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Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie
by Maya AngelouAnother remarkable collection of poetry from one of America's masters of the medium. The first part gathers together poems of love and nostalgic memory, while Part II portrays confrontations inherent in a racist society.
Depression and Other Magic Tricks
by Sabrina BenaimDepression & Other Magic Tricks is the debut book by Sabrina Benaim, one of the most-viewed performance poets of all time, whose poem "Explaining My Depression to My Mother" has become a cultural phenomenon with over 50,000,000 views.
Depression & Other Magic Tricks explores themes of mental health, love, and family.
It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of living.
Benaim's wit, empathy, and gift for language produce a work of endless wonder.
The Tradition
by Jericho BrownThe Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown’s poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we’ve become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive.
The Boss
by Victoria ChangWritten in “a breathless kind of fury,” the poems in award-winning poet Victoria Chang’s virtuosic third collection The Boss dance across the page with the brutal power and incandescent beauty of spring lightning.
Obsessive, brilliant, linguistically playful—the mesmerizing world of The Boss is as personal as it is distinctly post-9/11. The result is a breathtaking, one-of-a-kind exploration of contemporary American culture, power structures, family life, and ethnic and personal identity.
Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately
by Alicia CookStructured like an old-school mix-tape, Stuff I've Been Feeling Lately is Alicia Cook's lyric message to anyone who has dealt with addiction.
"Side A" touches on all aspects of the human condition: life, death, love, trauma, and growth.
"Side B" contains haunting black-out remixes of those poems.
Magic With Skin On
by Morgan Nikola-Wren and Alysia Nicole Harris and Julie Guzzetta and Kimberly Ito and Madeline Crowley and Catrin Welz-SteinIn her much-anticipated debut poetry collection, Morgan Nikola-Wren has woven her signature romantic grit through a stunning, modern-day fairy tale.
Chronicling the relationship between a lonely artist and her absent-albeit abusive-muse, Magic with Skin On will gently break you, then put you back together again.
"Morgan's words will transport you, touch your heart and soul, even, at times, cut you.
Postcolonial Love Poem
by Natalie DiazPostcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz’s brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages—bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers—be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness: “Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. / Let me call it, a garden.” In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality. Diaz defies the conditions from which she writes, a nation whose creation predicated the diminishment and ultimate erasure of bodies like hers and the people she loves: “I am doing my best to not become a museum / of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out. // I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.” Postcolonial Love Poem unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope—in it, a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love.
The Collected Poems Of Emily Dickinson
by Emily Dickinson and Rachel WetzsteonThe Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, by Emily Dickinson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences--biographical, historical, and literary--to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began life as an energetic, outgoing young woman who excelled as a student. However, in her mid-twenties she began to grow reclusive, and eventually she rarely descended from her room in her father’s house. She spent most of her time working on her poetry, largely without encouragement or real interest from her family and peers, and died at age fifty-five. Only a handful of her 1,775 poems had been published during her lifetime. When her poems finally appeared after her death, readers immediately recognized an artist whose immense depth and stylistic complexities would one day make her the most widely recognized female poet to write in the English language. Dickinson’s poetry is remarkable for its tightly controlled emotional and intellectual energy. The longest poem covers less than two pages. Yet in theme and tone her writing reaches for the sublime as it charts the landscape of the human soul. A true innovator, Dickinson experimented freely with conventional rhythm and meter, and often used dashes, off rhymes, and unusual metaphors--techniques that strongly influenced modern poetry. Dickinson’s idiosyncratic style, along with her deep resonance of thought and her observations about life and death, love and nature, and solitude and society, have firmly established her as one of America’s true poetic geniuses.
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
by T. S. EliotCats! Some are sane, some are mad and some are good and some are bad. Meet magical Mr Mistoffelees, sleepy Old Deuteronomy and curious Rum Tum Tugger. But youll be lucky to meet Macavity because Macavitys not there!In 1925 T. S. Eliot became co-director of Faber and Faber, who remain his publishers to this day. Throughout the 1930s he composed the now famous poems about Macavity, Old Deuteronomy, Mr Mistoffelees and many other cats, under the name of 'Old Possum'. In 1981 Eliot's poems were set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber as Cats which went on to become the longest-running Broadway musical in history. This new edition, published on the 70th anniversary of the book and on the 80th anniversary of Faber and Faber, contains original colour illustrations by the award-winning illustrator of The Gruffalo, Axel Scheffler.
We Inherit What the Fires Left
by William EvansWilliam Evans, the award-winning poet and cofounder of the popular culture website Black Nerd Problems, offers an emotionally vulnerable poetry collection exploring the themes of inheritances, dreams, and injuries that are passed down from one generation to the next and delving into the lived experience of a black man in the American suburbs today.In We Inherit What the Fires Left, award-winning poet William Evans embarks on a powerful new collection that explores the lived experience of race in the American suburbs and what dreams and injuries are passed from generation to generation. Fall under the spell of Evans&’s boldly intimate, wise, and emotionally candid voice in these urgent, electrifying poems. This eloquent collection explores not only what these inheritances are composed of, but what price the bearer must pay for such legacies, and the costly tolls exacted on both body and spirit. Evans writes searingly from the perspective of the marginalized, delivering an unflinching examination of what it is like to be a black man raising a daughter in predominantly white spaces, and the struggle to build a home and a future while carrying the weight of the past. However, in beautiful and quiet scenes of domesticity with his daughter or in thoughtful reflection within himself, Evans offers words of hope to readers, proving that resilience can ultimately bloom even in the face of prejudice. Readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hanif Abdurraqib will find a brilliant, fresh new talent to add to their lists in William Evans.
Electric Arches
by Eve L. EwingElectric Arches is an imaginative exploration of Black girlhood and womanhood through poetry, visual art, and narrative prose.
Blending stark realism with the surreal and fantastic, Eve L. Ewing's narrative takes us from the streets of 1990s Chicago to an unspecified future, deftly navigating the boundaries of space, time, and reality. Ewing imagines familiar figures in magical circumstances--blues legend Koko Taylor is a tall-tale hero; LeBron James travels through time and encounters his teenage self. She identifies everyday objects--hair moisturizer, a spiral notebook--as precious icons.
Her visual art is spare, playful, and poignant--a cereal box decoder ring that allows the wearer to understand what Black girls are saying; a teacher's angry, subversive message scrawled on the chalkboard. Electric Arches invites fresh conversations about race, gender, the city, identity, and the joy and pain of growing up.
Dirty Pretty Things
by Michael FaudetDirty Pretty Things is the international bestseller by Michael Faudet. A finalist in the 2015 Goodreads Readers Choice Awards, his whimsical and often erotic writing has already captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of readers from around the world.
He paints vivid pictures with intricate words and explores the compelling themes of love, loss, relationships, and sex. All beautifully captured in poetry, prose, quotes, and little short stories.
Michael lives in a house by the sea in New Zealand with his girlfriend, international bestselling author, Lang Leav.
The Road Not Taken and Other Poems
by David Orr and Robert FrostA deluxe edition of Frost's early poems, selected by poet David Orr for the centennial of "The Road Not Taken" For one hundred years, Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" has enchanted and challenged readers with its deceptively simple premise--a person reaches a fork in the road, facing a choice full of doubt and possibility. The Road Not Taken and Other Poems presents Frost's best-loved poem along with other works from his brilliant early years, including such poems as "After Apple-Picking," "The Oven Bird," and "Mending Wall." Award-winning poet and critic David Orr's introduction discusses why Frost remains so central (if often misunderstood) in American culture and how the beautiful intricacy of his poetry keeps inviting generation after generation to search for meaning in his work.For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.From the Trade Paperback edition.
New American Best Friend
by Olivia GatwoodOne of the most recognisable young poets in America, Olivia Gatwood dazzles with her tribute to contemporary American womanhood in her debut book, New American Best Friend.
Gatwood's poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy.
And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.
The Prophet
by Kahlil GibranKahlil Gibran's masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran's musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.Each essay reveals deep insights into the impulses of the human heart and mind. The Chicago Post said of The Prophet: "Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one's ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes . . . If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man's philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth."With twelve full-page drawings by Gibran, this beautiful work makes an incredible gift for anyone seeking enlightenment and inspiration.
The Absurd Man
by Major JacksonIn this knock-out collection, Major Jackson savors the complexity between perception and reality, the body and desire, accountability and judgment. Inspired by Albert Camus’s seminal Myth of Sisyphus, Major Jackson’s fifth volume subtly configures the poet as “absurd hero” and plunges headfirst into a search for stable ground in an unstable world. We follow Jackson’s restless, vulnerable speaker as he ponders creation in the face of meaninglessness, chronicles an increasingly technological world and the difficulty of social and political unity, probes a failed marriage, and grieves his lost mother with a stunning, lucid lyricism. The arc of a man emerges; he bravely confronts his past, including his betrayals and his mistakes, and questions who he is as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a poet. With intense musicality and verve, The Absurd Man also faces outward, finding refuge in intellectual and sensuous passions. At once melancholic and jubilant, Jackson considers the journey of humanity, with all its foibles, as a sacred pattern of discovery reconciled by art and the imagination.
Keats
by John KeatsThese Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover editions are popular for their compact size and reasonable price which do not compromise content. Poems: Keats contains a full selection of Keats's work, including his lyric poems, narrative poems, letters, and an index of first lines.
Chorus
by Saul Williams and Dufflyn Lammers and Aja MonetCHORUS is the anthem of a new generation of poets unified by the desire to transcend the identity politics of the day and begin to be seen as one. One hundred voices woven through testimony and new testament. It is the cry of the unheard. The occupation of the page itself. It embodies the "speak-up" spirit of the moment, the confidence propagated through hip-hop, and the defiant "WTF?" of the now. It is the voice that comes after the rebellious voice that once cried, "I want my MTV!" branded back to where punk was, slammed up and beyond it. A combination of trash, heart, and craft. An anthology in rant. CHORUS is what all modern-day losers chant.
Selected Poetry of Lord Byron
by Leslie A. MarchandPoet, celebrity, and revolutionary, Lord (George Gordon) Byron was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, his distinctive, deeply felt work comprising one of the enduring high points of Romantic literature. From “Manfred,” with its evocation of the figure that came to be called the “Byronic hero,” to the melancholy “Childe Harold,” to the satirical masterpiece “Don Juan” (presented here in judiciously selected form), this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes all of the essential Byron.
The Dogs I Have Kissed
by Trista MateerWinner of the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award, The Dogs I Have Kissed is a collection of poetry about kissing the wrong people and sometimes just being the wrong person. It's a story about leaving until you learn how to stay. Known for her eponymous blog and her confessional style of writing, this is Trista Mateer's second collection of poetry.
Plum
by Hollie McNishHollie McNish has thrilled and entranced audiences the length and breadth of the UK with her compelling and powerful performances.
Plum, her debut for Picador Poetry, is a wise, sometimes rude and piercingly candid account of her memories from childhood to attempted adulthood. This is a book about growing up, about guilt, flesh, fruit, friendships, work and play - and the urgent need to find a voice for the poems that will somehow do the whole glorious riot of it justice.
Throughout Plum, McNish allows her recent poems to be interrupted by earlier writing from her younger selves - voices that speak out from the past with disarming and often very funny results.
Plum is a celebration, a salute to a life in which we are always growing, tripping, changing and discovering new selves to add to our own messy stores. It will leave the reader in no doubt as to why McNish is considered one of the most important poets of the new generation.
Shakespeare's Sonnets
by Paul Werstine and William Shakespeare and Barbara MowatA bestselling, beautifully designed edition of William Shakespeare’s sonnets, complete with valuable tools for educators. The authoritative edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on the facing page of each sonnet -A brief introduction to each sonnet, providing insight into its possible meaning -An index of first lines -Illustrations from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the sonnets The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. 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 Folger.edu.
Glass Float
by Jane MunroLines that attend to shore, air, water, sand, birds, other women; in their gathered particulars they bring us close to the concavities, the complex familiarity and mystery of conscious experience.
Pillow Thoughts
by Courtney PeppernellPillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions.
It is divided into sections to read when you feel you need them most.
Nature Poem
by Tommy PicoNature Poem follows Teebs--a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet--who can't bring himself to write a nature poem.
For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky.
He'd slap a tree across the face.
He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole.
While he's adamant--bratty, even--about his distaste for the word "natural," over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature.
The closer his people were identified with the "natural world," he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush.
But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter.
Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.