Product Description
Offers an introduction to Walt Whitman's life and work, including a short biography and 26 collected poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Poetry for Young People Walt Whitman
Excellent book for teachers or anyone that wants an easy to readbeautifully illustrated synopsis of a poets life. I just wish there were more poets available. The poets available are excellent examples, from Walt to Maya Anjelo is a good start. These make great sources for teachers who want a weeks worth of material and background info.Would also be good gifts for a parent who wants to introduce the art of words to a child.

Young People's Guide to Walt Whitman
I think this is a wonderful guide to poetry by Walt Whitman.I was able to learn something about his poetry myself.The illustrations are very good and the poetry is presented in manageable pieces.That is important for teachers who are teaching the poetry.

THE BOOK IS A WORK OF ART AND OF COURSE SO IS THE POETRY
I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Walt Whitman than this small volume.The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader.The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it.I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of Walt Whitman, much less read their poetry.This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on.I do not feel I am any worse for the wear.I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot.This book helps.This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library.Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them.Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student.It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with.I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school.For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it.Recommend this one highly.

A beautifully illustrated introduction to a great poet
Editor Jonathan Levin and illustrator Jim Burke have put together a wonderful introduction to the poetry of Walt Whitman. Although marketed as a children's book, this volume will also appeal to older admirers of the "Good Gray Poet."

Levin has judiciously selected some of Whitman's most memorable poems, and thoughtfully gives definitions of potentially unfamiliar words ("Pleiades," "hieroglyphic," etc.) at the bottom of each page. A five page biography of Whitman at the start of the book is another useful touch. Many of Burke's full-color visuals are stunning, and stand on their own as admirable pieces of art. Particularly memorable are the illustrations which accompany Whitman's address to a locomotive and his compassionate description of a slave's body at auction. "Walt Whitman: Poetry for Young People" is a fine book to share with its target audience. ... Read more

Product Description
FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A guide for young writers for performing their poetry with style and pizzazz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Beginners to Poetry Jam's Start Here
Holbrook, Sara. 2002. Wham! It's a Poetry Jam: Discovering Performance Poetry. Honesdale, PA: Wordsong Publishing. ISBN 1569379885.

"Show the world that poetry was never meant to simply lie quietly on the page, any more than kids were meant to sit quietly in their seats to read it." With this closing line Holbrook encourages teachers and librarians to try out the exercises outlined in this work to get kids up and performing poems from favorite poets and their own creations. The author includes her own poetry in this work to demonstrate performance poetry and include tips and advice to adults and kids on how best to perform certain works.

The format of this work lends itself to adults wanting to include performance poetry and poetry jams in their classrooms or programs. Each poem is paired with explanations on how best to perform the poem out loud, alone or with a group. The instructions are included at the beginning and end of each poem, and additional cues are highlighted in colored boxes of various shapes on each page. The author includes open ended questions to encourage children to think about how the poem sounds when performed with different tones and emotions and ways to include movement in the performance. Each page of cues, instructions and poems give teachers ample information on not only performing the poem offered but also encouraging children to want to perform. The work begins with poems suited to more than one voice to give children the safety of performing as a group. Holbrook then moves on to solo performances and how to instill the courage in children to give this a try.

The most useful chapter for adults working with children is "Get Ready to Wham: A Word (or Two) About Contests. This chapter provides useful information in hosting a poetry jam that would be a contest between performers. Holbrook includes instructions for who can participate, how to keep score, who the judges should be, the rules to follow, who is in charge of the contest, and other information to ensure a smooth and fun poetry jam for all contestants. The inclusion of this chapter is clearly helpful to beginners in the poetry jam field.

Holbrook's enthusiasm for the subject comes through loud and clear. Unfortunately, her chipper tone and dramatic phrasing could turn some young teens off. This book is best suited for teaching adults. There are a lot of good solid pieces of advice, instruction, and tips in this short work for teachers and librarians. From the use of stage space to the tone, rhythm and emotion behind the words to the volume and strength of the voice, Holbrook offers the right information to inspire adults to give performance poetry a try in the classroom or library programs.

GREAT
Her daughter is my teacher and we did an activity at the end of the year with this book. It really is top quality. Very Good!

Another Great Book for Students to Steal From Your Shelves!
Of course, I am not advocating robbery, but all of the books that I put on my shelves by Sara disappear. This book will be another of those.I teach high school English to 9th graders and her books have broad appeal with my struggling readers and to my honor students.She speaks to the adolescent in all of them including me.It, however, is a great book for teachers to use to begin working on the art of performance poetry and poetry slams with your students.So if you are not afraid of a little noise, enthusiasm and excitement in your class then Wham ---get your own copy to jam with Sara and your students! ... Read more

Product Description
Edited by William Gilmore SimmsLL. D. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very nice poems
This was published in 1886, only two years after the civil war ended. There are about 150 poems, mostly by men and a few by women. You get everything from poems set in the midst of battle to a poet philosophizing on the loss of human life. There's a preface by the editor, and the table of contents is active, which is unusual for these free books. Don't hesitate to get this if you like poetry or civil war history. ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: American poetry; African Americans; Juvenile Nonfiction / Biography ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Glad to have found this again
I came across this book some thirty years ago while in high school.To this day, there are poems from the book I remember.They are simply beautiful and the poets who wrote them artistic beyond measure.I, sadly, understand why we were not introduced to this book when I was young...a white child in an 99.9% white school and having been chastised for reading a 'black' book...but nowadays, children should be shown the wonderful works by these great poets, not have to find them by accident like I did. ... Read more

Product Description
AMY GERSTLER’S COMMITMENT TO INNOVATIVE POETRY that conveys meaning, feeling, wit, and humor informs the cross section of poems in the 2010 edition of The Best American Poetry. The works collected here represent the wealth, the breadth, and the tremendous energy of poetry in the United States today. Featuring poems from some of our country’s top bards, including John Ashbery, Anne Carson, Louise Glück, Sharon Olds, and Charles Simic, The Best American Poetry 2010 also presents poems that poignantly capture the current moment, such as the sonnets John Updike wrote to chronicle his dying weeks. And there are exciting poems from a constellation of rising stars: Bob Hicok, Terrance Hayes, Denise Duhamel, Dean Young, and Elaine Equi, to name a very few.

The anthology’s mainstays are in place: It opens with series editor David Lehman’s incisive foreword about the state of American poetry and has a marvelous introduction by Amy Gerstler. Notes from the poets, illuminating their poems and their writing processes, conclude this delightful addition to a classic series.Dick Allen * John Ashbery * Sandra Beasley * Mark Bibbins * Todd Boss * Fleda Brown * Anne Carson * Tom Clark * David Clewell * Michael Collier * Billy Collins * Dennis Cooper * Kate Daniels * Peter Davis * Tim Dlugos * Denise Duhamel * Thomas Sayers Ellis * Lynn Emanuel * Elaine Equi * Jill Alexander Essbaum * B. H. Fairchild * Vievee Francis * Louise Glück * Albert Goldbarth * Amy Glynn Greacen * Sonia Greenfield * Kelle Groom * Gabriel Gudding * Kimiko Hahn * Barbara Hamby * Terrance Hayes * Bob Hicok * Rodney Jones * Michaela Kahn * Brigit Pegeen Kelly * Corinne Lee * Hailey Leithauser * Dolly Lemke * Maurice Manning * Adrian Matejka * Shane McCrae * Jeffrey McDaniel * W. S. Merwin * Sarah Murphy * Eileen Myles * Camille Norton * Alice Notley * Sharon Olds * Gregory Pardlo * Lucia Perillo * Carl Phillips * Adrienne Rich * James Richardson * J. Allyn Rosser * James Schuyler * Tim Seibles * David Shapiro * Charles Simic * Frank Stanford * Gerald Stern * Stephen Campbell Sutherland * James Tate * David Trinidad * Chase Twichell * John Updike * Derek Walcott * G. C. Waldrep * J. E. Wei * Dara Wier * Terence Winch * Catherine Wing * Mark Wunderlich * Matthew Yeager * Dean Young * Kevin Young ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Poetry 2010
Buy this book! Buy it, if only for Amy Gerstler's Foreword. It is hilarious. The selections are wonderful reading. ... Read more

Product Description

The Poetry Reader's Toolkit was written to be just that: a toolkit to help students read and understand poetry. Students will learn how relevant and accessible poetry can be by walking through a wide variety of poems in a straightforward, conversational tone. This easy to read guide shows students how poetry conveys emotion, introduces them to different imagery, explores sound, covers metaphors and similes, and explains verse forms, line breaks, and numerous other poetic devices.

Customer Reviews (5)

Found as a student; Refound as a teacher
I am so pleased that this book is still in print and that it is still being read.I was given what my high school poetry teacher affectionately called "Our Toolkit" when I was 17 and insecure and intimidated, pretty much by everything, but I thought that literature could be one place--perhaps the only place--where I might feel safe.
We read and used "The Poetry Reader's Toolkit" throughout the year.Never had I experienced a class where such intimacy was shared.The book is approachable but never trite, deep but never condescending.I found that I came to agree with the author that "Poetry is just about essential as air."The straight forward progression of understanding, the patient urge to "unearth" the poems through basic questioning, the direct and beautifully exemplified use of poetic terms, and above all the great variety of poetry included didn't just make me feel more safe--it made me feel, I think, less alone. I loved our toolkit so much that I asked if I could buy it and keep it. I did.

Ten years later, I'm toiling over an intensive 4-week-semester required Introduction to Literature course that begins tomorrow at a community college where I teach in Manhattan. I've been procrastinating like a pro all summer, and especially in the Poetry department, for since my high school days I've shrunk from poetry and veered toward fiction. I was going through my books all weekend for some semblance of thought about how to teach poetry when I feel so far from it myself. Past semesters have not proved easy, and students approach poetry with even less enthusiasm than they approach the first day of my class.I was just about to give up, when there it was: Our Toolkit with its bright cover, somehow barely scarred by the 9 times I've packed up books in boxes to move around the country for ten years.It survived.I read the first chapter and just knew that this book would see me through my fears about teaching poetry and maybe even see my students through their fears and reservations about reading it.I guess we'll see.The toolkit will be my guide and their guide, and maybe just one student will end up feeling as safe as I did at 17 when I was given this book.

A man on a mission
If the world made sense, this fine book would be found not only in every high school and college library, but in a lot of family homes as well, right next to the child-rearing guides and home fix-it guides. For in a world that made sense, a lot more people would grasp the transformative power of poetry and be passing on what they knew about it to their kids - and if they didn't know much, they could just pass on this book. Neither sentimental nor haughty about his subject, Polonsky manages to analyze both famous and lesser known poems, sometimes in great detail, without killing them off. This is a rare capacity that depends equally on his common sense, practiced insight, and clear, straight-ahead writing style.

Available in both student and instructor editions, this "toolkit" covers all the necessary fundamentals, and it's significant that "Emotions" is the first one explored - well before the discussions of sound, symbolism, verse forms and other technical aspects are taken up. That's because Polonsky has his ducks in a row and his heart in the right place, and that's what infuses the laudable competence of this manual with an irrepressible spirit. "I think poetry is just about as essential as air," Polonsky declares. "I believe that much of the violence and psychological illness and unease in our society is probably due to poetry deprivation."

This is obviously not your high school English teacher talking, but a man on a passionate mission. If this book gets spread around like it should, the world just might start making sense.

Great Guidebook for Beginners!.......
...........if you are like me, and are interested in learning to truly appreciate poetry like you never have before, I highly recommend this book. Polonsky not only introduces the reader to some beautiful and loved poetry, he uses each poem as an example to illustrate a concept in understanding poetry. This, for me, shed a beautiful new light on poems I had previously enjoyed, and also opened my eyes to some poems that I had previously not known or simply underappreciated. For example, "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke plays over and over like music in my mind now. I had never really heard its rhythm before.

Polonsky shows us how poetry conveys emotion, introduces us to different uses of imagery, explores sound in poetry, covers metaphors and similes and their use, explains different verse forms, line breaks, synesthesia, and numerous other poetic devices. Additionally, he encourages us, as "students" of poetry, to seek out poems that demonstrate each concept and advises that we keep a journal of our discoveries. This book is a real gem that I truly believe I have derived a greater appreciation of poetry from!

Curious about poetry? Read this and you'll get hooked!
I was hungry to learn poetry. It always seemed a puzzle that was never quite solved.So, for Christmas, I hinted for a book about how to read/write poetry.Santa read my list (thanks sis) and got my wish:)Thisbook was a joy to read.It unlocked many of mysteries of poetry for me andgave me a wonderful preparation before I dived head first into thismysterious pool of poetry.

An accessible guide for students, teachers and poetry lovers
A few days ago, a student in my community college class discovered thisbook and brought it to my attention.It's just what she needed and whatI've been looking for--an easy to read guide to poetry that opens bothreaders and poems in such a way that the barriers that too often existbetween them dissolve.The book serves as a friendly companion or guide inunfamiliar territory might--it points out features our eyes or ears mightmiss but never loses patience if we are slow to understand theirsignificance.I will be recommending this book to other instructors andstudents--and I'll have more to say about it when I've had a chance to workwith it some more. ... Read more

Product Description
Travel around the country with Carl Sandburg, a twentieth-century poet who has been called the voice of America. Hop aboard his poetry train on which each amazing poem leads to a different destination - some quiet and serene, others alive with zest and humour. More than 30 of his wonderful poems are presented here, along with specially commissioned illustrations that capture the spirit of his poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

ANOTHER ONE FOR YOUR CHILD'S LIBRARY - ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL
This is another addition to one of the best literary projects to come along in quite some time...Poetry for Young People.This particular work of course deals with the works of Carl Sandburg.It is illustrated by Steven Arcella.The book, as with the others in this series, starts with an introduction to the poet.This is good stuff alone.It is good to know something about the author of the work you are reading, and children, probably more so than adults, need this information.This volume includes Sandburg's Fog, From the Shore, Young Sea, Last Answers, A Sphinx, Little Girl.. Be Careful What You Say, Margaret, Arithmetic, Plowboy, Monotone, Phizzog, Mask, Summer Grass, Summer Stars, Sky Talk, October Paint, Old Woman, Buffalo Dust, a Coin and Doors.I certainly am not going to remark on the quality of Sandburg's work.Those who read him will be well aware of this.This collection though, is upbeat, delightful and gives a pretty good view of the poet's range.

The art work which accompanies the poems is very appealing and relaxing and very well executed.Like the poetry, it has a dream like quality and is a delight.

This is a book which is perfect to read to your child or to an entire class.Poetry has fallen out of fashion in many of our schools now, which is not only a shame, but I feel almost a crime.Our kids are missing so very, very much.This little edition is an ideal start. It, and the rest of this series, should be in ever school library, in every class room and indeed, on your kid's book shelf.I do highly recommend this one.

Don Blankenship

Carl Sundburgs (Poetry For Young People)
I love this book. It I so up beat and moving.I find this book moving far into the future of young peope and i hope to see it on my childs desk. ... Read more

Product Description
David Wagoner writes about regular lives with plain grace and transcendent humanity, and the seventy-five poems he has chosen for the 2009 edition of The Best American Poetry grapple with life, celebrate freedom, and teem with imaginative energy. With engaging notes from the poets, Wagoner's superb introductory essay, series editor David Lehman's astute foreword about the current state of poetry and criticism, and cover art from the beloved poet John Ashbery, The Best American Poetry 2009 is a memorable and delightful addition to a series dedicated to showcasing the work of poets at their best. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Diversity and Creativity
It takes work to put together an anthology like "The Best American Poetry 2009." The editor, in this case David Wagoner, reads scores of literary journals (online and print), general publications, and books of poetry, sifting through literally thousands of poems to select 75 that he or she considers the best of the year.

Wagoner, a poet, former poet editor and university professor, has chosen works by poets both well known and not-so-well-known, works that are simple and works that are complex, poems that vary in style and substance and subject and purpose. Represented here are established and broadly recognized poets like John Ashbery, Billy Collins, Adrienne Rich and Philip Levine, and younger and newer poets as well.

It's inevitable, in a collection like this, that a reader will find favorites. One of mine is "In Winter" by P. Hurshell, which begins this way:

I know the crooked at once. How it tries
to circle, catch a sudden pale gleam,
how it sparks a pearly surprise
against the sky, its silhouette
making a little bend

just before the sun is visible. The straight
is harder. No curves, no beckoning,
just unendingly in the place

we're used to. It's not exactly
boring..."

Another favorite is "Open Field" by Phillis Levin, which ends this way:

O, said the crow,
but didn't you know:

I
am a drop

Of the bottomless well,
you are a mark in the snow.

There's "Red" by Mary Oliver, in which she describes the finding of gray foxes on separate mornings on the highway; she removes them to a nearby field "while the cars kept coming." And a story poem entitled "On Mercy" by Kevin Prufer, which begins with a man being executed by firing squad and then proceeds to explore the relationships enfolding the dead man. And a poem by Jeanne Murray Walker called "Holding Action" that's about memory and mortality and includes lines like these:

Years from now I want to remember
how we walked the splendid earth
and saw it. When children read this
and smile at its old-fashioned vision,
then words, stubborn little boxcars

lugging meaning across the rickety
wood bridge to the future, hold,
hold...

What a delightfully insightful way to describe words - "stubborn little boxcars lugging meaning."

David Wagoner has done well in making his selections, illustrating the diversity and creativity that is American poetry today. (And a hat tip to series editor David Lehman, who started this series in 1988, for selecting Wagoner for 2009 and for carrying this project on for more than two decades.)

par for the course
This is just more of the same. There are a few spectacular poems, but Wagoner does the same mediocre job that the previous editors have done. When is Lehman gonna get a Dana Gioia, R.S. Gwynn, Kim Addonizio, Dave Mason, or AE Stallings to bring this series up to what it should be?

Yes and a little no
for here and now, this is how - yes and a little no.
good price good text, interesting but not always inspiring.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing:
Power and majesty, praise to the King.
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.

A few smiles, but mostly forgettable
It's been three or four years since I last read in this series, so I can't speak to whether it's an improvement over its most recent predecessors. This edition lacks long poems or anything particularly moving, arresting, or, for that matter, infuriating. At best there were a few that made me smile (among them Denise Duhamel, Richard Howard, James Richardson (albeit with a very arch, very The New Yorker poem), Matthew Zapruder (the ending)), and a couple that were formally clever (Ronald Wallace, especially). There are also some duds by famous names (e.g., Derek Walcott, Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver), with W.S. Merwin's more admirable than lovable and John Ashberry's entertaining but, by his own admission, sort of lazy. Billy Collins's contribution did not impress me as much as it did other reviewers. A few poems inspired by the Holocaust, the Iraq War or other awful historical events were among the weakest. And some of the contributors' notes tell you more than you need to know. The book is more of a palate-cleanser than a main course; you'll be able to get through most or all of it on a cross-country flight, which seems like an appropriate venue for reading it.

My indifference to most of this anthology may have been biased by the fact that I had been dipping into Montale's early work (Ossi di seppia/Cuttlefish Bones) a few days before picking up this book. To say that's a much better way to spend your time (e.g., in Jonathan Galassi's bilingual version) is a wild understatement, but maybe you'll find it a helpful steer nonetheless.

More of the same
Poetry's inexorable drift toward the chatty and mundane--as well as its obsession with politicized art--is as perfectly demonstrated in this anthology as any other today.Of course, these days poetry just makes us yawn, and we pause only infrequently to waste time building up an angry head of steam.What's the point, after all?Form and elequence, understatement with a nod to anything like a universal audience is just so passé, dahling.Poets (but mostly their editors) have snarked, harangued and marginalized themselves out of a popular audience.

But still the anthologies keep coming, because nobody has the $50 to subscribe to obscure little journals anymore.Poets have to publish SOMEWHERE.And since there are so many now, unconstrained by talent or...heck, restraint, they're dressed up here, ready to be given for the holidays.

A couple of them are even good.I liked Lance Larsen's "Why Do You Keep Putting Animals In your Poems?", and if his title smacks of smug self-reference, his language doesn't."Badgers rarely invent stories to make them / Sad about their bodies", he smiles. And he goes on, beautifully: "My happiness / Is like a flock of sparrows that scatters when a bus / Drives by, then restrings itself two blocks away".Isn't that lovely?

Denise Duhamel's "How It Will End" defies the modern trend.Its universal theme and delicious ending strike a Billy Collins delight in absurdity.Collins, too, is here (isn't he always?) and my son smiled when I read him Collins' "The Great American Poem".Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.Maybe "The Lanyard" is the G.A.P.And that was years ago.

The Contributers' Comments and Notes are, predictably and tellingly, thicker than the poems.In them, poets hold forth, filling you in on that trip to Venice, or the time the cat caught a mouse and they cried.The stand-alone poem--where we possess all the societal commonality we need to relate to it,where the language, form and metaphor wrap us in the divine, and when each time in our lives we read it, we grow a little more--is, for the first time in Western history, a long-gone dream.I fear we will never see its like again.



... Read more

Product Description

The poems in this collection are meditations on the natural world, written from the perspective of what Li-Young Lee has aptly termed "a passionate interiority." The history and geography of the American West inspire many of the poems' investigations of the environment and the role of the individual in relation to that environment. In Cecily Parks's landscape made strange by human consciousness, being lost is a requirement, though not a guarantee, of being found.

Customer Reviews (2)

Beautiful debut collection
I usually read poetry books in pieces, here and there.But I wanted to do something different this time, be involved, consumed with one poet's perspective.Cecily's debut book of poems are great for that because she has such a gift of imagery and feeling.The poems are set in the great west and rooted in river and ground.They have a sense of flight and wildness and languishing, not quite human but deeply so, at the same time.Her language, grammar, and pace are natural, astonishing, right.And she does marvelous things with alliteration and internal rhyme so it's a musical treat to read the poems out loud.

Here are just a few of the many lines I had to write down in glee:
I could grow old again
my one room of world
and waited for the click that means the safety is off
be the only/hovering thing
unworried/love
I wanted it (happiness, I mean)
this is a kind of love, a state of need
I'm shaped like invitation
to be water bending
to be the next verse
I am the instrument of your intensity
Shake me/something fierce and I will be the figure of what you did

I didn't understand the Woman Homesteader poems, which seemed too spare and disjoint to give me more than a vague sense of changing season and isolation.But there were a dozen other poems I read and reread with pleasure.My favourites included "Luna Moth" "The Minister's Bad Wayward Girl" "Self Portrait as a Seismograph" "the Widows of Pepacton Reservoir" "Beast-Lover Variations" and "A First Warning to the Eel Fisherman."The conjoined words in "Pillow with Boy and Fungus" were fabulous as were all the non-verbs used as verbs in "One Could Peach."

I'm looking forward to more.

Exquisitely beautiful poetry!
This is one of the most lucid, extraordinary, and wonderful books of poetry I have ever read.Cecily Parks is an amazing poet.Everyone interested in poetry should read this book!Outstanding, remarkable!From "Self-Portrait as Seismograph":

there is no sensitivity in numbers.

only in effects.In the calm, let us speak
in effects: a ball drops

dragon's mouth to frog's mouth.
a pendulum swings on its knife-edge

pivot.


Perhaps not even the best poem in this book!

A Ph.D. Fellow ... Read more

Product Description
Dorothy Dunnett died in November 2001. She left behind this anthology, chosen by her from the hundreds of poems that she used in her series of novels known as "The Lymond Chronicles". It contains an extensive collection of Renaissance poetry, featuring work by Thomas Wyatt and King James I, extracts from the Psalms and even an anonymous poem called "Monologue of a Drunkard". As Dorothy herself writes, here in one volume is "the poetry of love, of folk-humour and ballad, the songs of Persian poets and of the troubadours, translated where need be into English". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lymond: a journey in love poetry and ballads
How glad I am that I bought this book when it was first published in 2003.

This book is almost essential as reference material for those of us who seek to have ready and easier access to the poems behind Lymond's quotes.

It is also a lovely memento of the wit and erudition of Lady Dunnett herself.If you are a Dunnett fan, and you have an opportunity to acquire a copy of this book, do so.

It will enrich your enjoyment of the Lymond Chronicles immensely.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Poetry and the left brain
Interesting concept.I am not a poetry guy.
but am an inventor, and this brings a lot to my way of thinking.
Helps me to think, one chocolate at a time
Recommended.

An unusual and terrific book
I had the great privilege of reading an early copy of this book, and found it to be incredibly original, an extremely valuable approach to subjects that are tremendously relevant to our financial crisis challenged world. Within these pages, you'll findideas that the business world needs to have much more woven into its fabric. The book arrives at a very fortuitous time. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:IllTHE DISSOLUTION OF PAGANISMGreek religion seems to have contained three factors of unequal prominence, but ultimately of about equal importance and longevity. Most obvious, especially if we begin our study with Homer, is the mythology which presents us with a multitude of gods, male and female, often related by blood, and having social and even hostile relations with one another. If we examine their characters, attributes, and fables, we readily perceive that most of them are impersonations of natural forces. Some, however, figure prominently as patrons of special arts or special places, as Apollo of prophecy and music, of Delos and Delphi; and yet others seem to be wholly personifications of human powers, as Athena of prudence and of martial and industrial arts.Underlying this mythology is another element, probably more ancient, the worship of ancestors, local divinities, and domestic gods. With these were naturally connected various ritual observances, and especially the noblest and most important of rites, the sacrifice. Such practices may be supposed to have belonged originally to the tribal religion, and to have passed by analogy to the great natural gods, when these had been once created by the poet and perhaps identified with the older genius of that spot where their efficacy was first signally manifested.Finally, as a third element, we find the religion of the priests, soothsayers, and magicians, as well as the rites of Orpheus, Bacchus, and the Great Goddesses at Eleusis. These forms of worship showed Oriental affinities and partook of a kind of nocturnal horror and mystical enthusiasm. They were the Greek representatives of the religion of revelation and of sacraments, and bore much the same relation to the supernaturalistic elements in Christianity as... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Essential Read for all Educated People
Note: I made some Mormon reader angry over my reviews of books written by Mormons out to prove the Book of Mormon, and that person has been slamming my reviews. He or she doesn't want you to read Hoffer's book.

Your "helpful" votes are appreciated. Thanks.

On The True Believer: This collection of essays is a classic, and it can be read in independent sections. "The Absence of Religion in Shakespeare" was fascinating.

The essays are full of the epigrams that make Santayana famous--"Oaths are the fossils of piety."

"But for Shakespeare, in the matter of religion, the choice lay between Christianity and nothing. He choose nothing."Yet: "Life did not pass before his eyes as a mere phantasmagoria. He seized upon its principles; he became wise."

"In Shakespeare's time and country, to be religious already began to mean to be Puritanical; and in the divorce between the fulness of life on the one hand and the depth and unity of faith on the other,there could be no doubt to which side a man of imaginative instincts would attach himself."

Other great essays in this book include, "The Poetry of Barbarism" and "The Poetry of Christian Dogma."

From an essay in other book comes Santayana's famous line: "A fanatic is a person who redoubles his effort after he has forgotten his aim." "A fanatic closes his eyes daily to the sun, so that he might see better by starlight."

Hear, hear! You cannot call yourself educated without having read Santayana. Also, read Eric Hoffer's little book, "The True Believer." Click here:

The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (Perennial Classics)

Another great book is "A Celebration of Humanism and Freethought," by David Allen Williams. This book has quotes from Hoffer and dozens upon dozens of other writers. Opposite each quotation is a rare 19th century engraving. Highly recommended--positive and inspirational. Check it out here:

A Celebration of Humanism and Freethought

Your comments--positive or negative--are appreciated. Thanks. ... Read more

Product Description
In this posthumous collection of his meditations on writing and the writing life, William Stafford's lifelong refusal to separate his work from the task of living responsibly -- "What a person is shows up in what a person does" -- rings clear.
Stafford kept a journal for nearly half a century and produced over 20,000 poems -- a treasure trove of writing still being uncovered long after his death.
The book begins with the words "To overwhelm by rightness," a phrase evoking the two demands Stafford made on himself: to write well, and to live uprightly. This book lives up to those deceptively simple ethics. In his words William Stafford lives on as a voice for our times -- a bright light in a clouded age.
William Stafford, who died in 1993, authored more than thirty-five books of poetry and prose during his lifetime, including the highly acclaimed Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, You Must Revise Your Life, and Traveling Through the Dark, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Picking up out of the current as it goes by . . .
The most important American poet of the second half of the Twentieth Century--Stafford is my top candidate, anyway. You may have somebody else in mind.

Stafford is so many things. For one, a poet of great spontaneity--of accepting what comes, of luck, and of writing it down:

"If you write . . . the activity of writing will make things occur to you in your mind. You write the documentary that you think, rather than the documentary that you live. When you write, it doesn't make so very much difference what you have done or intend to do, but it makes quite a bit of difference what occurs to you at the moment you're writing. . . . it's just as if you have a readiness to respond to what occurs to you at the moment."

Stafford is so humble that we may have yet to grasp how vast he is--how expansive his vision.

For Bill Stafford, writing is not about being a great writer, or getting published in the best publications--it's about being a good person--a whole way of life, of which the written poem on the page is an evidence, a record, a door that opens to us, his readers.

"In everyone's life there's all this torrent of things happening and a writer . . . maybe one way to say it would be someone who pays attention at least at intervals, to that torrent. Or a writer is not someone who has to dream of things to write, but has to figure out what to pick up out of the current as it goes by."

Lucky us, whether we write, or read or just live, that Paul Merchant and Vince Wixon put together this collection of Stafford's statements on his writing and teaching.

We're lucky indeed to have three other books in the same vein: You Must Revise Your Life (Poets on Poetry),Writing the Australian Crawl (Poets on Poetry), and Crossing Unmarked Snow: Further Views on the Writer's Vocation (Poets on Poetry).

There's a line in American poetry running straight from ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson through Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. Stafford, like Dickinson, is humble. He's proximite to nature, sees into the depth of the world, speaks directly to to his reader like a friend and with greatest facility in everyday language--all of which place him right in that line.

Who's next? ... Read more

Product Description
The Best American Poetry series is a beloved mainstay of American poetry. This year's edition was edited by one of the most admired and acclaimed poets of his generation, Charles Wright. Known for his meditative and beautiful observations of landscape, change, and time,Wright brings his particular sensibility to this year's anthology, which contains an ecumenical slant that is unprecedented for the series. He has gathered an astonishing selection of work that includes new poems by Carolyn Forché, Jorie Graham, Louise Glück, Frank Bidart, Frederick Seidel, Patti Smith, and Kevin Young and showcases a dazzling array of rising stars like Joshua Beckman, Erica Dawson, and Alex Lemon.

With captivating and revelatory notes from the poets on their works and sage and erudite introductory essays by Wright and series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2008 will be read, discussed, debated, and prized for years to come. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Worth Your While
If your only experience with this series is the unfortunate Best American Poetry 2007, then Best American Poetry 2008 might not be enough to persuade you of the value of this series or the worth of contemporary poetry.But I would urge you at least to give it a chance.In his introduction, editor Charles Wright refreshingly forewarns us that he likes "things to make sense" and that we shouldn't look for "language games, intellectual rip-offs, or rhetorical sing-alongs," all ideas that made me optimistic about the book's contents (and made me wonder if he was referring to the noted weakness of the 07 version).For the most part Wright stays true to his word, as a good number of these poems both please the ear and excite the mind.The clash of styles among the poems can be jarring--an inevitable flaw in any series of this nature--but that does not take away from the individual successes you find inside.Oddly the poems seem to be weakest in the middle (purely an accident of its alphabetical structure), when the unnecessary obscurity of so much contemporary poetry supplants the heartfelt intensity Wright seemed to be seeking.Everyone will have their favorites, of course, which is why I would recommend you take a look at the book--it won't please everyone, but everyone should be able to find something pleasing somewhere inside.

An Anthology that Succeeds
I am not a great fan of anthologies, but I always make an exception for this series.Each annual collection is framed by the guest editor's sensibilities.Each includes provocative essays by series editor David Lehman as well as the guest editor.While one may argue both with poems included and excluded each year, over time the series provides a lively collection of contemporary American poetry.

Best American Poetry 2008
Since this is an anthology I didn't expect to like all the poems and I didn't; although several were outstanding. Some poems didn't seem to fall into any format regarding theme orstyle.Is this the best of new, new, modern poetry? Maybe the editor and I just don't like the same type of writing.

" 'they sound like sculptors sanding away at the monolith' "
The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright (Best American Poetry) collects works of over seventy poets, in alphabetical order from Tom Andrews to Kevin Young. Tim Ross'a phrase about "sculptors sanding away at the monolith" is a pretty good way to characterize the verse, mostly free, in these pages. The volume is nearly all solemnity and heft. To suggest that Erica Dawson's "Go on, and gag on your own gravity--" sums up the selection nicely would be very wrong however. The prevailing gravitas feels right in our sober, unsettled and even eerie post-9/11 world.

Some of my favorties in this collection are: "Evening Song," by Tom Andrews, "Wanting Sumptuous Heavens," by Robert Bly, "Rock Polisher," by Chris Forhan, "Threshing," by Louise Glueck, "Snoring," by Mark Jarman, "Resignation," by J. D. McClatchy, "World News," by Sharod Santos, "Hexagon: On Truth," by Dave Snyder, "Thomas Hardy," by Lee Upton, and "No Forgiveness Ode," by Dean Young.

David Young's "The Dead from Iraq," begins, "They come back and stand in our midst." He calls them "vague sentinals, stiff at attention." These poems also stand in the readers' midst and seem to form a more ragged phantom line in the mind, challenging and chastisizing.

Poor format
It's hard to format poetry
for the Kindle
isn't it?
This book shows you
what that looks like ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1914.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent essay
This isn't a book of poems but rather an essay about poetry. He compares poetry to other things, like music and philosophy, and then discusses poetry on its own. He's obviously done a lot of reading becuuse he quotes many other writers to show what they think of poetry. I liked it a lot, and it's short- you can read it in about an hour.

Q and Poetry
"Poetry" is about poetry and not a book of poetry. It is Q's opinion of what is good poetry, and is a reprint of one of the hardback 'Fellowship Books' edited by Mary Stratton in 1914. There are plenty of blank pages for one's own notes (10). The content more than compensates for the awkward size (7.5ins. x 9.25ins.)but any reprint of this Master's work is a welcome addition to ones library. ... Read more

Product Description
This bilingual edition of Tang poems offers a new approach to reading and understanding classical Chinese poetry.  Included are nearly two hundred regulated verses written by the great poets of the Tang Dynasty, such as Du Fu, Li Bai, Wang Wei, Li Shangyin, and Meng Haoran. For each poem, both traditional and simplified Chinese characters are provided for cross reference.

   
In addition to its literary translation, each poem is given a bilingual annotation with respect to the literal meanings of each key word or phrase. The tone and pinyin transliterations of each Chinese character are also provided. Readers who are familiar with the pinyin system can learn to recite the original poem the way the Chinese read it.

   
This book is designed to help the readers understand Tang poems from a bilingual perspective. It may also be a helpful learning tool for students who want to learn Chinese through poetry.


About the Author

Customer Reviews (4)

How to Read a Chinese Poem
This book is misrepresented in reviews and blurbs that say you can read a Chinese poem aloud to yourself after reading the text. There is no way that can be done without a DVD, which this book does not provide.

Too, this book lowballs the aesthetics of Chinese poetry in its watered down comments. The contrast with, say Stephen Owen's Chinese Literary Thought, is extreme. Owen does that job well; this book's text is child's play.

Worse, the English translations are awkward and unpoetic.

Of the price I paid for it, I estimate that about half to two-thirds was wasted money. I anticipated that it would be a gem instead.

R. B. Burnett
MA, California State University, Long Beach; MFA, Vermont College of the Fine Arts.

A Good Crib
For one thing this book is slightly mislabelled. It's a crib and a translation of the famous anthology _ 300 Tang Poems _ / _ Tang Shi San Bai Shou _. It gives the pronunciation in modern Mandarin of every single character in every single poem so that even those who don't know any Chinese, or like me know only a few characters, can appreciate the sound of the poems. No one else has ever done this and the editor is certainly to be praised and thanked for doing such a superb job. I truly hate to be ungracious but the editor chose to follow the traditional order of the anthology, by genre rather than by poet. So if you want to read all the poems of Tu Fu or Li Bo or Wang Wei you have to hunt for them. I think a much better order would have been by poet. Further, the notes about the poet are quite meagre, totally unlike Kenneth Rexroth's masterful essays in his translations.

the title almost says it all
This really is a how to book, but a more complete title would be 'How to Read a Chinese Poems as the Chinese Read them.' Because with just a rudimentary understanding ofromanized pinyin, a reader is able to experiance the euphonious quality of Chinese verse from the Tang period(618-907).
English translations starting in the last century have made these poems popular with modern readers,because these 1,200 year old verses are more compatible with contemporary poetic sensebilities than Europeon sagas and romances written at the same time and all western verse untill the romantic movement.
Despite the problems of conveying meaning from the tenseless ambivalence of Chinese to the regimented structure of English, some translations have carried much of the original thrust of the poems, minus nuances, across centuries and grammars and reshaped them into English poetry.But no translation can transport the lyric rhythems of the tonal patterns across the language barriers.This book sidesteps the barriers making Tang cadences accesible to many more.
Having enjoyed Chinese poetry from translations,and wanting to find out about the original poems, but having a very limited knowledge of Chinese characters, I looked for books with literal word by word translations.'Chinese Poetry' edited and translated by Wan-Lim Yip seems to give the most straightforward word for word transcription.Reading the actual loose ambiguous syntax of Tang poetry gives the poems a boundless feel.Its only shortcoming is there is no clues to the poem's intonations.
This book rectifies that omission bypassing the language barrier giving us Tang music through a readable romanization and a concise and clear introduction explains the poetic rules of the time.Beware the rhythems are enticing and might lead to an addictive urge to learn Chinese.

How to read a Chinese Poem---a bilingual anthology of Tang poetry
This is the first most comprehensive bilingual book of Chinese poetry. It is designed for those who are interested in the Chinese culture and want to read and understand classical Chinese poetry. After reading the book, even a reader who does not know the Chinese language can recite the Tang poems written by famous poets in the 7th Century. The word -for- word and literary translation also elegantly express the poet's inner thought. Members of the Washington Chinese Poetry Society and I strongly recommend this book to the readers. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

It's better than I hoped for...
I purchased Smith's Teahouse of the Almighty for I had selected her as my concentration poet for a workshop class I was taking.I had been quite fond of Patricia Smith because of her piece "Biting Back", and had a peculiar anticipation when beginning this collection.She didn't let me down at all.

The strength in delivery and tone is undeniably evident in her work.Pieces such as "Her Other Name" hit me with such a convicted presence, that it took multiple reads just to grasp and better understand how well Smith could be both incredibly blunt and fantastically poignant within the very same moment.

If almost for nothing else at all, experiencing the first poem in this collection is worth the price."Building Nicole's Mama" spits at you raw imagery of truth while making you consider the beauty, power, and responsibility that comes with putting yourself and words down on pages.

If you have never experienced Patricia Smith before, this collection is a very worthy admissions ticket.

An anthology of dynamic, free-verse poetry that sublimely captures the thrills and dilemmas of the human experience
Four-time poetry slam champion Patricia Smith presents Teahouse of the Almighty, an anthology of dynamic, free-verse poetry that sublimely captures the thrills and dilemmas of the human experience. From the sad denouement of the end of a marriage, to the numb shock surrounding a mother of soldiers losing her loved ones to war, to a visualization of Dexter King meeting James Earl Ray, each poem conceptualizes amorphous instants into heavy, tangible feeling. "Down 4 the Up Stroke": But you have poetry, you say. / And if you can tell me what poetry is, / where the line is drawn / between the beauty and the breathing / of breath into something to make it beautiful, / I will claim poetry as my own. ... Read more

Product Description
With fantastic characters and enchanting language, Lewis Carroll created magical wonderlands which children have always loved to visit. This work contains 26 selections from his works, along with vocabulary and context notes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A VERY FUN BOOK TO READ WITH THE YOUNG ONES
I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Lewis Carroll than this small volume.The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader.The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it.I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of carroll,much less read their poetry.This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on.I do not feel I am any worse for the wear.I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot.This book helps.This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library.Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them.Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student.It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with.I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school.For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it.Recommend this one highly. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of essays by contemporary American poets on the subject of their art
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Love it
It was assigned as a textbook for class, but I've fallen in love with this book.It helps clarify my own opinions about poetry and writing in general.There's not a lot of poetry in it, but a lot of amazing opinions about it.Highly recommended reading. ... Read more