Other books that might interest you

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  Please make me pretty I don't...

  Tawanda Mulalu

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  The debut collection of an exciting new voice in poetry 
   
   
   
  Please make me pretty, I don't want to die explores tactility, sound, sensuality, and intimacy. Set across the four seasons of a year, these fresh and original poems by Tawanda Mulalu combine an inviting confessional voice and offbeat imagery, and offer an appealing mixture of seriousness and humor. 
   
   
   
  The speaker of these poems probes romantic and interracial intimacy, the strangeness and difficulty of his experiences as a diasporic Black African in White America, his time working as a teacher's assistant in a third-grade classroom, and his ambivalent admiration for canonical poets who have influenced him, especially Sylvia Plath. Juxtaposing traditional forms such as sonnets and elegies with less orthodox interjections, such as prose-poem "prayers" and other meditations, the collection presents a poetic world both familiar and jarring—one in which history, the body, and poetry can collide in a single surprising turn of image: "The stars also suffer. Immense and dead, their gasses burn / distant like castanets of antebellum teeth. My open window / a synecdoche of country."

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  The Book of Hours - a new poetic...

  Rainer Maria Rilke, Brett Alan...

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  Written at the turn of the twentieth century, The Book of Hours is one of the most significant works of modern German poetry. There has never been an English translation that preserved the tight poeticism and Christian mysticism of the original until now. In this long poem, the narrator-poet is a monk and icon painter desperately trying to see God in a way that his art can’t capture. Over three sections (The Book of Monkish Life, The Book of Pilgrimage, and The Book of Poverty & Death), Rilke takes the narrator on a journey from the pastoral lands of his monastery to the bustling and inhuman cities of the world on a quest to make sense of God's central mystery. A variety of images recur: building, trees (roots and fruits), ripening, ore, and what Rilke simply calls "the things". Through these motifs, the narrator seeks to understand God by exploring imagery that is the inverse of the usual Biblical symbols. What can we learn by thinking of God as darkness, as son, as poor neighbor, or as the rock that runs through the earth...? And, ultimately, what truly are poverty and death to the holy pilgrim?

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  Kaleidoscope - the poetry of Cat...

  Cat Russell

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  A collection and selection of poetry by Ohio-based poet, blogger, and flash fiction author Cat Russell, author of the short story and flash fiction collection The Optimist's Journal of the End of Days. This audiobook is read by the author. 
  Cat Russell does it again! Her latest poetry collection, Kaleidoscope, swirls and sways through a landscape of fact and fiction, experience and fantasy, while also providing a keen lens into life and living. It whirls the reader into wonder while remaining grounded, insightful and inquisitive. Peer into this volume’s eyepiece and let it take you for a spin. 
  -John Burroughs, U. S. Beat Poet Laureate (2022-2023) and author of Rattle and Numb 
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  …Today I discovered/what a group of butterflies is called./ Their name is Kaleidoscope,/” 
  begins the final nine-line stanza of Cat Russell’s “Kaleidoscope,” a poem sharing her book’s title. Its final three lines read, “…the everchanging pattern/ a perfect fusion of shifting compliments:/ the envy of artists, flowers, and clear-blue skies./” Russell’s delightfully accessible homage to butterflies is an ideal invitation into her poignant collection of 86 poems. They entice readers to savor every sip of them in a single sitting. 
  There is something for every palate: from the humor in “Cheapskate Midlife Crisis” and “F-Bombs,” to the understated predatory horror in “Servings,” to the anticipatory excitement of a thunderstorm in “Foretaste.” 
  Kaleidoscope showcases a writer whose talent is boundless! Cat Russell’s poetry is both beguiling and intellectually intoxicating. You’ll undoubtedly mark her collection a favorite. 
  -Sandra Feen, 
  State of Ohio Beat Poet Laureate (2022-2024) 
    *Original hardcover edition of Kaleidoscope published by Venetian Spider Press.

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  Pyth in love - A poem in form of...

  Lee Slonimsky

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  In the poems, Pythagoras is always searching for meaning in patterns—in the caws of crows, the flight of geese—but he is also visited by the random.  “But then, without a sign, the crow departs; this randomness of fate gives him a chill./He sees the beauty of wings merged with night …”  Was it a random coincidence that I was at the same time writing a book set on an estate with Italianate gardens?  Inspired by Lee, I created a poet named Zalman Bronsky who wandered through the Italian gardens composing sonnets, which Lee graciously agreed to write.  Immersed in researching the Italian gardens, we traveled to Rome and Sorrento in the summer of 2004.  While walking in the Roman Forum Lee discovered a bust of Pythagoras and was inspired to write “Counting Toward the End,” in which “Pythagoras divides the summer dawn/into the cosmos, multiplies by breeze/and quality of drifting yellow light/to calculate how many roses  thrive/within the boundary of circling sight.”  His calculation conflicts with what he sees and yet his “faith in truth of math endures despite/this failure.”

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  Stumbling and other poems

  Laura Quinney

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  Most poets recollect or describe the present. In her third book of poems, Laura Quinney (whose “superbly spare meditations” Harold Bloom compared to the poetry of Paul Celan and Emily Dickinson) does something more uncanny: recalling what it once was like to anticipate the future, she remembers what she thought the past would look like from the present moment, and in so doing deepens the meaning of memory. This is her third book of poetry.

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  A Year with Rumi - Daily Readings

  Coleman Barks

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  A year with the sensual, mysterious, and deeply spiritual poetry of Rumi, in a translation featuring 15 debut poems—365 poems for your daily dose of inspiration, spiritual healing, and deep self-reflection 
  This stunning collection is a divine journey across each month of the year, offering 365 daily poetry reflections that with leave you both breathless and hopeful. Poet Coleman Barks has played a central role in making the Sufi mystic Rumi the most popular poet in the world, and in this volume, he brings Rumi’s words to life, allowing their beacon of light to allow us to reconnect with ourselves, and others, by recognizing the divine in the sublime, in the ordinary, and in us all. 
  Full of contemplation and deeply moving and profound prose, these poems allow readers to start each day fully present and aware of all the beauty around us, and the innate power and strength we each hold—in every moment of every day. Take a moment for yourself with this daily dose of innate wisdom and positive affirmations for self-love, compassion, and trust in the divine power of the universe and our place in it. 
  “The poetry feels like it belongs to all. When Rumi died in 1273, members of all religions came to the funeral. Wherever you stand, his words deepen your connection to the mystery of being alive.” – Coleman Barks 

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