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  Blues in Stereo - The Early...

  Langston Hughes

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  Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith. Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess became synonymous with American poetry, he was a seventeen-year-old on a train to Mexico City, seeking funds to pursue his passion. His early poems, beloved verses like “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” were written without formal training, often on the back of napkins and envelopes, and were inspired by the sights and sounds of Black working-class people he encountered in his early life.  Blues in Stereo is a posthumous collection of these early works, in which we see Langston Hughes like we’ve never seen him before. In the intimate pages of his handwritten journals,you will travel with Hughes outside of Harlem as he ventures to the American South and Mexico, sails through the Caribbean, and becomes the only Harlem renaissance poet to visit Africa. He celebrates love as a tool of liberation in his poems and journal entries. His songs included showcase musicality of verse poetry. And the book even includes a play he co-wrote with Duke Ellington with a full score that experiments with rhythm and structure. Blues in Stereo portrays a young man coming of age in a changing world. Page by page, a young, fresh-faced Hughes contends with matters beyond his years with raw talent. National Book Award nominated poet Danez Smith offers their insight and notes on themes, challenges, and obsessions that Hughes early work contains. Blues in Stereo foreshadows a master poet that will go on to define literature for centuries to come.  

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  The Merry Wives of Windsor

  William Shakespeare

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  First published in 1602 by William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor features the popular figure Sir John Falstaff, who first appeared in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Some speculate that Merry Wives was written at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I, who wanted to see Falstaff in love; and that Shakespeare was forced to rush its creation as a result, and so it remains one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded plays.
  The play revolves around two intertwined plots: the adventures of the rogue Falstaff who plans to seduce several local wives, and the story of young Anne Page who is being wooed by prominent citizens while she has her sights set on young Fenton. The wives come together to teach Falstaff a lesson, and in the end love triumphs.
  The Merry Wives of Windsor is believed to have been first performed in 1597 and was subsequently published in quarto in 1602, in a second quarto in 1619, and then in the 1623 First Folio. Despite holding a lesser place in Shakespeare's canon, it was one of the first Shakespearean plays to be performed in 1660, after the reinstatement of Charles II and theatre once again was permitted to be performed in London.

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  Me You Then Snow

  Khashayar Mohammadi

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  Me, You, Then Snow by Khashayar Mohammadi is a collection of poetry woven from dreams, memories and deep-seeded longing, a collection of poetry that ranges from ambiguously addressed love-letters, to ekphrastic poems for arthouse cinema, to pieces written near midnight when the day’s experiences rush back into view. Though working in diverse forms and styles, the poetry manifests as a profoundly unified desire to experience and communicate the world.

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  The Poetry of Edna St Vincent...

  Edna St Vincent Millay

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  Elinor Morton Hoyt was born on 7th September, 1885 in Somerville, New Jersey and from age 12 grew up in Washington D C where her father served as assistant attorney general and later solicitor general.  Her early education together with her renowned beauty suggests she was being trained for life as a debutante but her life quickly found another route as she became absorbed in the world of books. 
   
  An early marriage following her graduation ended when, after being pursued by Horace Wylie, 17 years her senior and a married Washington lawyer with three children, she eloped to England with him.  His wife would not divorce him and the subsequent scandal was widely publicised further fueled by the suicide in 1912 of her abandoned husband. 
   
  With Wylie's encouragement she published in 1912, ‘Incidental Number’, assembled from poems of the previous decade. 
   
  Despite a child from her first marriage Elinor subsequently endured miscarriages, a stillbirth and a premature child who lived for only one week.  When Wylie’s deserted wife agreed to a divorce, the couple returned to the United States and married but they were already drawing apart. 
   
  In 1921, Elinor’s ‘Nets to Catch the Wind’, was published. It was an immediate success and a prize-winner.  In New York’s literary circles she found her next husband who acted as her agent – the poer William Rose Benét, brother of the famed Stephen. They married in 1923 and that same year ‘Black Armor’, was published. The New York Times said "There is not a misplaced word or cadence in it."  She also published her first of four novels, ‘Jennifer Lom’, to excellent reviews. 
   
  She worked for a time as the poetry editor of Vanity Fair, an editor of Literary Guild, and a contributing editor of The New Republic.  Her third book of poetry, ‘Trivial Breath’ arrived in 1928 as did the failure of her marriage with Benét.  
   
  She moved again to England and fell in love with a friend’s husband, to whom she wrote, and later published a series of 19 sonnets; ‘Angels and Earthly Creatures’. 
   
  Elinor Wylie suffered high blood pressure all her adult life and this eventually led to her death at Benet’s New York apartment on 16th December, 1928 where she suffered a stroke. She was 43. 
   
  1 - The Poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay - An Introduction 
  2 - The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  3 - Dirge Without Music by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  4 - Renascence by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  5 - If Still Your Orchards Bear by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  6 - My Heart Being Hungry by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  7 - First Fig by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  8 - Feast by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  9 - Second Fig by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  10 - No Rose That in a Garden Ever Grew by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  11 - Three Songs of Shattering by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  12 - Rosemary by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  13 - I Too Beneath Your Moon by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  14 - Sonnet XLIII - What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  15 - Sorrow by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  16 - Departure by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  17 - Travel by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  18 - Journey by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  19 - Mist in the Valley by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  20 - Tavern by Edna St Vinent Millay 
  21 - Exiled by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  22 - A Visit to the Asylum by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  23 - Recuerdo by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  24 - The Philosopher by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  25 - Sonnet XXX -  Love is Not All by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  26 - Sonnet XVIII - I, Being Born a Woman by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  27 - The Betrothal by Edna St Vincent Millay 
  28 - When I Too Long Have Looked Upon Your Fa

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  Metamorphoses

  Publius Ovidius Naso

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  Ovid's Metamorphoses is an epic poem written in Latin, composed of fifteen books, which explores the theme of transformation and change. The narrative follows a chronological order, beginning with the world's creation and ending with the reign of Julius Caesar. Ovid retells traditional Greek and Roman myths, focusing on the transformations of gods, heroes, and mortals as they undergo physical, emotional, and psychological changes that reflect the complexities of the human experience. Some of the most famous stories in the Metamorphoses include the tales of Apollo and Daphne, Pyramus and Thisbe, Narcissus and Echo, and the fall of Icarus.
  While modern scholars consider this epic poem to be Ovid's magnum opus, the work was not well received by its contemporaries; the Roman emperor Augustus went so far as to exile Ovid and ban his books from Rome's libraries. Today, this work is considered one of the most influential works in Western culture and has inspired countless authors like Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dante.

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  Persephone's Pancreas - A Myth &...

  Imé Corkery

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  Experience the raw and unfiltered journey of Imé Corkery as she fearlessly confronts the harsh realities of a rare and agonizing chronic illness in her breathtaking debut collection, Persephone's Pancreas. In this remarkable memoir of creative nonfiction, Imé takes you on an unforgettable odyssey that traverses the chasm between illness and earthly delights. From Netflix binges to the warmth of oxytocin, and from the intimacy of hospital date nights to the touch of the divine, this is a story that will capture your heart and soul. Imé Corkery's brave narrative not only explores the trials and tribulations of living with Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction (SOD), a rare and excruciating chronic illness, but also delves deep into the essence of love, both human and mythological. As you embark on this medical journey alongside our resilient heroine, you'll witness the escalating trials, the strengthening of drugs, and the profound descent into a world of myth. Persephone's Pancreas is a profound exploration of love, pain, and the intricate dance between the two. If you've ever experienced the rawness of human emotions, this poetic masterpiece is a must-read, offering solace and inspiration to all who seek the light in the darkest of times. 
  Harrowing, sharp-witted, tender, raw and necessary, this is an indelible account from a poet with the sheer nerve to keep testifying, even when ‘pain is at its zenith.’ Persephone’s Pancreas is a collection from a writer who deserves the title heroine. - Tracey Slaughter  
  Persephone's Pancreas draws us skin to skin with chronic pain...sensory detail, myth and the everyday, to find the things needed to survive the liminal and lost zones of a long ‘sick girl summer.’- Aimee-Jane Anderson-O’Connor

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