The Suicide Sonnets


Book Description

In his second book of poetry, presented here, The Suicide Sonnets, Morales combines the art of rhyme, using the sonnet in particular, with a topic very seldom discussed, and considered taboo by many. Despite the subject, the book ends on a note of hope, but to realize this, the book must be read from cover to cover.




Japanese Death Poems


Book Description

"A wonderful introduction the Japanese tradition of jisei, this volume is crammed with exquisite, spontaneous verse and pithy, often hilarious, descriptions of the eccentric and committed monastics who wrote the poems." --Tricycle: The Buddhist Review Although the consciousness of death is, in most cultures, very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or the "death poem." Such a poem is often written in the very last moments of the poet's life. Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet's death, have been translated into English here, the vast majority of them for the first time. Yoel Hoffmann explores the attitudes and customs surrounding death in historical and present-day Japan and gives examples of how these have been reflected in the nation's literature in general. The development of writing jisei is then examined--from the longing poems of the early nobility and the more "masculine" verses of the samurai to the satirical death poems of later centuries. Zen Buddhist ideas about death are also described as a preface to the collection of Chinese death poems by Zen monks that are also included. Finally, the last section contains three hundred twenty haiku, some of which have never been assembled before, in English translation and romanized in Japanese.










Storm Toward Morning


Book Description

"To be both visionary and accurate, true to physics and metaphysics at the same time, is rare and puts the poet in some rarefied company. Black, like a few other younger poets, is willing to include all the traditional effects of the lyric poem in his work, but he has set them going in new and lively ways, with the confidence of virtuosity and a belief in the ancient pleasures of pattern and repetition."—Mark Jarman, American Poet Lush and daring, Malachi Black's poems in Storm Toward Morning press all points along the spectrum of human positions, from sickness, isolation, and insomniac disarray to serenity, wonder, and spiritual yearning. Pulsing at the intersections of "eye and I," body and mind, physical and metaphysical, Black brings distinctive voice, vision, and music to matters of universal mortal concern. Query on Typography What is the light inside the opening of every letter: white behind the angles is a language bright because a curvature of space inside a line is visible is script a sign of what it does or does not occupy scripture the covenant of eye and I with word or what the word defines which is source and which is shrine the light of body or the light behind? Malachi Black holds a BA in literature from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He currently teaches at the University of San Diego and lives in California.




The Suicide's Son


Book Description

"Complicated histories that parents pass on to their children."--




And Still I Rise


Book Description

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Thus begins “Phenomenal Woman,” just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou’s third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh—and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it. “It is true poetry she is writing,” M.F.K. Fisher has observed, “not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes.”




Annabel Lee


Book Description




Phenomenal Woman


Book Description

A collection of beloved poems about women from the iconic Maya Angelou These four poems, “Phenomenal Woman,” “Still I Rise,” “Weekend Glory,” and “Our Grandmothers,” are among the most remembered and acclaimed of Maya Angelou's poems. They celebrate women with a majesty that has inspired and touched the hearts of millions. “Phenomenal Woman” is a phenomenal poem that speaks to us of where we are as women at the dawn of a new century. In a clear voice, Maya Angelou vividly reminds us of our towering strength and beauty.




Poems of Healing


Book Description

A remarkable Pocket Poets anthology of poems from around the world and across the centuries about illness and healing, both physical and spiritual. From ancient Greece and Rome up to the present moment, poets have responded with sensitivity and insight to the troubles of the human body and mind. Poems of Healing gathers a treasury of such poems, tracing the many possible journeys of physical and spiritual illness, injury, and recovery, from John Donne’s “Hymne to God My God, In My Sicknesse” and Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul has Bandaged moments” to Eavan Boland’s “Anorexic,” from W.H. Auden’s “Miss Gee” to Lucille Clifton’s “Cancer,” and from D.H. Lawrence’s “The Ship of Death” to Rafael Campo’s “Antidote” and Seamus Heaney’s “Miracle.” Here are poems from around the world, by Sappho, Milton, Baudelaire, Longfellow, Cavafy, and Omar Khayyam; by Stevens, Lowell, and Plath; by Zbigniew Herbert, Louise Bogan, Yehuda Amichai, Mark Strand, and Natalia Toledo. Messages of hope in the midst of pain—in such moving poems as Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” George Herbert’s “The Flower,” Wisława Szymborska’s “The End and the Beginning,” Gwendolyn Brooks’ “when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story” and Stevie Smith’s “Away, Melancholy”—make this the perfect gift to accompany anyone on a journey of healing. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.