Peaches & Penumbras


Book Description

A collection of poetry by Chicago author Bryan Wilson Topics range from the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq war to a young man's quest for love




Times of Creative Destruction


Book Description

Times of Creative Destruction is about the years that followed the end of WWII, one of the most seminal and dramatic epochs in human history, during which extraordinary star-buildings were born, cities exploded, and an unprecedented world of a ‘Third Ecology’ emerged. Never before was there such a flurry of daring mega-constructions, such daring spatial acrobatics, ‘star’ buildings by star architects attained by star developers, mega-constructions, technological feats, and flourishing spatial acrobatics. But, for all its exhilarating creativity, this was also an era of unanticipated, intractable, irreversible destruction reducing the uniqueness and diversity of cultural, social and ecological peaks and valleys of our world, to a ‘desert flatland’, environmental inequality and unhappiness. This book critically discusses and revaluates these contradictory events, bringing together and commenting on a selection of shorter key texts by Tzonis and Lefaivre, the product of a rare research and writing partnership. The texts, published between the early 1960s and the present, are significant as documents that inform about the period. They are also important and timely because of their critical and influential role in the debates of this era, both creative and destructive.




Walt Whitman's Song of Myself


Book Description

An intelligent introduction to this famous poem, including contextual information, an overview of critical reception and critical extracts, key passages with commentary and annotation, and the poem in its full 'final' 1881 edition.




The Handy Literature Answer Book


Book Description

Get the most out of reading with this an engaging and fun guide to the deeper meanings in great works of literature! From the epic of Gilgamesh to Aristotle and Cicero, and from Shakespeare and the King James Bible to Wuthering Heights, War and Peace, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Nobel-winning lyrics of Bob Dylan, the world of literature is an integral part of our lives. Great literature can shape and form thoughts and opinions as well as influence politics and predict the future. Reading can truly enrich our lives, but it can sometimes be daunting to get the most out of a great work of literature. The Handy Literature Answer Book: Understand and Enjoy Meanings, Symbolism, and Signs in Great Works is an engaging, easy-to-read look at literature basics such as themes, symbols, context, and other literary devices. Different literary forms, including novels, poems, plays, short stories, memoirs, and literary nonfiction are analyzed. Hundreds of important stories and great works are used as illustrative examples. Learn about the five basic questions for any work of literature, including “What is the significance of a title?” “What is conflict?” “What is character development?” “What is point of view?” “How does a setting affect a story?” “What are the different schools of literary criticism?” and many more. Bringing the most out of the reading experience, The Handy Literature Answer Book deciphers and analyzes stories, novels, and verses through insightful in-depth answers to nearly 400 common questions. You will also read about such fascinating tidbits as ... What are the key components of literature? How is reading literature different from other kinds of reading? Why is artful reading so hard? What do poems do? How should a poem be read for its comparisons—metaphors and similes? What, according to Poe, should be the method of the short story writer? How do you recognize the difference between story and plot in a short story? How can you recognize a symbol? What are the defining characteristics of the novel? How did the novel evolve from a popular literary entertainment to the modern novel? What is the difference between drama and theater? What is the best way to understand and appreciate Shakespearean drama? What approaches should you take in reading an essay? What are characteristics of a memoir? This handy primer from two highly regarded experts also includes a glossary of essential literary terms, a timeline, a helpful bibliography, and an extensive index, adding to its usefulness. Making reading more enriching, rewarding, and enjoyable, The Handy Literature Answer Book is a wonderful, eye-opening read!




Crafting Poems and Stories


Book Description

Crafting Poems and Stories is an inspiring new guide to creative writing. Comprehensive in its treatment of poetry and fiction, this book offers the features that students most often request, including concise definitions of basic terms of poetry and short fiction, focused discussion of craft, exciting literary models, and engaging hands-on exercises. It is an accessible guide that renders the material of introductory creative-writing courses more readily engaging, so that beginning writers can see greater progress reflected in their poems and short stories over the course of a single semester. Features: • Includes 60 poems and 9 complete stories, ranging from classic to contemporary • Each chapter includes craft-focused discussion questions and writing prompts and exercises • Includes appendices on workshopping poetry and fiction and on resources for writers seeking publication





Book Description

This book is a compilation of recent Yiddish, Israeli and American-Jewish poetry in one compact volume. "Eleanor Ehrenkranz's Jewish poetry anthology encapsulates the agony of the Middle East in distilled images that pierce the heart." -Tovah Feldshuh, actress "I have to admit that I don't usually like poetry...But ever since I first read it, I have made an exception for Yankev Glatshteyn's Praying the Sunset Prayer, which expertly performs what I believe to be the function of art: to suggest to us why life is worth living." -Dara Horn, novelist "I loved reading Robert Pinsky's poem The Night Game. It is wonderfully wise and evocative, characteristically American and Jewish. I see, in Pinsky's words, the limitless opportunities of America through the lens of America's game, baseball." -Senator Joseph I. Lieberman "Rachel Korn's I Am Soaked Th rough By You is a beautifully economical history of love, soaked through with passion, tenderness and gratitude." -Judith Viorst, poet and novelist




The Sixties


Book Description

Say “the Sixties” and the images start coming, images of a time when all authority was defied and millions of young Americans thought they could change the world—either through music, drugs, and universal love or by “putting their bodies on the line” against injustice and war. Todd Gitlin, the highly regarded writer, media critic, and professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, has written an authoritative and compelling account of this supercharged decade—a decade he helped shape as an early president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and an organizer of the first national demonstration against the Vietnam war. Part critical history, part personal memoir, part celebration, and part meditation, this critically acclaimed work resurrects a generation on all its glory and tragedy.




The New American Poetry, 1945-1960


Book Description

With more than 100,000 copies sold, The New American Poetry has become one of the most influential anthologies published in the United States since World War II. As one of the first counter-cultural collections of American verse, this volume fits in Robert Lowell's famous definition of the raw in American poetry. Many of the contributors once derided in the mainstream press of the period are now part of the postmodern canon: Olson, Duncan, Creeley, Guest, Ashbery, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Levertov, O'Hara, Snyder, Schuyler, and others. Donald Allen's The New American Poetry delivered the first taste of these remarkable poets, and the book has since become an invaluable historical and cultural record, now available again for a new generation of readers.




Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song


Book Description

A monumental gathering of writings by over 60 authors (from Emerson to Rudolfo Anaya) that traces Whitman's continuing influence on world literature. Revised second edition.




History Plays


Book Description

". . . sheer subversive bravado . . ." - The New York Times Here are six enthusiastically received history plays by Charles Mee: The Life of George Washington, Full Circle, The War to End War, Vienna: Lusthaus, Gone, and Requiem for the Dead. "The War to End War . . . is engrossing as it spins its arguments, brilliant even in its detours and diversions. . . . When the lights came back up, it was clear Mee had blown the collective mind of the audience. By sheer force of intellect and provocation, he had violated nearly all rules of theater-making and playwriting, in an evening that was never boring. . . . If there were more smart theater like this, more smart people would go to see theater." - theater2k.com "The titillating eeriness of impending doom is exploited so gorgeously in Vienna: Lusthaus that you can understand how civilizations become complicit in their own demise. A . . . seamless amalgam of dance, music and drama is set before World War I in Vienna, where Freud and Hitler overlapped, which it presents in a delicately surreal fashion as a hothouse of sensuality and incipient Nazism." - The New York Times "Through the ages, the tale of the judgment of the chalk circle has been told many times by many authors, but never, ever, not once in a blue moon, has it been told with the abundant imagination and affirmation of [Charles Mee's Full Circle] at Steppenwolf Theatre. . . . This is, as its final stage picture so beautifully shows, a play of hope, one that believes some good may someday come from our turbulent times. Rarely has that hope been expressed with such passion, such strength, such joy." - Chicago Tribune