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  Failure to Thrive

  Suzannah Showler

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  Poetry of ambivalence, humour, and doubt that belies a kind of optimism  
  
  Dumpster fires outside discount stores and rotting whale carcasses; optical illusions and memento mori—all “coming to you direct, / by way of this Rube Goldberg machine.” Failure to Thrive zigzags through excess, taking in the big picture through the lens of a pinhole camera. These poems ask us to lean into our senses, to “spend time loitering, slipping coins into attention’s slots, / anticipating the next big pay-off.” 
  Hip and cerebral, this witty collection is as quick to make fun of itself as it is to turn its humour outward, where false historians have free rein, answers come in the form of questions, and the apocalypse seems like a good time to knit a sweater. Suzannah Showler’s debut shows us how a failing world can be the site of aesthetic renewal rather than decline.

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  Short Poetry Collection 146

  Various Various

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  This is a collection of 29 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for July 2015.

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  Poetry of World War I The - The...

  Laurence Binyon, Ivor Gurney,...

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  War may be rationalized as ‘diplomacy by other means’ but the reality is that when tribes, Nations and peoples bring themselves into armed conflict with one another mayhem, terror and slaughter are the result. 
  In the First World War, The Great War, The War to End all Wars any idealistic aims that it was a ‘just cause’ and would be all over in a few months were shattered against the vast scale of millions dead or wounded all, for the often temporary gains of a few miles of shell-pocked mud.  Human bodies were of little more value than the bullets and shells which mowed them down. 
  In this poetry volume we have distilled an enormous number of poets and poems into a selection that moves from the witness to searing horror and terror of battle to almost forgotten moments of recuperation and reflection both at the front and at home. 
  Out of the carnage has flowered works of fractured beauty, symbols of those we have lost and reminders of what we have lost. 
  These words to bear witness for what they have experienced. Each has an individual point of view that bears its own truth. 
  This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing.  Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

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  The Long War Dead

  Bryan Alec Floyd

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  “Terse, hard hitting poems that treat the Vietnam War in the style of the Spoon River Anthology: portraits (often posthumous) of 47 marines who served in Vietnam and what the war did to them.” — Los Angeles Herald Examiner

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  Caedmon's Hymn

  Caedmon

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  Cædmon was an Anglo-Saxon herdsman attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (657–681). Originally ignorant of the art of song, Cædmon learned to compose one night in the course of a dream. Cædmon’s only known surviving work is Cædmon’s Hymn, the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of the Christian god he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. (Summary from wikipedia)

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  The Merchant of Venice

  William Shakespeare

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  “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”Bassanio is a man in love, but he does not have much money to his name, and thus is unable to woo the rich heiress Portia. His friend Antonio suggests that they borrow money from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who has had many dealings with Antonio in the past. Shylock, being of Antonio’s ability to repay, agrees to grant the loan with a difficult condition. If the loan is not repaid in full by the agreed date, Shylock will take a pound of Antonio’s flesh.The loan is not paid in time, and what follows is a dramatic courtroom scene in which Shylock’s demands are met with legal intricacies that turn the tables on him. The lengthy legal discussion ends up with lives and fortunes on the line, and through the opposition’s knowledge of in-depth legal rules and policies, the result of the trial is not what anyone expects. Depending on the critical lens with which this text is approached, Shylock or Antonio can each be portrayed as the villain or hero from a certain point of view.The Merchant of Venice is often read and analyzed for its portrayal of Judaism and antisemitism, its spin on the common courtroom drama, and for Shakespeare’s signature witty writing and observations about humanity. It is a play that, like many of Shakespeare’s works, can be read and interpreted in many ways, and leaves the final judgments of the characters to the audience to decide.

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