Poetry: Overview
Your guide to all things poetical, including links to the library catalog, web sites about poetry, and connections to poetry happenings locally.
Poetry in Action
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Poetry PlayhouseA place for poetry and play. Featuring visiting poets, writing workshops and classes, retreats, readings, and events.
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Poet-Heart - Poetry Group in AlbuquerquePoetry group through meetup.com with a cooperative bulletin board for events, writer's groups, slams, conventions, and "madcap adventures."
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ABQ SlamsABQSlams provides support and opportunities as well as publicizes events, educational programming through Albuquerque Public Schools, the Albuquerque correctional system and UNM.
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New Mexico State Poetry SocietyMission is to foster the appreciation and creation of poetry in the state of New Mexico. Chapters of the Society choose their own format and activities, which range from workshops, writing activities, round-robins, and youth programs.
Books on Writing Poetry for All Ages
Books on Writing Poetry
For Kids and Teens
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Immersed in Verse by Poetry's hip, poetry's hot, and poetry's a blast with this cool, contemporary guide created in the same entertaining style as the popular In Print! Kids instinctively love poetry--its rhythm, its rhymes, and its playful transformation of ordinary language. And these days, such cutting-edge, youthful forms as rap, hip-hop, and slams have made poetry more relevant than ever. With its fun facts, exciting writing activities, and words of encouragement from a respected professional, Immersed in Verse nurtures the nascent poet in every child. Best of all, these awe-inspiring ideas have nothing in common with blah school assignments. Instead, youngsters rearrange their favorite (or least favorite) poems; start their own poetry workshop; present #147;open mike night” in the basement; and record their friends reciting. Along the way, they'll open more than a few #147;poet's toolboxes.” They'll explore the wonderful world of words and learn about attitude, equipment, techniques (including #147;metaphors be with you”), different styles of verse, revising your writing, getting published, and performing.nbsp; Allan Wolf has served as the educational director for the national touring company Poetry Alive! His books include The Blood-Hungry Spleen and Other Poems about Our Parts and New Found Land. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and three children. A Selection of the Children's Book of the Month Club. -
Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry by Have you ever tried to write a poem about a pizza? How about a pig? How about a pigeon, penguin, potato, Ping-Pong, parrot, puppy, pelican, porcupine, pie, pachyderm, or your parents? Jack Prelutsky has written more than one thousand poems about all of these things--and many others. In this book he gives you the inside scoop on writing poetry and shows you how you can turn your own experiences and stories about your family, your pets, and your friends into poems. He offers tips, advice, and secrets about writing and provides some fun exercises to help you get started (or unstuck). You'll also get a behind-the-scenes look at the ingredients of some of his most popular poems. If you are a poet, want to be a poet, or if you have to write a poem for homework and you just need some help, then this is the book for you! -
Poetry Matters by Maybe you've heard before that poetry is magic, and it made you roll your eyes, but I believe it's true. Poetry matters. At the most important moments, when everyone else is silent, poetry rises to speak. I wrote this book to help you write poems and to give practical ideas for making your poems sound the way you want them to sound. We're not going to smash poems up into the tiniest pieces. This book is about writing poetry, not analyzing it. I want this book to help you have more wonderful. moments in the poetry you write. I want you to feel the power of poetry. it's my hope that through this book you will discover lots of ways to make your poems shine, sing, soar... -- Ralph Fletcher -
Sophie and Sadie Build a Sonnet by Friends Sophie and Sadie learn how to write sonnets with the help of their after-school program teacher. -
How to Write a Poem by All successful people are effective communicators. This series forms a complete set of how-to-references that give young people a solid grounding and practical pointers in all areas of spoken and written communications. Includes a bibliography, a glossary, and an index. -
Catch Your Breath by "Introduces and defines essential elements of writing poetry accompanied by compelling writing prompts for practicing new skills. Real-life author bios and excerpts enhance skills and understanding"-- -
What Is Poetry?: the Essential Guide to Reading and Writing Poems by Celebrated poet and critic Michael Rosen takes readers on a whirlwind tour exploring what poems are, what they can do, and the joys of reading and writing them. For thousands of years, people have been writing poetry. But what is poetry? Award-winning wordsmith Michael Rosen has spent decades thinking about that question, and in this helpful guide he shares his insights with humor, knowledge, and appreciation -- appreciation for poetry and appreciation for twenty-first-century children embarking on their own poetic journeys. Young readers are invited to join him on a welcoming exploration of the British poetic canon, replete with personal insights into what the renowned poet thinks about as he writes and advice on writing their own poetry. When he's finished, readers will be able to say with confidence: this is poetry. Included in this accessible handbook are writing tips, analyses of classic poems, and an appendix of poets and useful websites.
For Adults
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Hewitt's Guide to Slam Poetry and Poetry Slam by All successful people are effective communicators. This series forms a complete set of how-to-references that give young people a solid grounding and practical pointers in all areas of spoken and written communications. Includes a bibliography, a glossary, and an index. -
Ordinary Genius by "The creative process is just that," maintains Kim Addonizio. "Not a means to an end, but an ongoing participation." A widely acclaimed poet and finalist for the National Book Award, Addonizio meditates on her own process as she encourages writers to explore both their personal and political worlds, to seek inspiration from poets new and old, and to discover the rich poetic resources of the Internet. Lively, accessible, and informative, Ordinary Genius?provides wisdom gleaned through personal experience and offers a heady variety of writing exercises. Chapters on gender, addiction, race and class, metaphor and line invite each individual writer to find and to hone his or her unique voice. This is the perfect book for both experienced writers and beginners eager to glimpse the angel of poetry. -
The Ode Less Travelled by I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it. Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. Many of us have never been taught to read or write poetry and think of it as a mysterious and intimidating form. Or, if we have been taught, we remember uncomfortable silence when an English teacher invited the class to "respond" to a poem. In The Ode Less Travelled, Fry sets out to correct this problem by giving aspiring poets the tools and confidence they need to write poetry for pleasure.Fry is a wonderfully engaging teacher and writer of poetry himself, and he explains the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. His enjoyable exercises and witty insights introduce the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Aspiring poets will learn to write a sonnet, on ode, a villanelle, a ballad, and a haiku, among others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of, but never read. The Ode Less Travelledis a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try. BACKCOVER: Advanced Praise: Delightfully erudite, charming and soundly pedagogical guide to poetic form
Fry has created an invaluable and highly enjoyable reference book. Publishers Weekly A smart, sane and entertaining return to the basics
If you like Frys comic manner
this book has a lot of charm
People entirely fresh to the subject could do worse than stick with his cheerful leadership. The Telegraph(UK)
intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed. Observer(UK) "If you learn how to write a sonnet, and Fry shows you how, you may or may not make a poem. But you will unlock the stored wisdom of the form itself." Grey Gowrie, The Spectator(UK)
intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed. Observer(UK) -
Rules for the Dance by "True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance," wrote Alexander Pope. "The dance," in the case of Oliver's brief and luminous book, refers to the interwoven pleasures of sound and sense to be found in some of the most celebrated and beautiful poems in the English language, from Shakespeare to Edna St. Vincent Millay to Robert Frost. With a poet's ear and a poet's grace of expression, Oliver shows what makes a metrical poem work - and enables readers, as only she can, to "enter the thudding deeps and the rippling shallows of sound-pleasure and rhythm-pleasure that intensify both the poem's narrative and its ideas." -
The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Recently appointed as the new U. S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser has been writing and publishing poetry for more than forty years. In the pages of The Poetry Home Repair Manual, Kooser brings those decades of experience to bear. Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art. Using examples from his own rich literary oeuvre and from the work of a number of successful contemporary poets, the author schools us in the critical relationship between poet and reader, which is fundamental to what Kooser believes is poetry’s ultimate purpose: to reach other people and touch their hearts. Much more than a guidebook to writing and revising poems, this manual has all the comforts and merits of a long and enlightening conversation with a wise and patient old friend—a friend who is willing to share everything he’s learned about the art he’s spent a lifetime learning to execute so well. -
Singing School by Quick, joyful, and playfully astringent, with surprising comparisons and examples, this collection takes an unconventional approach to the art of poetry. Instead of rules, theories, or recipes, emphasizes ways to learn from great work: studying magnificent, monumentally enduring poems and how they are made— in terms borrowed from the “singing school” of William Butler Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium.” -
Lessons from a Desperado Poet by 118 tips from America's Cowboy Poet on how to carve a living out of thin air and live with yourself while you do it "Probably the nation's most successful living poet." New York TimesPart memoir, part how-to, all Baxter Black, Lessons from a Desperado Poet is a humorous, witty take on making a living by doing the right thing and trying everything. According to Baxter Black, success "does not require a genius; it just requires the persistence of a glacier. Remember, often it's not ability that gets you ahead, it's reliability. The world is run by those who show up." A mind-tickling romp through the formation, fermentation, and fruition of the author's career as a poet in a country where publishing poetry is "practically illegal," Lessons from a Desperado Poet boldly injects a poem now and again when it is relevant, just to prove a point It's instructional for the entrepreneur, inspirational for the ambitious, and entertaining for the teeming masses. Since it is also a story of continuously overcoming the odds, Lessons from a Desperado Poet leaves a trail of self-improvement and motivational tortilla crumbs that readers will follow with delight before, that is, squirreling them away in their own cerebral pockets for later use." -
You, Too, Could Write a Poem by A collection of reviews and essays by David Orr, the New York Times poetry columnist and one of the most respected critics in America today, his best work of the past fifteen years in one place Poetry is never more vital, meaningful, or accessible than in the hands of David Orr. In the pieces collected here, most of them written originally for the New York Times, Orr is at his rigorous, conversational, and edifying best. Whether he is considering the careers of contemporary masters, such as Louise Gl#65533;ck or Frederick Seidel, sizing up younger American poets, like Matthea Harvey and Matthew Zapruder, or even turning his attention to celebrities and public figures, namely Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Fry, when they choose to wade into the hotly contested waters of the poetry world, Orr is never any less than fully persuasive in arguing what makes a poem or poet great--or not. After all, as Orr points out in his introduction, "Poetry is a lot like America, in the sense that liking all of it means that you probably shouldn't be trusted with money, or scissors." Orr's prose is devoted to common sense and clarity, and, in every case, he brings to bear an impeccable ear, an openhandedness of spirit, and a deep wealth of technical knowledge--to say nothing of his shrewd sense of humor. As pleasurable as it is informative, Orr's journalism represents a high watermark in the public discussion of literature. You, Too, Could Write a Poem is at heart a love note to poetry itself. From the Trade Paperback edition. -
How Poems Get Made by Why does a great lyric poem ask to be reread, even after we know it by heart? In How Poems Get Made, acclaimed poet and critic James Longenbach answers this question by discussing a wide range of exemplary poems, from Shakespeare through Blake, Dickinson, and Moore, to a variety of poets making poems today. In each chapter of How Poems Get Made, Longenbach examines a specific aspect of the poetic medium--including Diction, Syntax, Rhythm, Echo, Figure, and Tone--and shows how a poet may manipulate these most basic elements to bring a poem to life.
Recent Poetry Titles for All Ages
New Poetry Titles
For Kids and Teens
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Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids by Edited by award-winning and bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride. Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. Young protagonists will meet relatives from faraway, mysterious strangers, and sometimes one another (plus one scrappy rez dog). They are the heroes of their own stories. Featuring stories and poems by: Joseph Bruchac Art Coulson Christine Day Eric Gansworth Carole Lindstrom Dawn Quigley Rebecca Roanhorse David A. Robertson Andrea L. Rogers Kim Rogers Cynthia Leitich Smith Monique Gray Smith Traci Sorell, Tim Tingle Erika T. Wurth Brian Young In partnership with We Need Diverse Books -
Plymouth Rocks! by The history of Plymouth Rock is explained--by the rock itself. Playful, clever verses offer a comprehensive window into the events leading up to the 1620 landing and beyond, dispelling common misconceptions along the way. Alternating with Rock's poems is a witty analysis of the truthfulness of its statements, told in the voice of the Fact Checker. Truly a history book for today's savvy media consumers! -
This Poem Is a Nest by A Kirkus Reviews Best Book An NCTE Notable Poetry Book This beautiful poetry collection introduces readers to the art of found poetry as the poet writes a 37-line poem, "Nest," then finds 160 smaller poems within it. What can you find in a poem about a robin's nest? Irene Latham masterfully discovers "nestlings" or smaller poems about an astonishing variety of subjects--emotions, wild animals, natural landmarks on all seven continents, even planets and constellations. Each poem is a glorious spark of wonder that will prompt readers to look at the world afresh. The book includes an introduction detailing the principles of found poetry and blackout poetry, and a section of tips at the end. The joyous creativity in this volume is certain to inspire budding poets. -
Poems to Live Your Life By by A gorgeously illustrated collection of poems for every walk of life Curated by artist and writer Chris Riddell, Poems to Live Your Life By is a beautifully illustrated collection of poems for readers young and old to carry with them as they grow. The book includes favorites, both old and new--from selections of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets to original poems by Neil Gaiman to lyrics to an indie rock song by Phoebe Bridgers. It is divided into different subjects and includes poems about youth, love, imaginings, and endings. Brought to life by Chris Riddell's striking artwork, Poems to Live Your Life By is the kind of book that readers can return to again and again at different moments in their life. Call Number: Check it out now - only available through hoopla digital! -
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood by The New York Times Best Seller For the first time ever, 75 beloved songs from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and The Children's Corner are collected in this charmingly illustrated treasury, sure to be cherished by generations of children as well as the millions of adults who grew up with Mister Rogers. It's you I like. It's not the things you wear, It's not the way you do your hair-- But it's you I like. From funny to sweet, silly to sincere, the lyrics of Mister Rogers explore such universal topics as feelings, new siblings, everyday life, imagination, and more. Through these songs--as well as endearing puppets and honest conversations--Mister Rogers instilled in his young viewers the values of kindness, self-awareness, and self-esteem. But most of all, he taught children that they are loved, just as they are. Perfect for bedtime, sing-along, or quiet time alone, this beautiful book of meaningful poetry is for every child--including the child inside of every one of us.Call Number: eBook -
Just Like Me by I am a canvas Being painted on By the words of my family Friends And community From Vanessa Brantley-Newton, the author of Grandma's Purse, comes a collection of poetry filled with engaging mini-stories about girls of all kinds- girls who feel happy, sad, scared, powerful; girls who love their bodies and girls who don't; country girls, city girls; girls who love their mother and girls who wish they had a father. With bright portraits in Vanessa's signature style of vibrant colors and unique patterns and fabrics, this book invites readers to find themselves and each other within its pages.
For Adults
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American Melancholy by A new collection of poetry from an American literary legend, her first in twenty-five years Joyce Carol Oates is one of our most insightful observers of the human heart and mind, and, with her acute social consciousness, one of the most insistent and inspired witnesses of a shared American history. Oates is perhaps best known for her prodigious output of novels and short stories, many of which have become contemporary classics. However, Oates has also always been a faithful writer of poetry. American Melancholy showcases some of her finest work of the last few decades. Covering subjects big and small, and written in an immediate and engaging style, this collection touches on both the personal and political. Loss, love, and memory are investigated, along with the upheavals of our modern age, the reality of our current predicaments, and the ravages of poverty, racism, and social unrest. Oates skillfully writes characters ranging from a former doctor at a Chinese People's Liberation Army hospital to Little Albert, a six-month-old infant who took part in a famous study that revealed evidence of classical conditioning in human beings. -
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz's highly anticipated follow-up toWhen My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American Book Award Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages--bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers--be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness: "Let me call my anxiety,desire, then. / Let me call it,a garden." In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality. Diaz defies the conditions from which she writes, a nation whose creation predicated the diminishment and ultimate erasure of bodies like hers and the people she loves: "I am doing my best to not become a museum / of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out. // I am begging:Let me be lonely but not invisible."Postcolonial Love Poem unravels notions of American goodness and creates something more powerful than hope--in it, a future is built, future being a matrix of the choices we make now, and in these poems, Diaz chooses love. -
Nail the Evening Is Hung On by In her debut collection, Monica Sok uses poetry to reshape a family's memory about the Khmer Rouge regime--memory that is both real and imagined--according to a child of refugees. Driven by myth-making and fables, the poems examine the inheritance of the genocide and the profound struggles of searing grief and PTSD. Though the landscape of Cambodia is always present, it is the liminal space, the in-betweenness of diaspora, in which younger generations must reconcile their history and create new rituals. A Nail the Evening Hangs On seeks to reclaim the Cambodian narrative with tenderness and an imagination that moves towards wholeness and possibility. -
Obit by The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2020 Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 NPR's Best Books of 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, Longlist Frank Sanchez Book Award After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grief during a feverish two weeks by writing scores of poetic obituaries for all she lost in the world. InObit, Chang writes of "the way memory gets up after someone has died and starts walking." These poems reinvent the form of newspaper obituary to both name what has died ("civility," "language," "the future," "Mother's blue dress") and the cultural impact of death on the living. Whereas elegy attempts to immortalize the dead, an obituary expresses loss, and the love for the dead becomes a conduit for self-expression. In this unflinching and lyrical book, Chang meets her grief and creates a powerful testament for the living. "When you lose someone you love, the world doesn't stop to let you mourn. Nor does it allow you to linger as you learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart. Indeed, this daily indifference to being left behind epitomizes the unique pain of grieving. Victoria Chang captures this visceral, heart-stopping ache inObit,the book of poetry she wrote after the death of her mother. Although Chang initially balked at writing an obituary, she soon found herself writing eulogies for the small losses that preceded and followed her mother's death, each one an ode to her mother's life and influence. Chang also thoughtfully examines how she will be remembered by her own children in time."--Time Magazine -
The First Free Women by The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elder Nuns") is the oldest collection of known writings from Buddhist women and one of the earliest collections of women's literature in India. Composed during the life of the Buddha, the collection contains verses by early Buddhist nuns detailing everything from their disenchantment with their prescribed roles in society to their struggles on the path to enlightenment to their spiritual realizations. Among the nuns, a range of voices are represented, including former wives, women who lost children, women who gave up their wealth, and a former prostitute. In The First Free Women, Matty Weingast revives this ancient collection with a contemporary and radical adaptation. In this poetic re-envisioning that remains true to the original essence of each poem, he infuses each verse with vivid language that is not found in other translations. Simple yet profound, the nuance of language highlights the beauty in each poem and resonates with modern readers exploring the struggles, grief, failures, doubts, and ultimately, moments of profound insight of each woman. Weingast breathes fresh life into this ancient collection of poetry, offering readers a rare glimpse of Buddhism through the spiritual literature and poetry of the first female disciples of the Buddha. -
The Terrible by Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize * Longlisted for the 2019 PEN Open Book Award "Devastating and lyrical." --The New York Times "Suspenseful and affecting." --The New Yorker From the celebrated poet behind bone, a collection of poems that tells a story of coming-of-age, uncovering the cruelty and beauty of the world, going under, and finding redemption Through her signature sharp, searing poems, this is the story of Yrsa Daley-Ward and all the things that happened. "Even the terrible things. And God, there were terrible things." It's about her childhood in the northwest of England with her beautiful, careworn mother Marcia; the man formerly known as Dad (half fun, half frightening); and her little brother Roo, who sees things written in the stars. It's also about the surreal magic of adolescence, about growing up and discovering the power and fear of sexuality, about pitch-gray days of pills and powder and connection. It's about damage and pain, but also joy. With raw intensity and shocking honesty, The Terrible is a collection of poems that tells the story of what it means to lose yourself and find your voice. "You may not run away from the thing that you are because it comes and comes and comes as sure as you breathe."Call Number: eAudiobook -
The Death of Sitting Bear by "These are the poems of a master poet. . . . When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming." -- Joy Harjo, Mvskoke Nation, U.S. Poet Laureate Pulitzer Prize winner and celebrated American master N. Scott Momaday returns with a radiant collection of more than 200 new and selected poems rooted in Native American tradition. "The poems in this book reflect my deep respect for and appreciation of words. . . . I believe that poetry is the highest form of verbal expression. Although I have written in other forms, I find that poems are what I want and need most to read and write. They give life to my mind." One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing--most notably the Native American oral tradition--are the centerpiece of his work. This luminous collection demonstrates Momaday's mastery and love of language and the matters closest to his heart. To Momaday, words are sacred; language is power. Spanning nearly fifty years, the poems gathered here illuminate the human condition, Momaday's connection to his Kiowa roots, and his spiritual relationship to the American landscape. The title poem, "The Death of Sitting Bear" is a celebration of heritage and a memorial to the great Kiowa warrior and chief. "I feel his presence close by in my blood and imagination," Momaday writes, "and I sing him an honor song." Here, too, are meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the incomparable and holy landscape of the Southwest. The Death of Sitting Bear evokes the essence of human experience and speaks to us all. -
Catrachos by The breathtaking debut collection from one of America's most inventive new poets A name for the people of Honduras,Catrachos is a term of solidarity and resilience. In these unflinching, riveting poems, Roy G. Guzmán reaches across borders--between life and death and between countries--invoking the voices of the lost. Part immigration narrative, part elegy, and part queer coming-of-age story,Catrachosfinds its own religion in fantastic figures such as the X-Men, pop singers, and the "Queerodactyl," which is imagined in a series of poems as a dinosaur sashaying in the shadow of an oncoming comet, insistent on surviving extinction. With exceptional energy, humor, and inventiveness, Guzmán's debut is a devastating display of lyrical and moral complexity--an introduction to an immediately captivating, urgently needed voice. -
Every Day We Get More Illegal by Included inPublishers Weekly's Top 10 Poetry Books of 2020 andLitHub's Most Anticipated Books of the Year! A State of the Union from the nation's first Latino Poet Laureate. Trenchant, compassionate, and filled with hope. "Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed."--New York Times "Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be."--NPR "Juan Felipe Herrera's magnificent new poems in Every Day We Get More Illegal testify to the deepest parts of the American dream--the streets and parking lots, the stores and restaurants and futures that belong to all--from the times when hope was bright, more like an intimate song than any anthem stirring the blood."--Naomi Shihab Nye,The New York Times Magazine "From Basho to Mandela, Every Day We Get More Illegal takes us on an international tour for a lesson in the history of resistance from a poet who declares, 'I had to learn . . . to take care of myself . . . the courage to listen to my self.' In ways subtle and sometimes proudly loud, this book makes it clear exactly why Juan Felipe Herrera continues to be recognized and sought after for his work. You hold in your hands evidence of who we really are."--Jericho Brown, author ofThe Tradition "InEvery Day We Get More Illegal Juan Felipe Herrera shows off all of his styles. These poems talk directly to America, to migrant people, and to working people. Herrera has created a chorus to remind us we are alive and beautiful and powerful."--José Olivarez, Author ofCitizen Illegal "The poet comes to his country with a book of songs, and asks: America, are you listening? We better listen. There is wisdom in this book, there is a choral voice that teaches us 'to gain, pebble by pebble, seashell by seashell, the courage.' The courage to find more grace, to find flames."--Ilya Kaminsky, author ofDeaf Republic In this collection of poems, written during and immediately after two years on the road as United States Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera reports back on his travels through contemporary America. Poems written in the heat of witness, and later, in quiet moments of reflection, coalesce into an urgent, trenchant, and yet hope-filled portrait. The struggle and pain of those pushed to the edges, the shootings and assaults and injustices of our streets, the lethal border game that separates anddivides, and then: a shift of register, a leap for peace and a view onto the possibility of unity. Every Day We Get More Illegal is a jolt to the conscience--filled with the multiple powers of the many voices and many textures of every day in America. "Former Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera should also be Laureate of our Millennium--a messenger who nimbly traverses the transcendental liminalities of the United States to then speak from the body politic in confrontation with an enemy system that threatens the networks that make us ethical and humane. Every book he writes becomes his best book and this collection is no exception. He brings unity and vulnerability to this wide-ranging and prophetic volume."--Carmen Gimenez Smith, author ofBe Recorder -
How to Fly (in Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) by In this intimate collection, the beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. In her second poetry collection, Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with "how to" poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins. Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders--birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees--all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves. Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It's all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished.
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