Few poets in America today can write as solemnly and truthfully as Jim Barnes about the heritage of America, a heritage as wide as the continent itself.Jim Barnes's aesthetic is vivid throughout these poems. A high sense of loss pervades the book, but Barnes's strong-willed persona never regrets what has passed. Instead, the persona gains strength ......
The author of 'Eelgrass' and 'The Kentucky Stories' now offers a collection of 'mysterious and beautiful' (Lee Smith) stories, 'as subtle, syntactically graceful, and beautiful as any I've seen' (Toby Olson).
Born in Switzerland in 1878, Robert Walser worked as a bank clerk, a butler in a castle, and an inventor's assistant before discovering what William H. Gass calls his ''true profession.'' From 1899 until he was misdiagnosed a schizophrenic and hospitalized in 1933, Walser produced nine novels and more than a thousand short stories and prose ......
I could not leave this book aside nor, among so many worthy others, could I choose another. It interested me, crooned to me, and in the end I loved it. I hope he writes many more. Read it. You will see why.'' Dave Smith ''A poet whose own craft is beyond dispute and whose gifted heart has something to tell us about our ordinary selves we had ......
Remarkable for its relentless truth-telling, and the depth and thoroughness of its investigation, for the freshness of its sources, and for the shock power of its findings. Even a reader who is not unfamiliar with the sources and literature of the subject can be jolted by its impact.--C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books ''Dark Journey is a ......
In Wyatt Prunty's new collection of poems, people either keep their balance or, doubting it, tip and fall. A small girl struggles to ride her bike among older children already 'stable as little gyros.' Ice-skating with friends, a boy suddenly drops from sight, and drowns. The poet of Paterson stands at the edge of his Jersey waterfall and knows ......
''Breast cancer is confronted here with keen sensitivity and candor in poems that are serious but not sentimental or self-pitying. . . . Almost all the verses are written in direct and prose-like style---this creates a singular tone and lends the collection richness and resilience. And though terrible grief and loss emerge in there pages, so do ......
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) is best known for his poetry (Chicago Poems, Smoke and Steel, and Good Morning, America), his books for children, including Rootabaga Country and Potato Face, and his six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Illinois author devoted his life to writing, ......
In this major new collection, John Hollander displays the elegance, versatility, and wit that mark him as perhaps the most urbane poet in America. 'In Time and Place' features a generous offering of new verse, an extended prose piece, and a series of prose poems previously available only in a rare, privately published edition.The tightly rhymed ......
