Book picks similar to
For the Sleepwalkers by Edward Hirsch


poetry
poetry-american
poetry-drama
tiny-tales

Raw


Hana Malik - 2016
    Raw is a collection of poetry written to unveil thoughts on concepts such as self-love, forgiveness, survival and cultural-identity.

I'm Too Young To Be Seventy


Judith Viorst - 2005
     Fans of Judith Viorst's funny, touching, and wise poems about turning thirty, forty, fifty, and sixty will love this new volume for the woman who deeply believes she is too young to be seventy, "too young in my heart and my soul, if not in my thighs." Viorst explores, among the many other issues of this stage of life, the state of our sex lives and teeth, how we can stay married though thermostatically incompatible, and the joys of grandparenthood and shopping. Readers will nod with rueful recognition when she asks, "Am I required to think of myself as a basically shallow woman because I feel better when my hair looks good?," when she presses a few helpful suggestions on her kids because "they may be middle aged, but they're still my children," and when she graciously -- but not too graciously -- selects her husband's next mate in a poem deliciously subtitled "If I Should Die Before I Wake, Here's the Wife You Next Should Take." Though Viorst acknowledges she is definitely not a good sport about the fact that she is mortal, her poems are full of the pleasures of life right now, helping us come to terms with the passage of time, encouraging us to keep trying to fix the world, and inviting us to consider "drinking wine, making love, laughing hard, caring hard, and learning a new trick or two as part of our job description at seventy." I'm Too Young to Be Seventy is a joy to read and makes a heartwarming gift for anyone who has reached or is soon to reach that -- it's not so bad after all -- seventh decade.

sugar, honey, ice & tea


C.R. Elliott - 2019
    Divided into four chapters, the book deals with the struggles of pain and healing of wounds of all sorts, finding sweetness in all the bitterness along the way. Sugar, honey, ice & tea takes readers on a journey deep into the dark corners where struggle becomes strength and pushes through all the emptiness until it reaches the light.

New and Selected Poems


Gary Soto - 1995
    New and Selected Poems includes the best of his seven full-length collections, plus over 23 new poems previously unpublished in book form. From the charged, short-lined poems of Soto's early writing to an unflinching look at poverty and hard labor in California's Central Valley to the off-beat humor in his longer, more recent work, New and Selected Poems is a timely tribute to a brilliant writer whose work confirms the power of the human spirit to survive and soar.

Homie


Danez Smith - 2020
    Rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family—blood and chosen—arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and for Danez’s friends and for you and for yours.

Love in my Language


Alexandra Elle - 2014
    Equipped with 144 pages of self-discovery. Alex shares some of her deepest and darkest moments that are intertwined with faith, hope and finding her light. This body of work explores the ins and out of trials and tribulations, partnered with successes and failures. The pages of "Love in my Language" are filled with poetry, narrative essays, and gentle reminders. You will get an authentic look into the life of the author, and she hopes that readers take away peace after reading the pages.

Dear Future Historians: Lyrics and Exegesis of Rou Reynolds for the Music of Enter Shikari


Enter Shikari - 2017
    They have become one of the most influential British rock bands of their generation, sharing with their fans a belief that music can inspire change. Dear Future Historians features front-man Rou Reynolds own song interpretations and social commentary alongside all of their lyrics to date.

The Will to Change


Adrienne Rich - 1971
    They discover the point where loneliness and politics touch, where the exercise of the radical courage takes its inevitable toll."—David Kalstone in The New York Times Book Review

a fire like you


Upile Chisala - 2020
    Throughout this third book, she explores her identity as a black Malawian woman, offering intimate reflections on her life and experiences, imparting a stirring, universal message of empowerment and self-love.

7,300 Days


Isabella Mente - 2016
    it shares my story through the darkness and the light. get comfy, put your favorite sweats on, boil some water, and make tea. crack open the pages and feel with me. hold my art upon your lap and let it become a part of you. because this story is not just mine, it is yours, too. all my love, me. [themes found within this text: femininity, mental health: depression/anxiety, self-love, sexual abuse, love, trauma, etc. a coming of age] xx

New Addresses


Kenneth Koch - 2000
    His use of it gives him yet another chance to say things never said before in prose or in verse and, as well, to bring new life to a form in which Donne talked to Death, Shelley to the West Wind, Whitman to the Earth, Pound to his Songs, O'Hara to the Sun at Fire Island.  Koch, in this new book, talks to things important in his life -- to Breath, to World War Two, to Orgasms, to the French Language, to Jewishness, to Psychoanalysis, to Sleep, to his Heart, to Friendship, to High Spirits, to his Twenties, to the Unknown. He makes of all these "new addresses" an exhilarating autobiography of a most surprising and unforeseeable kind.From the Hardcover edition.

Three Poems


Hannah Sullivan - 2018
    Eliot Prize 2018One of Bustle's 12 Most Anticipated Poetry Collections for 2018Hannah Sullivan’s debut collection is a revelation – three long poems of fresh ambition, intensity, and substance. Though each poem stands apart, their inventive and looping encounters make for a compelling unity. "You, Very Young in New York" captures a great American city, in all its alluring detail. It is a wry and tender study of romantic possibility, disappointment, and the obduracy of innocence. "Repeat until Time" begins with a move to California and unfolds into an essay on repetition and returning home, at once personal and philosophical. "The Sandpit after Rain" explores the birth of a child and the loss of a father with exacting clarity. In Three Poems, readers will experience Sullivan's work with the same exhilaration as they might the great modernizing poems of Eliot and Pound, but with the unique perspective of a brilliant new female voice.

Hush


Nicole Lyons - 2017
    Nicole Lyons' voice undulates from pain to ecstasy, at breakneck speed. Erotic, soulful and authentic, Nicole has written a raw memoir encapsulated in poems. Stepping off the cliff, delving into HUSH, readers will find themselves breathless and wanting more.

Blowout


Denise Duhamel - 2013
    From a kindergarten crush to a failed marriage and beyond, Duhamel explores the nature of romantic love and her own limitations. She also examines love through music, film, and history—Michelle and Barak Obama's inauguration and Cleopatra's ancient sex toy. Duhamel chronicles the perilous cruelties of love gone awry, but also reminds us of the compassion and transcendence in the aftermath. In "Having a Diet Coke with You," she asserts that "love poems are the most difficult poems to write / because each poem contains its opposite its loss / and that no matter how fierce the love of a couple / one of them will leave the other / if not through betrayal / then through death." Yet, in Blowout, Duhamel fiercely and foolishly embraces the poetry of love.

I Hope You Find Me: The Love Poems of craigslist's Missed Connections


Alan Feuer - 2017
    The poems compiled inside this often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking volume are reprinted verbatim from the Missed Connections section of craigslist, with only line and stanza breaks added.-Knock Knock books: fun gifts for internet friends, IRL friends, or missed connections-Paperback; 4 x 6 inches; 136 pages-Written by Alan Feuer and published by Knock Knock