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In the bone-dry land of mesquites and drought, Janice Whittington has found images that allow her to explore woman's place in West Texas and the world from the perspectives of daughter, wife, friend, and mother. Filled with fear and fire, joy and sorrow, dust and water; the poems risk stepping into air, striving to glide like hawks on thermals. "Into a Thousand Mouths is the account of Eve after the fall, after she follows her husband out of the garden and of tilling yield.... It is the account of one woman, of all women--'that female secret of wombs, / the ache that folds into the chest / and stays, a wound / nursed into a jewel ('Daughters'). . . . "The connections between women and a need...
Harrison Michaels is the president of a large internation bank. Success and power came quickly to Harrison and he thrives on both. Married to the perfect wife, Harrison seems to have it all. Harrison's only concern is an investigation by the F.B.I. for alleged illegal money transfers of millions of dollars of corporate funds held by the bank. Even this does not bother Harrison much as he consider the F.B.I. only a mild irritant. Nor is Harrion bothered by the fact the corporate funds are owned by the mob. Harrison is in control and no one can touch him. Harrison's live takes a dramatic turn during a "business" trip to the Cayman Islands when he is notified that his wife has died. Her death, ...
National Book Award finalist Andrew Hudgins offers a meditation on humor, ruminating on the consolations and terrors, delights and discomforts of laughter.
Haven't we all been told how beauty is thin as truth? And don't we believe and disbelieve this "lie we'd carve and starve for. / We'd suck it till the juice ran down our arms"? Skin compels us, repels us. Beauty may be only skin deep, a fine covering--sensuous, at times translucent, almost transparent, and yet so obdurate. Skin insulates, guarding its vital organs just beneath this surface that teases us to peek, to try to penetrate. We call this desire by many names, the best of which is love. April Lindner's sensuously orchestrated collection of poems conveys the beauty and truth of love, how we know it to be paradoxical, obsessive, fearful, rapacious, holy.--Robert FinkFontanelHere's the ...
"Focusing on transformations of love and self over time and in bereavement. White's subjects are autobiographical--love, marriage, the deaths of his father, mother, and, more centrally, his first wife. Questioning memory and self-deception, the poems employ language and metaphors drawn from ordinary life. Winner, Walt McDonald First-Book Competition 2007"--Provided by publisher.
This acclaimed study of Donne's secular and religious poetry places it in the context of 17th century theories of representation and reception, and sheds new light on the poetics of the period.
Inheritance of Light is divided into five sections, each containing poems set in a flowing sequence based on similar themes and concerns. Part One is introductory, surreal poems about the art of poetry and the creative process--an intense opening. Part Two contains autobiographical poems about the family, growing up, and ancestors. Part Three is the political section with a number of poems about war, politics, and global matters. Part Four may have the most personal, confessional, yet universal poems about the poets' reactions to the world around them. Part Five contains poems about journeys, reaffirmation, renewal, life and death, which brings the whole book to an emotional closing.
?Poignant poems about moments of grace, light beaming through darkness, and beauty found in unexpected places. Sullivan employs a consistently investigative approach that immediately draws readers in. His curiosity and humility are disarming, and readers will willingly follow his path of discovery, without fear of getting lost, becoming overpowered, or feeling emotionally spent. Sullivan's deftly written poems have a wonderful and appealing balance of emotion and intellect. Lyrical, elegant, and polished, his poetry resonates with distinctive imagery and music. . . . A strong new poetic voice whose poems add a little more light to the world.? ?BooklistThe poems in Slag begin with everyday ex...
Rick Campbell's journey from the banks of the Ohio to the beaches of Florida is a rhapsody, and the music he makes in ordering his world takes us with him, to the headwaters of a new river."Rick Campbell's poems leave some sweet dirt under your fingernails-- proof of hard, honest work when the longing of small-town America is not enough. Setting the World in Order eloquently plots our geographically impossible trajectories. On the way, Campbell can lay down a narrative as spacious as the range of a blues harmonica, every gritty riff dissolving into compassion."--Dionisio D. Martínez"Rick Campbell's poems move with grace and muscle and music from the Catholic working class of his youth, its ...
The twelfth volume of poems in the Walt McDonald First-Book Series, Gregory Fraser's Strange Pietà is a compelling exploration of illness and family life, memory and desire, friendship and loss. A major focus of the collection is the poet's relationship to his brother Jonathan, who was born with spina bifida, a disease that rendered him both physically and mentally disabled. In rich and often wrenching detail, Fraser describes the emotional turmoil, familiar dysfunction, and complex social responses arising from the birth of a handicapped child.The book examines cultural standards of normalcy, and uncovers those aspects of the self and others that are often considered freakish, unnatural, o...