Essential Self-Defense: A Play


Adam Rapp - 2007
    Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero, his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

High Adventure in the Great Outdoors


Henry Rollins - 1990
    

Hamlet (Classics Illustrated #99)


Alex A. Blum - 2012
    In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit www.folger.edu.

Selected Writings


Antonin Artaud - 1976
    His writings comprise verse, prose poems, film scenarios, a historical novel, plays, essays on film, theater, art, and literature, and many letters. Susan Sontag's selection conveys the genius of this singular writer.

Oedipus Rex and Antigone


Sophocles
    The story of the mythological king, who is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, has resonated in world culture for almost 2,500 years. But Sophocles’ drama as originally performed was much more than a great story—it was a superb poetic script and exciting theatrical experience. The actors spoke in pulsing rhythms with hypnotic forward momentum, making it hard for audiences to look away. Interspersed among the verbal rants and duels were energetic songs performed by the chorus.            David Mulroy’s brilliant verse translation of Oedipus Rex recaptures the aesthetic power of Sophocles’ masterpiece while also achieving a highly accurate translation in clear, contemporary English. Speeches are rendered with the same kind of regular iambic rhythm that gave the Sophoclean originals their drive. The choral parts are translated as fluid rhymed songs. Mulroy also supplies an introduction, notes, and appendixes to provide helpful context for general readers and students.

The Balcony


Jean Genet - 1956
    Here men from all walks of life don the garb of their fantasies and act them out: a man from the gas company wears the robe and mitre of a bishop; another customer becomes a flagellant judge, and still another a victorious general, while a bank clerk defiles the Virgin mary. These costumed diversions take place while outside a revolution rages on which has isolated the brothel from the rest of the rebel-controlled city. In a stunning series of macabre, climactic scenes, Genet presents his caustic view of man and society.

Persian Love Poetry


Sheila R. Canby - 2005
    This collection offers extracts translated by the authors from the best of traditional and contemporary Persian poetry and illustrates them with examples of Persian art in the British Museum. It also includes a brief introduction to its tradition and a short biographical note about each of the major poets.

Where a Nickel Costs a Dime


Willie Perdomo - 1996
    They throw us off rooftops and say we slipped. They shoot my father and say he was crazy. They put a bullet in my head and say they found me that way."Blending images of street life, drugs, and AIDS against hope and determination, Willie Perdomo is a cutting-edge bard who speaks to the soul of his generation.

Saving Daylight


Jim Harrison - 2006
    here’s a poet talking to you instead of around himself, while doing absolutely brilliant and outrageous things with language.”—Publishers Weekly“One is simply content to be in the presence of a writer this vital, this large-spirited.”—The New York Times Book ReviewAlthough best known for his acclaimed fiction, Jim Harrison’s poetry has earned him recognition as an “untrammeled renegade genius.” Saving Daylight, his tenth collection of poetry–and first in a decade–is grounded in thickets and rivers, birds and bears, and the solace of dogs in a crazed political world. Whether contemplating the ephemerality of 90,000,000,000 galaxies or the immediate grace of a waitress, Harrison relishes the art and mysteries of being alive. “I’m enrolled in a school without visible teachers,” he writes in the title poem, “the divine mumbling just out of ear shot.”From “The Little Appearances of God”When god visits us he sleeps without a clock in empty bird nests. He likes the view. Not too high. Not too low. He winks a friendly wink at a nearby possum who sniffs the air unable to detect the scent of this not quite visible stranger...Jim Harrison is the author of two dozen books, including Legends of the Fall and Dalva. His work has been translated into 20 languages and produced as four feature-length films. Mr. Harrison divides his time between Montana and southern Arizona.

Laundry and Bourbon


James McLure - 1981
    Book by McLure, James

The Poems of Norman MacCaig


Norman MacCaig - 2005
    This edition contains 778 poems, 100 of them previously unpublished, and has, in addition, a context piece, author's words and CD of readings. It is a definitive (though not complete) collection.

The King of the Dark Chamber


Rabindranath Tagore - 1914
    A cultural icon of Bengal and India, he became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. A Pirali Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore first wrote poems at age eight. He published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho (Sun Lion). Tagore's works included numerous novels, short-stories, collection of songs, dance-drama, political and personal essays. Some prominent examples are Gora (Fair-Faced) (1910), Gitanjali (Song Offerings) (1912), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) (1919). His verse, short stories, and novels-many defined by rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation-received worldwide acclaim. His other works include The King of the Dark Chamber (1914), The Gardener (1915), Songs of Kabir (1915), Fruit-Gathering (1916), Stray Birds (1916), The Hungry Stones and Other Stories (1916) and Glimpses of Bengal (1920).

Complete Short Poetry


Louis Zukofsky - 1991
    Now in paperback, "Complete Short Poetry" gathers all of Zukofsky's poetry outside his 800-page magnum opus entitled" "A""--including work that appeared in "All: The Collected Short Poems, 1923-1964," the experimental transliteration (with Celia Zukofsky) of Catullus, the limited edition "80 Flowers," as well as several fugitive pieces never before collected."Zukofsky is the American Mallarm," writes Hugh Kenner, "and given the peculiar intentness of the American preoccupation with language--obsessive, despite what you may read in the newspapers--his work is more disorienting by far than his exemplar's ever was. Mallarm had a long poetic tradition from which to deviate into philology. Zukofsky received a philological tradition, which he raised to a higher power."

Five Plays: Antigone, Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, Romeo and Jeannette


Jean Anouilh - 1958
    Jean Anouilh Five Plays—the finest English-language anthology of his works—crackles with both his sharp wit and his icy cynicism. In Antigone, his preeminent play and exemplar of his themes and style, he creates a disturbing world in which fate may be no more than a game of role-playing. Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, Romeo and Jeannette are the other plays included in this edition.

All This Intimacy


Rajiv Joseph - 2010
    In an unprecedented (for him) run of promiscuity, Ty has managed to impregnate three women in the span of one week: His ex-girlfriend, his 40-something married next-door neighbor, and his 18 year-old student. In this edgy comedy by playwright Rajiv Joseph, Ty's problems illuminate every triumph and failure of his life, and as the women