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Without Beginning or End (Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series #86)
by Jacqueline BourqueIn my palliative months / the cormorant leaves me / at peace, disintegrating / with the exhalation of a BuddhaWithout Beginning or End is Jacqueline Bourque’s final testament to a life well lived, written in the wake of a terminal cancer diagnosis.Deeply inspired by her Acadian upbringing along the ocean shores of New Brunswick, these are poems populated by aerialists, painters, and the spirit of Charles Baudelaire, who connects the poet to “the ligatures of life.” Those ligatures in turn connect her with family in the collection’s remarkable title suite, bringing new life to a past that continues to resonate in the present.Without Beginning or End is a book about love, friendship, art, and the human condition. Beautiful, and poignantly human, it is an emotionally charged parting gift to loved ones and readers alike.
Without Ceremony
by Angela CarrThe poems in Without Ceremony celebrate the fleeting everyday encounters of city life as well as the layers of history that are revealed when we attempt to hold on to those encounters. Embracing the present before it vanishes into history, Carr's new collection is a clarifying elixer for our time.
Without Ceremony
by Angela CarrCentred on the everyday, and crafted without preamble or pretension, the poems in Without Ceremony are a literary pastiche—a thematic mosaic not unlike tracks on an album. Amidst a timeless cast of characters from Lucretius and Eva Hesse, to Joan Mitchell and St. Augustine, Carr illuminates what it means to truly know something and questions how certain knowledge becomes valued over others. Without Ceremony spotlights the gendered division of ideas and the inherent strength of language to harm and oppress, as well as elevate. Within these pages, passing encounters become rare spectacles, and the ordinary, without ambitions of grandeur or ceremony, is celebrated, making Carr's new collection a clarifying elixir for our time.Praise for Angela Carr:“Angela Carr’s words in Without Ceremony point their arrows toward a ledge where communication knows “both failure and perfection at once.” Her poetry isn’t invested in naming things (perhaps this is what is unceremonious) because things, even thingness, and their energies change so rapidly. Carr creates a field of verb-rich arriving where confessional exasperations are tried and transformed in pleasurable abstraction. She summons other women poets and artists (Hesse, Dickinson, Mitchell) not to revere them but to create a queer chorus of those who can bring us to see that what seems holy is simply ordinary.” —Stacy Szymaszek, author of A Year From Today“Angela Carr’s poems spark a startling immediacy directly to the heart of everyday encounters and how poems form “under the moment of language.” Her work gives us the rare and complex gift of how to move out of the house of regret amidst the instability of the contemporary. Here in Without Ceremony are interior conversations with the likes of Lucretius, Dickinson, Moorman, that show how readers become writers and how words feel when put on us by others, which ones we choose to wear, which to strip off. Let Without Ceremony become one of those books “that are familiar as friends,” always present to puncture through the space of the day to the intimacy we need to construct joy, a holding area for the moving moment.” —Lee Ann Brown, author of Other Archer
Without End: New and Selected Poems
by Adam ZagajewskiThis book draws from each of Adam Zagajewski's English-language collections, both in and out of print--Tremor, Canvas, and Mysticism for Beginners-- and features new work that is among his most refreshing and rewarding. These poems, lucidly translated, share the vocation that allows us, in Zagajewski's words, "to experience astonishment and to stop still in that astonishment for a long moment or two."
Without a Claim: Poems
by Grace Schulman&“Without a Claim is a modern Book of Psalms. Indeed, the glory in these radiant sacred songs meld an art of high music with a nuanced love of the world unlike any we&’ve heard before. No matter your mood upon entering this world you&’ll soon be grateful, and enchanted. In any such house of praise, God herself must be grateful.&” —Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Failure and The God of Loneliness Grace Schulman, who has been called &“a vital and permanent poet&” (Harold Bloom), makes new the life she finds in other cultures and in the distant past. In Without a Claim, she masterfully encompasses music, faith, art, and history. The title poem alludes to the Montauk sachem who sold land without any concept of rights to property, and meditates on our own notion of ownership: &“No more than geese in flight, shadowing the lawn, / cries piercing wind, do we possess these fields, / given the title, never the dominion.&” She traces the illusion of rights, from land to objects, from our loves to our very selves. Alternatively, she finds permanence in art, whether in galleries or on cave walls, and in music, whether in the concert hall, on the streets of New York, or in the waves at sea.
Without: Poems
by Donald Hall"It is a remarkably beautiful and generous book, beautiful in all its terrible specifics of the daily ordeal of death, and generous to the memory of the force of life his wife possessed. These poems by Donald Hall are written to and for his wife, Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995. The first half sketches her illness and death; the second half addresses her in the ensuing year. Unlike Thomas Hardy's elegies to his wife, Emma, "they celebrate a marriage of deep intimacy and great happiness" (John Bayley). Hall speaks to us all of grief- as a husband and as a poet lamenting the death of a poet. Without is his greatest achievement.
Without: Poems
by Donald HallYou might expect the fact of dying--the dying of a beloved wife and fellow poet--to make for a bleak and lonely tale. But Donald Hall's poignant and courageous poetry, facing that dread fact, involves us all: the magnificent, humorous, and gifted woman, Jane Kenyon, who suffered and died; the doctors and nurses who tried but failed to save her; the neighbors, friends, and relatives who grieved for her; the husband who sat by her while she lived and afterward sat in their house alone with his pain, self-pity, and fury; and those of us who till now had nothing to do with it. As Donald Hall writes, "Remembered happiness is agony; so is remembered agony." Without will touch every feeling reader, for everyone has suffered loss and requires the fellowship of elegy. In the earth's oldest poem, when Gilgamesh howls of the death of Enkidu, a grieving reader of our own time may feel a kinship, across the abyss of four thousand years, with a Sumerian king. In Without Donald Hall speaks to us all of grief, as a poet lamenting the death of a poet, as a husband mourning the loss of a wife. Without is Hall's greatest and most honorable achievement -- his give and testimony, his lament and his celebration of loss and of love.
Witness, I Am
by Gregory ScofieldWitness, I Am is divided into three gripping sections of new poetry from one of Canada's most recognized poets. The first part of the book, "Dangerous Sound," contains contemporary themed poems about identity and belonging, undone and rendered into modern sound poetry. "Muskrat Woman," the middle part of the book, is a breathtaking epic poem that considers the issue of missing and murdered indigenous women through the reimagining and retelling of a sacred Cree creation story. The final section of the book, "Ghost Dance," raids the autobiographical so often found in Scofield's poetry, weaving the personal and universal into a tapestry of sharp poetic luminosity. From "Killer," Scofield eerily slices the dreadful in with the exquisite: "I could, this day of proficient blooms, / take your fingers, / tie them down one by one. This one for the runaway, / this one for the joker, / this one for the sass-talker, / this one for the judge, / this one for the jury. / Oh, I could kill you."
Wittgenstein and the Creativity of Language
by Jakub Mácha Sebastian Sunday GrèveThis volume is the first to focus on a particular complex of questions that have troubled Wittgenstein scholarship since its very beginnings. The authors re-examine Wittgenstein’s fundamental insights into the workings of human linguistic behaviour, its creative extensions and its philosophical capabilities, as well as his creative use of language. It offers insight into a variety of topics including painting, politics, literature, poetry, literary theory, mathematics, philosophy of language, aesthetics and philosophical methodology.
Wittgenstein's Artillery: Philosophy as Poetry
by James C. KlaggeHow Wittgenstein sought a more effective way of reaching his audience by a poetic style of doing philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, "Really one should write philosophy only as one writes poetry." In Wittgenstein's Artillery, James Klagge shows how, in search of ways to reach his audience, Wittgenstein tried a more poetic style of doing philosophy. Klagge argues that, deploying this new philosophical "artillery"--Klagge's term for Wittgenstein's methods of influencing his readers and students--Wittgenstein moved from an esoteric mode to an evangelical mode, aiming for an effect on his audience that was noncognitive, appealing to the temperament in addition to the intellect. Wittgenstein was an artillery spotter--directing artillery fire to targets--in the Austrian army during World War I, and Klagge argues that, years later, he became a philosophical spotter, struggling to find the right artillery to accomplish his philosophical purpose. Klagge shows how Wittgenstein's work with his students influenced his style of writing philosophy and motivated him to care about the effect of his ideas on his audience. To illustrate Wittgenstein's evolving approach, Klagge draws on not only Wittgenstein's best-known works but also such lesser-known material as notebooks, dictations, lectures, and recollections of students. Klagge then goes beyond Wittgenstein to present a range of literature--biblical parables and children's stories, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche--as other examples of the poetic approach. He concludes by offering his own attempts at a poetic approach to addressing philosophical issues.
Wittgenstein's Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary
by Marjorie PerloffMarjorie Perloff, among our foremost critics of twentieth-century poetry, argues that Ludwig Wittgenstein provided writers with a radical new aesthetic, a key to recognizing the inescapable strangeness of ordinary language. Taking seriously Wittgenstein's remark that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry," Perloff begins by discussing Wittgenstein the "poet." What we learn is that the poetics of everyday life is anything but banal. "This book has the lucidity and the intelligence we have come to expect from Marjorie Perloff.—Linda Munk, American Literature "[Perloff] has brilliantly adapted Wittgenstein's conception of meaning and use to an analysis of contemporary language poetry."—Linda Voris, Boston Review "Wittgenstein's Ladder offers significant insights into the current state of poetry, literature, and literary study. Perloff emphasizes the vitality of reading and thinking about poetry, and the absolute necessity of pushing against the boundaries that define and limit our worlds."—David Clippinger, Chicago Review "Majorie Perloff has done more to illuminate our understanding of twentieth century poetic language than perhaps any other critic. . . . Entertaining, witty, and above all highly original."—Willard Bohn, Sub-Stance
Wobble (Wesleyan Poetry Series)
by Rae ArmantroutPulitzer Prize–winning poet Rae Armantrout is at once a most intimate and coolly calculating poet. If anyone could produce a hybrid of Charlie Chaplin’s playful “Little Tramp” and Charlize Theron’s fierce “Imperator Furiosa,” it would be Armantrout. Her language is unexpected yet exact, playing off the collective sense that the shifting ground of daily reality may be a warning of imminent systemic collapse. While there are glimmers here of what remains of “the natural world,” the poet confesses the human failings, personal and societal, that have led to its devastation. No one’s senses are more acutely attuned than Armantrout’s, which makes her an exceptional observer and reporter of our faults. She leaves us wondering if the American Dream may be a nightmare from which we can’t awaken. Sometimes funny, sometimes alarming, the poems in Wobble play peek-a-boo with doom.
Woes of the Womb-Begotten
by Kishore Kalpanakant Madan Mohan MathurSahitya Akademi award winning Rajasthani poetry collection
Woke Baby
by Mahogany L. BrowneFor all the littlest progressives, waking up to seize a new day of justice and activism.Woke babies are up early. Woke babies raise their fists in the air. Woke babies cry out for justice. Woke babies grow up to change the world. This lyrical and empowering book is both a celebration of what it means to be a baby and what it means to be woke. With bright playful art, Woke Baby is an anthem of hope in a world where the only limit to a skyscrapper is more blue.
Wolf Centos
by Simone MuenchWhat is important is to avoidthe time allotted for disavowelsas the livid woundleaves a trace leaves an abscesstakes its contraction for those cloudsthat dip thunder & vanishlike rose leaves in closed jars.Age approaches, slowly. But it cannotcrystal bone into thin air.The small hours open their wounds for me.This is a woman's confession:I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me.Simone Muench is the author of Orange Crush, Lampblack & Ash, The Air Lost in Breathing, and Disappearing Address. She teaches at Lewis University in Chicago, Illinois.
Wolf Moon
by Jean Pedrick"...the kind of union of passion and wit that we have been looking for ever since the metaphysicals turned to John Dryden... The best lines are white-hot and there is a priceless honesty."--John Updike"...a beautiful book in all ways--the conduct of it, and the salty, learned voice..."--Barry Spacks"Sometimes she lets the wild take over--and win."--Great Speckled Bird
Wolf Moon Blood Moon: Poems
by Ed FalcoIn Wolf Moon Blood Moon, Ed Falco considers love and the loss of love, what we have today and what we remember of yesterday, the promise of youth and the disappointments and pleasures of aging. By turns whimsical, meditative, and poignant, these poems examine the joys and sorrows of living.The first section offers a meditation on loss, as the author explores bereavements both personal and remote. From an elderly mother and her stroke-impaired son struggling to have a simple conversation, to a man coping with the breakup of his marriage, to strangers caught in the public tragedies of a flood or an act of mass violence, these are poems acknowledging that loss is inevitable, infused with grief, and borne with courage. The second section explores the turbulence, sensuality, and mysteries within a particular life. Speakers in these poems contemplate aging while on their way to see a Broadway play, recall a father’s violence and a mother’s selflessness, and explore the complexity of a world that seems impossible to comprehend. Together, the two sections suggest a poet looking back in contemplation.
Wolf's Coming!
by Joe KulkaA shadowy figure climbs the hill, getting close and closer still. Wolf's coming! A distant howl echoes through the forest, and news quickly spreads that Wolf is coming! As the wolf gets closer and closer, animals run away as fast as they can. Soon the wolf's glowing eyes are peeking through the window, and then slowly, the front door creaks open... But things are not as they seem in this suspenseful, clever story. It just might be the reader who's in for the biggest surprise of all!
Woman Police Officer in Elevator: Poems
by James Lasdun"American readers who want to see rejuvenated form in untroubled action, giving brisk shape to contemporary and classical events, will find it in Lasdun." --Helen Vendler With this, his second collection of poetry, James Lasdun consolidates his reputation as a writer of rich, emotionally charged poems of utter virtuosity. The poems in this book concern themselves with transformations, dislocations, and metamorphoses. Vividly rendered landscapes from Tuscany to New Jersey evolve into meditations on love, myth, and sexual and social politics. Woman Police Officer in Elevator is a rigorous and compelling mix of the classical and the cosmopolitan.
Woman Prime: Poems (Permafrost Prize Series)
by Gail C. DiMaggioA woman is a series of shifting possibilities. The frame that contained her in the morning can transform into something completely different by afternoon. The roles she’s called on to play mutate over the years and throughout a lifetime. And her very place in the world is called into constant negotiation. In this swirl of contradictions, finding her own self—her core—can be a bewildering journey. Woman Prime is about the fundamental human wish to settle into an authentic self, a “prime” identity. It follows one woman through her roles—child, adult, wife, mother—and shows how she must remake herself through each new stage. Like many women, the speaker believed that leaving her parent’s home, falling in love, and raising children would reveal the essential core of herself. Instead, she learns that those she loves can fail her and that she must embrace a world full of flickering and conflicting expectations for women. Woman Prime is about every woman and no woman—a mutable voice that will still resonate with anyone trying to reconcile their flawed and complicated selves.
Woman Reading to the Sea: Poems
by Lisa WilliamsA new volume from the winner of the 2007 Barnard Women Poets Prize. "Poems of arresting intelligence, precision, and beauty. In wonderfully crafted language, with the startling subtlety of certain of Emily Dickinson's poems, Lisa Williams takes us into eerily imagined worlds--the interior of a jellyfish, and the interior of a glacier; she beguiles us with the most seductive of poetic possibilities....This slender volume constitutes a journey of sorts, a pilgrimage 'out' that returns the questing poet, imagined as a companion 'you,' to her own life."--Joyce Carol Oates, prize citation
Woman Without Shame: Poems
by Sandra CisnerosA brave new collection of poems from Sandra Cisneros, the best-selling author of The House on Mango Street.It has been twenty-eight years since Sandra Cisneros published a book of poetry. With dozens of never-before-seen poems, Woman Without Shame is a moving collection of songs, elegies, and declarations that chronicle her pilgrimage toward rebirth and the recognition of her prerogative as a woman artist. These bluntly honest and often humorous meditations on memory, desire, and the essential nature of love blaze a path toward self-awareness. For Cisneros, Woman Without Shame is the culmination of her search for home—in the Mexico of her ancestors and in her own heart.
Woman, Eat Me Whole
by Ama Asantewa DiakaA bold, mesmerizing debut collection exploring womanhood, the body, mental illness, and what it means to move between cultures Renowned for her storytelling and spoken-word artistry, Ama Asantewa Diaka is also an exultant, fierce, and visceral poet whose work leaves a lasting impact.Touching on themes from perceptions of beauty to the betrayals of the body, from what it means to give consent to how we grapple with demons internal and external, Woman, Eat Me Whole is an entirely fresh and powerful look at womanhood and personhood in a shifting world. Moving between Ghana and the United States, Diaka probes those countries’ ever-changing cultural expectations and norms while investigating the dislocation and fragmentation of a body—and a mind—so often restless or ill at ease.Vivid and bodily while also deeply cerebral, Woman, Eat Me Whole is a searing debut collection from a poet with an inimitable voice and vision.
Women In Love: Heroines In Verse (Everyman Poetry Ser. #No. 73)
by David HopkinsThis unique anthology presents depictions of female figures in a wide range of English verse - narrative, dramatic and lyric, original and translated - from the Middle Ages to the late nineteenth century. The emphasis is on the variety of women's reactions to the passion of love - whether joyful, idealizing, horrified, deceitful, resigned, noble, curious, or reflective. The collection juxtaposes familiar material with less well-known items, and encompasses a wide variety of tones and moods, from heroic pathos to bawdy comedy. The passages all present moments in which a woman's thoughts are rendered, or her presence imagined, with particular dramatic vividness. The women depicted range from nobly born heroines of myth and legend to more ordinary and everyday figures. The result is a comprehensive presentation - moving, sobering and amusing by turns - of the joys, fears, hopes and disappointments of women in love.