"The poems of [INSERT] BOY have need of the body--desire it and lament its mortality--but over and again they assert Smith's seemingly religious belief that every sound the body makes, every word and wail, is only possible through connection to some other plane of existence. This is a lovely, voice-driven book, singing high notes sharp as a switchblade."--Publisher's description.

The young Danish aristocrat Malte Laurids Brigge has been left rootless by the early death of his parents. Now living in Paris, Malte begins to record his life in a series of loosely connected notes, diary entries, prose poems, parables and stories, ostensibly collected by a fictional editor to form the Notebooks. Focusing on Malte's observations and experiences in the present, recollections of his childhood and family, and his reflections on historical...

"In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Comprised of intimate vignettes that take us through the author's life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and...

"Mary-Alice Daniel's family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family's series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing ventures through the physical and mythical landscapes of Daniel's...

A brief biography of African American poet Amanda Gorman, discussing her childhood, education, and work as a poet and activist.

"Buffalo. A father's funeral. Memory. In Generations, Louise Clifton's formidable poetic gift emerges in prose, giving us a memoir of stark and profound beauty. Her story focuses on the lives of the Sayles family: Caroline, "born among the Dahomey people in 1822," who walked north from New Orleans to Virginia in 1830 when she was eight years old; Lucy, the first black woman to be hanged in Virginia; and Gene, born with a withered arm, the son of a...

"A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose poetry was at the heart of the American Revolution"-- Provided by publisher. "Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young...

"Daisy Dunn's vivid narrative rediscovers the life and poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome's first "modern" poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man's wife and made it known to the world through his timeless verse"-- Provided by publisher.

A sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism. Featuring new poems, theater elements, and visual art by Casper Pham, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to Hip Hop, and part "Letters to a Young Poet"-style toolkit...

From Focus World and director/star James Franco. Hart Crane was one of the most important voices in American poetry, but lived a life with as much turmoil as passion. From his early life to his journeys from New York, Cuba and Paris, Crane's story and that of the loves that defined him is told with imaginative empathy, and with a no holds barred performance, in a film as introspective, rebellious, heartbreaking, and honest as Crane himself.