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Poetry

WHEN I WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR, I AM

WHEN I WALK THROUGH THAT DOOR, I AM

By: Baca, Jimmy Santiago
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Poet-activist Jimmy Baca immerses the reader in an epic narrative poem, imagining the experience of motherhood in the context of immigration, family separation, and ICE raids on the Southern border.

Jimmy Santiago Baca sends us on a journey with Sophia, an El Salvadorian mother facing a mountain of obstacles, carrying with her the burden of all that has come before: her husband's murder, a wrenching separation from her young son at the border, then rape and abuse at the hands of ICE, yet persevering: "I keep walking/carrying you in my thoughts," she repeats, as she wills her boy to know she is on a quest to find him.

WHERE CLOUDS ARE FORMED

WHERE CLOUDS ARE FORMED

By: Zepeda, Ofelia
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Ofelia Zepeda is a Native American poet who possesses a kind of double vision. She sees the contemporary world through her own highly observant eyes and, at the same time, through the eyes of her Tohono O'odham ancestors. Seeing this way infuses her poetry with a resonance and depth that makes it a delight to read--and re-read.

Zepeda is as clear-eyed about the past as she is about the present. She recalls waiting for the school bus on a cold morning inside her father's truck, listening to the sounds of the engine, the windshield wipers, and the "soft rain on the hood." She remembers celebrating Mass on the "cold dirt floor of the Winter Solstice." In the present, she sees both the frustration and the humor in a woman she observes trying to eat pancakes with one hand while her other resides in a cast: "Watching her, I realize eating pancakes is a two-handed job."

Whatever she sees, she filters through her second set of eyes, which keep the past always present. She tells of traveling to Waw Giwulig, the most sacred mountain of the Tohono O'odham, to ask for blessings--and forgiveness. She writes that one should always bring music to the mountains, "so they are generous with the summer rains." And, still, "the scent of burning wood / holds the strongest memory. / Mesquite, cedar, piñon, juniper, . . . / we catch the scent of burning wood; / we are brought home." It is a joy to see the world afresh through her eyes.

WHILE WEVE STILL GOT FEET

WHILE WEVE STILL GOT FEET

By: Budbill, David
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"Budbill is the perfect antidote for those who find contemporary poetry distanced and obscure."--American Libraries
WHITE TEA BOWL: 100 HAIKU FROM 100 YEARS OF LIFE

WHITE TEA BOWL: 100 HAIKU FROM 100 YEARS OF LIFE

By: Suzuki, Mitsu
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Mitsu Suzuki is the widow of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the Zen monk who founded the San Francisco Zen Center and helped popularize Zen Buddhism in the United States. A White Tea Bowl is a selection of her poems, written after her return to Japan in 1993. These 100 haiku were chosen by editor Kazuaki Tanahashi and translated by Zen teacher Kate McCandless to celebrate Mitsu's 100th birthday on April 27, 2014. The introduction by Zen poet and priest Norman Fischer describes with loving detail a meeting with Mitsu at Rinso-in temple in 2010, considers the formative impact of war in Japan and social upheaval in America on her life, and places her poetry in the evolution of haiku as an international form.
WHITMAN'S WILD CHILDREN: Portraits of Twelve Poets

WHITMAN'S WILD CHILDREN: Portraits of Twelve Poets

By: Cherkovski, Neeli
$18.00
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In "Whitman's Wild Children", Neelie Cherkovski looks at eleven contemporary beat poets -- Michael McClure, Charles Bukowski, John Wieners, James Broughton, Philip Lamantia, Bob Kaufman, Allen Ginsberg, William Everson, Gregory Corso, Harold Norse, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti -- chosen because each, like Whitman, has taken "his own road" and had little to do with what was thought acceptable in mainstream American culture during the 1940's and 1950's. "When Whitman wrote 'Song of Myself", Cherkovski asserts in his introduction, "he stepped off the map and faced the unknown, absolutely alone. He shook off preconceptions of form and content and allowed intuition to lead him forward".
WHY I WAKE EARLY

WHY I WAKE EARLY

By: Oliver, Mary
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The forty-seven new works in this volume include poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer, and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to wake early.
WHY POETRY MATTERS

WHY POETRY MATTERS

By: Parini, Jay
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A brief, passionate book about the nature of poetry and its use in the world

Poetry doesn't matter to most people, observes Jay Parini at the opening of this book. But, undeterred, he commences a deeply felt meditation on poetry, its language and meaning, and its power to open minds and transform lives. By the end of the book, Parini has recovered a truth often obscured by our clamorous culture: without poetry, we live only partially, not fully conscious of the possibilities that life affords. Poetry indeed matters.

A gifted poet and acclaimed teacher, Parini begins by looking at defenses of poetry written over the centuries. He ponders Aristotle, Horace, and Longinus, and moves on through Sidney, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Eliot, Frost, Stevens, and others. Parini examines the importance of poetic voice and the mysteries of metaphor. He argues that a poet's originality depends on a deep understanding of the traditions of political poetry, nature poetry, and religious poetry.

Writing with a casual grace, Parini avoids jargon and makes his case in concise, direct terms: the mind of the poet supplies a light to the minds of others, kindling their imaginations, helping them to live their lives. The author's love of poetry suffuses this insightful book--a volume for all readers interested in a fresh introduction to the art that lies at the center of Western civilization.

WILD NIGHTS: HEART WISDOM FROM FIVE WOMEN POETS

WILD NIGHTS: HEART WISDOM FROM FIVE WOMEN POETS

By: Teasdale, Sara
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A lovely collection of poetry. -- Book Scrounger

In this soul-stirring collection of timeless verse, five legendary female poets address life's pains and sorrows as well as its joys and renewals. The poems appeal to the heart, providing companionship on the rugged path that all must tread. The roster features writers from ancient to modern times: Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
As instapoets continue to make poetry more accessible and popular, they build on the tradition of intimate, confessional works built by earlier generations. No one is more prominent at this heritage than the mysterious, evocative fragments of Sappho, which inspired an earlier generation of female poets to let loose their own talent. From idiosyncratic Dickinson to the passionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning Lowell, the romanticism of Teasdale, and the intense art of St. Vincent Millay -- yet another Pulitzer winner -- these writers were early trailblazers in speaking their emotional truth through their craft.
This handsome volume features original illustrations by Claire Whitmore, a Foreword by poet and novelist Lisa Locascio, and brief biographies of all five poets.

The foreword is amazing. A lovely little anthology with some beautiful poetry by some very talented women. -- From the Inside

WORLD IS ROUND

WORLD IS ROUND

By: Finney, Nikky
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The World Is Round, Nikky Finney's third volume of poetry, collects the wisps of memory we carry with us throughout our earthly lives and weaves them into deft and nuanced poems that emphasize understanding the cycles of life. The settings offer a view into the kaleidoscope of human experience: the sweetness and shock of family life, the omnipresent wash of memory, and the ebullience of warm Southern air. The World Is Round carries with it an implicit challenge--to the author as a poet, and to the reader as a fellow human--to see the characters and details and events of our lives with clarity, fearlessness, and love. The result is poems that range the gamut of human reach and resilience, fury and frailty. The poet's vision of community requires understanding and tolerance from every breathing soul. Finney illuminates the cruelties of the sometimes gawking, narrow-minded world and makes a plea for compassion inspired by our common humanity.

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WORLD OF 10,000 THINGS 1980-90

By: Wright, Charles
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This important book--shot through with reflections on, explorations of, and hymns to both our natural and spiritual realms--features the three poetry collections Charles Wright published during the 1980s: The Southern Cross (1981), The Other Side of the River (1984), and Zone Journals (1988).

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WORLD WAR ONE BRITISH POETS: BROOKE, OWEN, SASSOON, ROSENBERG, OTHERS

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Ironically, the horrors of World War One produced a splendid flowering of British verse as young poets, many of them combatants, confronted their own morality, the death of dear friends, the loss of innocence, the failure of civilization, and the madness of war itself.
This volume contains a rich selection of poems from that time by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and others known especially for their war poetry -- as well as poems by such major poets as Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Robert Bridges, and Rudyard Kipling.
Included among a wealth of memorable verses are Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier," Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," "In the Pink" by Siegfried Sassoon, "In Flanders Fields" by Lieut. Col. McCrae, Robert Bridges' "To the United States of America," Thomas Hardy's "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations, '" as well as works by Walter de la Mare, May Wedderburn Cannan, Ivor Gurney, Alice Meynell, and Edward Thomas.
Moving and powerful, this carefully chosen collection offers today's readers an excellent overview of the brutal range of verse produced as poets responded to the carnage on the fields of Belgium and France.

WORLD WILL FOLLOW JOY: TURNING MADNESS INTO FLOWERS (NEW POEMS)

WORLD WILL FOLLOW JOY: TURNING MADNESS INTO FLOWERS (NEW POEMS)

By: Walker, Alice
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"Poetry is leading us," writes Alice Walker in The World Will Follow Joy. In this luminous collection--a bestseller in hardcover--the beloved writer offers sixty poems to inspire and incite. Penetrating and sensitive, playful and wise, these intensely intimate poems establish a personal connection of rare immediacy between poet and reader, illustrating the very qualities that have won her a devoted following and continue to draw new readers to her writing.

Attentively chronicling the conditions of human life today, Walker shows in her poetry her necessary political commitments, her compassion, and her spirituality. Casting her eye toward history, politics, and nature, as well as to world figures such as Jimmy Carter, Gloria Steinem, and the Dalai Lama, she is indeed a "muse for our times" (Amy Goodman).

The World Will Follow Joy reminds us of our human capacity to come together and take action. Above all, the gems in this collection illuminate what it means to live in our world today.

WRITING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE: TRAVEL JOURNALS 1950-2013

WRITING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE: TRAVEL JOURNALS 1950-2013

By: Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
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Over the course of an adventured-filled life, now in its tenth decade, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been many things: a poet, painter, pacifist, publisher, courageous defender of free speech, and owner of San Francisco's legendary City Lights bookstore. Now the man whose A Coney Island of the Mind became a generational classic reveals yet another facet of his manifold talents, presenting here his travel journals, spanning over sixty years. Selected from a vast trove of mostly unpublished, handwritten notebooks, and edited by Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson, Writing Across the Landscape becomes a transformative work of social, cultural, and literary history.

Beginning with Ferlinghetti's account of serving as a commanding officer on a Navy sub-chaser during D-Day, Writing Across the Landscape dramatically traverses the latter half of the twentieth century. For those only familiar with his poetry, these pages present a Lawrence Ferlinghetti never before encountered, an elegant prose stylist and tireless political activist who was warning against the pernicious sins of our ever-expansive corporate culture long before such thoughts ever seeped into mainstream consciousness.

Yet first and foremost we see an inquisitive wanderer whose firsthand accounts of people and places are filled with pungent descriptions that animate the landscapes and cultures he encounters. Evoking each journey with a mixture of travelogue and poetry as well as his own hand-drawn sketches, Ferlinghetti adopts the role of an American bard, providing panoramic views of the Cuban Revolution in Havana, 1960, and a trip through Haiti, where voodoo and Catholicism clash in cathedrals "filled with ulcerous children's feet running from Baron Hunger." Reminding us that poverty is not only to be found abroad, Ferlinghetti narrates a Steinbeck-like trip through California's Salton Sea, a sad yet exquisitely melodic odyssey from motel to motel, experiencing the life "between cocktails, between filling stations, between buses, trains, towns, restaurants, movies, highways leading over horizons to another Rest Stop...Sad hope of all their journeys to Nowhere and back in dark Eternity."

Particularly memorable is his journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1957, which turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare in which he, lacking a proper visa, is removed from a Japan-bound freighter and forced back across the Russian steppe to Moscow, encountering a countryside more Tolstoy than Khrushchev, while nearly dying in the process. Readers are also treated to glimpses of Ezra Pound, "looking like an old Chinese sage," whom Ferlinghetti espies in Italy, as well as fellow Beat legends Allen Ginsberg and a dyspeptic William S. Burroughs, immured with his cats in a grotto-like apartment in London.

Embedded with facsimile manuscript pages and an array of poems, many never before published, Writing Across the Landscape revives an era when political activism coursed through the land and refashions Lawrence Ferlinghetti, not only as a seminal poet but as an historic and singular American voice.

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By: Galvin, James
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2002 Lannan Award winner explores through poetry the "vertigo of solitude" as his family dissolves.
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XAIPE

By: Cummings, E E
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Among many poems can be found "dying is fine)but Death," "so many selves(so many friends and gods," "when serpents bargain for the right to squirm," "no time ago," "I thank You God for most this amazing," and "now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have."
ZONE: SELECTED POEMS

ZONE: SELECTED POEMS

By: Apollinaire, Guillaume
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Zone is the fruit of poet-translator Ron Padgett's fifty-year engagement with the work of France's greatest modern poet. This bilingual edition of Apollinaire's poetry represents the full range of his achievement from traditional lyric verse to the pathbreaking visual poems he called calligrams, from often-anthologized classics to hitherto-untranslated gems, from poems of cosmic breadth to a poem about his shoes. Including an introduction by the distinguished scholar Peter Read, helpful endnotes, a preface, and an annotated bibliography by Padgett, this new edition of Apollinaire stands out not only for its compact and judicious selection of the essential poems but also as the work of an important American poet. The Washington Post has said, "No praise can be too high for Ron Padgett's translations."