The Patty Duke Show; misreading another poet's title "The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke" as "The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope" and concluding that "Pepsi is all for premarital sex. / The Pope won't stain your teeth." Misunderstandings also abound as characters mingle with others from different classes. In "Cockroaches," a father-in-law refers to budget-minded American college students backpacking in Europe as cockroaches, not realizing his daughter-in-law was once, not so long ago, such a student/roach herself.With welcome levity and refreshing irreverence, The Star-Spangled Banner addresses issues of ethnicity, class, and gender in America.

    From friendship to flirting, from the first date to the break-up, this collection of passion poems intertwines snapshots of innocent young adult angst with a fiery language that defines the first love which none of us ever outgrows. Crush is the first book of its kind, love poems for the Young Adult market. And it s destined to become a bestseller.

    Introduction by Geof Hewitt. Alfred Starr Hamilton (1914-2005) was an American poet from Montclair, New Jersey. Though Hamilton wrote thousands of poems during his lifetime, only a small percentage of them ever found their way into print. His poems appeared in small poetry journals during the '60s, '70s and '80s; two chapbooks, The Big Parade and Sphinx; and one full-length collection, The Poems of Alfred Starr Hamilton, published by The Jargon Society in 1970. In this new volume, Ben Estes and Alan Felsenthal present a collection of Hamilton's poems from these publications, along with many of Hamilton's poems that were previously considered lost and poems from posthumously found notebooks."Hamilton is the author of spare, wry, slightly surreal poems that have, so far as I can see, no real equivalent in American English."—Ron Silliman"Alfred Starr Hamilton 'wrote to the governor of poetry / And simply signed [his] own name.' Consider this collection—assembled by two very dedicated allographers—an essential expansion on said letter. People who've encountered Hamilton's work previously will be glad for the chance to see familiar poems alongside many marvelous new ones. And how I envy first-time readers of this most generous and genuine American writer."—Graham Foust"It is a hidden world, a hushabye place that Alfred Starr Hamilton occupies, a secluded place where he is free to summon daffodils and stars, chimes and angels, thread and old-fashioned spoons. There is Hungarian damage, blue revolutionary stars, a sedge hammer (which is not a typo). He is obsessively drawn to fine metals—bronze, silver and gold. He would be golden, but can never grasp the elusive sad: 'One cloud, one day / Came as a shadow in my life / And then left, and came back again; and stayed' like "Anything Remembered" which is the title of that poem. He is too removed to see things any other way but his own. It is a silver peepshow in the wonderbush, and there is always a moon to scrape from the bottom of his view."—C. D. Wright"We are living in the Badlands. Dorothy's ruby-slippers would get you across the Deadly Desert. So will these poems."—Jonathan Williams

    "With this fine new collection," says Library Journal, Martín Espada "joins the top ranks of poets anywhere"; in the words of Earl Shorris, he is "well on his way to becoming the Latino poet of his generation."

    Written in a direct, conversational style, the poems in Sun Bear display full-force why Zapruder is one of the most popular poets in America.From "I Drink Bronze Light":Great American summer lakesright now I am flying above youthrough a rare cloudless transparent skyback to the city where it is alwayscold even in summerthe round hole I press my face againstshows only a blue expansewith white sails belowspeckled exactly the waythe Aegean would have beenthree thousand years agoif one could have seen it from abovemaybe riding in the dark clawof a god who didn't care. . . .Matthew Zapruder is a poet, translator, and editor at Wave Books. He is the author of three collections of poetry, and his book The Pajamaist won the William Carlos Williams Award. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in many publications, including BOMB, Harvard Review, Paris Review, the New Yorker, McSweeney's, and the Believer. He lives in San Francisco, California.

    "Mr. Tate is an elegant and anarchic clown. A lord of poetic misrule with a serious, subversive purpose."-John Ash, New York Times Book Review "Tate brings to his work an extravagantly surrealistic imagination and a willingness to let his words take him where they will. Nonchalant in the midst of radical uncertainty, he handles bizarre details as though they were commonplace facts. [Tate's poetry draws upon] so rich a fund of comic energy that is may well prove an antidote to the anxiety some readers feel with poems that refuse to lend themselves to instant analysis."-David Lehman, Washington Post Book World

    Using the events of his life as starting points, Gerald Stern deals with time and loss, with the dichotomy of light and darkness, and—always—with the possibility of joy. This stunning collection moves from autobiography to the visionary in surges of memory and language that draw the reader from one poem to the next.

    Welcome to Sheffield. Border-land,our town of miracles...' - 'Scab'From the clash between striking miners and police to the delicate conflicts in personal relationships, Helen Mort's stunning debut is marked by distance and division. Named for a street in Sheffield, this is a collection that cherishes specificity: the particularity of names; the reflections the world throws back at us; the precise moment of a realisation. Distinctive and assured, these poems show us how, at the site of conflict, a moment of reconciliation can be born.

    Editor Stephen Cope has made a judicious selection of Oppen's extant writings outside of poetry, including the essay "The Mind's Own Place" as well as "Twenty-Six Fragments," which were found on the wall of Oppen's study after his death. Most notable are Oppen's "Daybooks," composed in the decade following his return to poetry in 1958. iSelected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers is an inspiring portrait of this essential writer and a testament to the creative process itself.

    With compassionate wit and insight, Campbell McGrath transports us on a journey through contemporary society, transforming the commonplace into scenes of profound revelation. From late-night bars to early-morning diners, suburban malls to the Mojave Desert, McGrath's meticulously detailed vision defines singular moments of joy and melancholy.

    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.