Literary studies: poetry and poets Books

Book SynopsisDuring the Song dynasty (960–1278), some of China’s elite found an elegant and subtle means of dissent: landscape painting. By examining literary archetypes, painting titles, contemporary inscriptions, and the historical context, Murck shows that certain paintings expressed strong political opinions—some transparent, others deliberately concealed.Trade ReviewIn late eleventh-century China, a group of disaffected government officials, their careers in disarray and their lives sometimes at risk, found ways to express political dissent and personal grievances through the use of literary allusions. Expressing dissatisfaction could be dangerous, so these allusions had to be oblique...Circulating among like-minded people, these coded expressions of protest and discontent were relatively secure from outsiders' scrutiny. They are even more difficult to access today—or have been, I should say. This impressively researched, deeply ruminated book opens the door to their meaning. -- Susan E. Nelson * College Art Association Reviews *Focusing on one of the best-known themes in Chinese (and later, Japanese) ink-painting, from one of the pivotal moments in the formation of the painting-poetry relationship, this book delves into a classic example of polities turning to the arts for expression. And because the politicians of this dangerous time coded their painted-poetry with such subtle indirectness, Dr. Murck's inquiry unfolds like a good mystery undertaken by a master sleuth. Every reader, whether Asian scholar or arm-chair detective, will come away with a far deeper appreciation of the painting-poetry-politics triad in Chinese history. -- Jerome Silbergeld, University of Washington and Princeton UniversityFreda Murck's richly detailed book teaches us how to crack the code by which important Song scholar-artists expressed their anguished laments and political protests through seemingly innocuous landscape paintings. Explaining how secret messages were encoded in poetic allusions and translated into visual imagery, she uncovers a new and important dimension of Song literati painting. Through a series of ease studies, she shows how painting gained new expressive possibilities by adopting the functions, metaphors, and conventions of poetry. -- Julia Murray, University of Wisconsin-MadisonMore than any other study, this brilliantly researched hook carries the reader into the intellectual environment of scholars, painters, and poets who created new forms of visual and verbal expression during the Song dynasty. -- Robert E. Harrist, Jr., Columbia University

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Book SynopsisGabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938), the most influential and controversial Italian poet of the 20th century, published his masterpiece "Halcyon" in 1903. It is a carefully organized sequence of 88 lyrics which, to gain their full effect, must be read as a whole. Halcyon is a "solar diary" of a summer spent in Tuscany, part of the time with the legendary Eleanora Duse. The poems evoke specific times and places; more importantly, they conjure up emotions, memories and myths associated with each place. Beginning in early summer, they move through the seasons, changing in verse-form and mood, always delighting in the sensuous qualities of language. J.G. Nicholls's translation makes the richness and subtlety of d'Annunzio's poetry accessible to the English-speaking reader, and his introduction illuminates the complex themes and structure of the work. He provides a full glossary of places and references.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Shortlisted for the Prize for Literary Scholarship, Australian University Heads of English"

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Book SynopsisSounding/Silence argues for the significance Martin Heidegger’s writing on poetry for the discipline of poetics. Focusing on Heidegger’s accounts of rhythm, metaphor, the relation between text and reader, and the relation between philosophy and poetry, Nowell Smith ultimately outlines a ‘poetics of limit’ that reaches beyond Heidegger’s own thinking.Trade Review"This is a major work of critical thought... highly recommended." -Choice "Nowell Smith's adventurous book shows that what is valuable in Heidegger's poetics is its disclosure of a truth in poetry opening up areas in which the reader can leave Heidegger behind. While Heidegger might still try to feign ownership of this clearing away of his own problematic authority, it is the poetry and its characteristic sounding of its own voice that exceed his. Nowell Smith reads Heidegger's readings of poems whose prosody is the catalyst of this transformation. He persuades us that Heidegger tries to see poetic figure, rhythm, and metrical invention as effacing themselves before an insight into the being of language. In fact, though, he exposes his own paradoxical reliance on poetry to try to establish the philosophical control his insights have empowered poetry to displace. To read Heidegger adequately here is to read him despite himself. Nowell Smith carefully and accessibly unpacks the ways in which Heidegger sets the poems to work against his philosophical unleashing of their own authority. Throughout, this central struggle of Heidegger's thought with itself is dramatized by concrete poetic examples and so by close attention to Heidegger's close attention to the words on the page. The result is a work with unusual power to make us intimate with Heidegger's still-compelling mix of the highest philosophical abstraction and the closest intimacy with the living contexts of expression." -- -Paul Hamilton Queen Mary, University of London "The best book on Heidegger and poetry that I have ever read, Nowell-Smith's Sounding/Silence takes both Heidegger and poetry very seriously, presuming that the most worthwhile goal is to do justice to both in an attempt to advance our understanding of poetics." -- -Jonathan Culler Cornell University "'Sounding/Silence' is a welcome contribution to a growing movement to rehabilitate literary criticism left casting about in the ruins that critical theory has made of literature studies." -The Review of MetaphysicsTable of ContentsList of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Note on the text Introduction: The limits of poetics 1. For the first time 2. The naming power of the word 3. Heidegger's figures 4. Reading Heidegger reading Conclusion: A Poetics of Limit? Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAn extraordinary collection of lyrics from rap's first thirty years, a showcase of poetic depth and diversityTrade Review“This landmark work chronicles an earth-shattering movement with deep roots.”—New York Times Book Review“The Anthology of Rap is among the best books of its kind ever published.”—Dan Chiasson, New York Review of Books“For the reader who’s really interested in modern poetics a profitable week or three could be spent sitting with The Anthology of Rap.”—Will Self, Times (UK)“The authors have built a poignant collection of rhythm and rhyme. . . . For hard-core hip-hop heads, this book confirms what we have always known: that some of the most innovative writing hails from the imagination of the rapper.”—Idris Goodwin, Boston Globe“As ambitious and intelligent as anyone might want, and more enjoyable than anyone might think. . . . If you want to hear how the latter part of the twentieth century sounded, you can’t do better than this book.”—Kevin Young, Bookforum“Intelligent and authentic. . . . Written for both the hip-hop head and the uninitiated.”—James Johnson, Philadelphia Inquirer“An important contribution to this highly contested lyrical culture.”—David Barnes, Times Literary Supplement“A chronology of rap that highlights significant figures in its short history and offers a window into how rappers harmonize the world through a distinct form of self-expression.”—Library Journal“Reading The Anthology of Rap, which covers everything from Afrika Bambaataa to Young Jeezy, it’s hard not to appreciate rap’s astounding love of words, of the way they fit together and play off each other, and of how meaning can be layered upon meaning to get at a deeper truth. Which sounds an awful lot like poetry.”—Joshua Ostroff, Globe and Mail“The eye-opening essay by [Henry Louis] Gates . . . provides deep historical context for rap; it alone makes the book worth owning.”—Slate“Bradley and DuBois succeed in lucidly explaining how societal shifts have been reflected in rap lyrics. . . . This book is a fitting tribute to a genre not far short of its fortieth anniversary and which was once dismissed as a passing fad.”—Geoff St Louis, Time Out“Groundbreaking. . . . It makes the history, development and variety of the genre plain to see in vivid detail.”—Bernadine Evaristo, The Independent“An extraordinary collection of lyrics showcasing rap’s poetic depth and diversity.”—Bookseller’s Buyer’s Guide“A perfect primer for newcomers.”—The IndependentHonorable mention in the Compilations/Anthologies category of the 2010 New England Book Festival, given by the JM Northern Media family of festivals“An essential contribution to our living literary tradition. . . . This groundbreaking anthology masterfully assembles part of a new vanguard of American poetry.”—from the Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “What you hold in your hands is more than a book. This is a culture. This is hip-hop. . . . This book offers a view of rap in full, from the root to the fruit.”—from the Afterword by Common “Every great literature deserves a great anthology. Rap finally has its own.”—from the Afterword by Chuck D “From the Sing Song cadence of the slave preachers to the emotional bravery of Tupac Shakur to the clarity of Queen Latifah . . . for all the hearts and heads and voices who have still to be heard: We Now Have an Encyclopedia. Good for us. Much needed. Much needed.”—Nikki Giovanni“The Anthology of Rap is an instant classic. It brings together the lyric poetry of some of the greatest artists of our time. Hip Hop is here to stay and rap lives forever—on the stage and now on the page!”—Cornel West“These Rappers’ lyrics love. Cut. Curse. Fight. Teach. Play. Pray. Testify. They bring us the pace of sound. The swiftness of sound. The discordant way of looking at the world of sound. The Blackness of sound. The new bebopic beat of sound. These are word sorcerers who love language and hablar sin bastón (speak without a crutch).”—Sonia Sanchez“This monumental encyclopedia of rhymes is great for hip-hop newbies or longtime fans, lyric lovers and poetry devotees. It’s an invaluable reference on hip-hop history spanning from Afrika Bambaataa to Kanye West.”—Touré“Some readers of poetry still wonder where the rhymes went. One answer is they left the ends of the lines and went inside the poem. But rhyme also strongly re-emerges in rap. Whatever the stakes or the messages contained in this monumental volume, the like-sounds that used to be the engine of English poetry drive and power these energetic lyrics.”—Billy Collins

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Book SynopsisAn esteemed literary critic shares his final musings on books, his children, and his own impending deathTrade Review"The literary judgments in Latest Readings are as a sound as ever . . . [James’s] credo: 'The critic should write to say not "look how much I’ve read" but "look at this, it’s wonderful."' I submit: reader, look at this book, it’s wonderful."—Philip Collins, Times"Pick up Latest Readings. It’s wonderful."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post"This is the kind of writing we have always appreciated him for: perceptive, acerbic, laconic, witty . . . There is so much to enjoy here, so many infectious enthusiasms."—Sue Gaisford, The Tablet"His qualities are his capacious intelligence, sardonic voice and fondness for wordplay and paradox . . . James has approached the time of his vanishing with grace and good humour, not sentimentality or anger. These essays and poems are death-haunted but radiant with the felt experience of what it means to be alive, even when mortally sick, especially when mortally sick."—Jason Cowley, Financial Times"For those who prefer something more literary, this year’s collection of Clive James’s essays on a variety of literary topics, Latest Readings, is an eye-opener. Mr. James is terminally ill. This is sanity, humor and acuity in the face of death."—Mary Beard, Wall Street Journal"Latest Readings is a plain demonstration that Mr. James remains as learned and as funny as any critic on earth."—Dwight Garner, New York Times“If the [Nobel Prize in Literature] were ever to go to a critic, I’d give it to Clive James. He has so much erudition and high-stepping passion. He writes excellent poems and even better memoirs. He has delivered very good books of translation. He is a polymath. He is also very funny.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times"A collection of beautifully thought-out, piquant essays, some only a few pages, that survey what [James] has been reading with the clock ticking. The results are entirely free of self-pity, and emanate vitality and invention . . . James relishes the limited reading time he has and makes no bones about it, providing sparkling commentary on his old favorites and new discoveries."—Publishers Weekly"With James, one hopes fervently that the finale is only just beginning."—Evening Standard"The author delivers a sign-off of substance . . . The unadulterated love of literature proves infectious and a little humbling."—James Kidd, the Independent"Of one military history [James] observes: 'The text is full of observation, judgement and accurate detail, and those things are always new.' The same might be said of this book."—Daniel Swift, The Spectator". . . there is nothing boastful about James’s insatiable consumption . . . His observations on individual books are acute and sometimes challenging."—Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald"His amused, unpretentious, loving commentaries on the books he continues to enjoy are heart-warming and comforting. The volume is a ringing endorsement of the solace of good literature."—Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Irish Times"As a reader and writer confronting death, Clive James has all the creative energy and charm of a man discovering life. These thoughtful essays are immensely appealing, their tone is beautifully judged. Cleverly, he re-reads in order to measure the past. With this and his recent poetry, he could outlive us all."—Ian McEwan"Clive James is perhaps the most original and distinctive literary-critical voice of the last half-century."—Martin Amis"Clive James, brilliant to the (near) end, turns his readings and re-readings of everyone and everything from Hemingway and Conrad to Patrick O'Brian and Game of Thrones into sharp, funny meditations on—among much else—class, beauty, mimicry, memory, manhood, death (other people's), and life (his own). Long may his dazzling, long farewell continue."—Salman Rushdie"In these farewell marginal notes to a life of bookishness, enthusiasm and playful dissent, Clive James disdains to go gentle or regretfully into Dylan Thomas's good night. He retains his energetic piquancy as he makes one more round of the garden of literary delights. The comparison of one old favourite to a Cord automobile is a signature flourish entirely, typically, his own. We shall miss him, but that rare tone of voice will stay with us."—Frederic Raphael"Clive James's inevitable humor, sanity, erudition, enthusiasm, and crystal keenness are everywhere evident in Latest Readings, but perhaps its greatest grace is the opportunity it gives to feel as if you're spending time in his company, listening and learning for at least a little while longer. If its mini essays (and some not so mini) seem to float from James's mind into yours, it is only because a lifetime of reading, thinking, feeling, and formulating has gone into them, registering the pure, responsive authority of a writer with nothing left to prove but so much left to say."—James Wolcott

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Book SynopsisSurprising though it may seem, this is the first full-scale scholarly commentary in English on Virgil''s Eclogues. Written between about 42 and 35 BC, these ten short pastorals are among the best known poems in Latin literature. They have inspired numerous poets - Sidney, Ronsard, and others - and at the same time have held enduring fascination among scholars for their sophistaicated and allusive blend of Theocritean idyll and contemporary Roman history. Professor Clausen''s commentary will provide a comprehensive guide to the poems and the considerable scholarship surrounding them, and should be indispensable to all serious students of Virgil''s poetry. Special attention is paid throughout the commentary to the important question of Virgil''s use of Theocritus and other Hellenistic poets, with translations provided of all Greek passages. There are many new and illuminating observations on Virgil''s poetic style and vocabulary, often with reference to his Latin predecessors: Lucretius,Trade Reviewhas been long awaited and has much to offer. On matters of Latinity and details of interpretation he is clear and cogent; particularly welcome is the use made of Plautus and Lucretius...The book shows a feeling for poetry and nature that makes it a worthy companion to Mynors's Georgics. * R.G.M.Nisbet, Corpus Christi College, Oxford *Clausen does indeed supplement existing commentaries in some valuable ways, and serious Vergilian scholars will certainly want to avail themselves of this new resource. * The Classical Journal *This is a full and scholarly commentary of the old-fashioned kind (in the best sense of the word!), in fact "surprisingly, the first full scale scholarly eommentary in English on the Eclogues"....This is certainly an important and necessary book for the teacher and university student.. * JACT review *

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Book SynopsisBurnt-out at twenty-three, Rimbaud has become a model for the poet as wayward genius. Nevertheless, he wrote a substantial amount of lyric and dramatic verse in his few years of activity. This volume contains all his mature output, together with several short prose works, including A SEASON IN HELL, and relevant passages from the poet's letters.

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Book SynopsisA fascinating discussion with one of America's greatest living writers about language, literature, and life.

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Book SynopsisEmperor Taizong (r. 626–49) of the Tang is remembered as an exemplary ruler. This study addresses that aura of virtuous sovereignty and Taizong’s construction of a reputation for moral rulership through his own literary writings—with particular attention to his poetry.

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Book SynopsisEve of the Festival is a detailed examination of Homeric myth-making in the first and longest dialogue of Penelope and Odysseus (Odyssey 19). This study makes a case for seeing virtuoso myth-making as an essential part of this conversation, a register of communication important for the interaction between the two speakers.

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Book SynopsisCarmen Conde is a major figure in twentieth-century Spanish poetry. Though neglected up to now, Mientras los hombres mueren is the most important collection of war poetry to emerge from the Spanish Civil War. It was first published, in a limited edition, in Italy in 1953. Though it has been included in its entirety in anthologies of her work published in Spain in 1967, 1986 and 2007, this is the first free-standing edition since 1953 and the first ever critical edition. The collection was written in 1938-39, in Valencia, then the seat of the Republican Government. In prose poetry densely packed with imagery of nightmarish destruction, Conde gives voice to the experience of women and children suffering bombardment from air and sea, hunger and homelessness, and the loss of husbands, brothers and fathers at the front. The second half of the collection, 'A los niños muertos en la guerra', is an extended elegy for all those children killed in bombing raids during Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroductionNote on this editionSelect bibliographyText and commentariesAppendicesTemas de debate y discusiónSelected vocabulary

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Book SynopsisThis is a revised and enlarged edition of the most extensive and detailed critical reading of English Romantic poetry ever attempted in a single volume. It is both a valuable introduction to the Romantics and an influential work of literary criticism...

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Book SynopsisMary Oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, is one of the most celebrated poets in America. Molly Malone Cook, who died in 2005, was Oliver's partner for many years, a pioneer gallery owner and photographer. Our World weaves forty-nine of Cook's photographs and selections from her journals with Oliver's extended writings, both reminiscence and reflection, in prose and in poetry. The result is an intimate revelation of their lives and art. Within the art world, Molly Malone Cook made her reputation as an early advocate of photography as an art form; she was a champion of the work of now-famous photographers, including Edward Steichen, Eugene Atget, Berenice Abbott, Minor White, Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, and W. Eugene Smith. There are famous faces here as well, captured by Cook's camera, among them Walker Evans, Robert Motherwell and Henry Geldzahler, the first curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum.Cook and Oliver also lived among

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Book Synopsis“Next to Genesis, no book in the Hebrew Bible has had a stronger influence on Western literature than the Song of Songs.”-The New York Review of BooksOne of the greatest love poems ever written, The Song of Songs celebrates the sexual awakening of a young woman and her lover and the intoxicating experience of falling in love. Composed more than two thousand years ago, this book of the Old Testament is not only an essential religious and literary text, but also a source of inspiration to modern-day poets and lovers. Enhanced by an Afterword by the esteemed scholar Robert Alter and a new Foreword from the noted translator Stephen Mitchell, this definitive volume showcases Chana Bloch and Ariel Bloch’s sensuous translation which has “a lyrical purity that is delightful” (W. S. Merwin).

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Book SynopsisA translation of Heinrich Heine's love poems. This bilingual edition includes an introduction by Heine scholar Jeffrey L. Sammons. The author aims to capture the meaning of the original, but preserve the poems' rhyme schemes as well as their moods.Table of ContentsEarly Lieder and ballards (1817-21); lyrical interlude (1822-23); homecomeing (1823-24).

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Book Synopsis"Starts off as a manifesto but becomes richer and more suggestive as it develops."-The New York SunTrade Review"One of our seminal works of creative scholarship." -- Michael Palmer"In the non-conformist tradition of William Carlos Williams's In the American Grain and Charles Olson's Call Me Ishmael, Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson reclaims the primacy of the poet's voice in American literary criticism even as it redresses the troubling absence of women within those antecedents. In this groundbreaking and influential work, Howe explores Dickinson's poems in all their radical indeterminacy and acoustical complexity, brilliantly revealing their explosive, modern power. My Emily Dickinson is visionary criticism at its best." -- Elizabeth Willis"As a poet and a critic she articulates precisely those soundings of uncertainty, those zones of failed or impaired utterance that constitute the literary history of America's uneasy commerce with the world." -- Richard Sieburth - Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisBasho (1644-94) is perhaps the best known Japanese poet in both Japan and the West, and this book establishes the ground for badly needed critical discussion of this critical figure by placing the works of Basho and his disciples in the context of broader social change.Table of ContentsContents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Epilogue: Appendix:

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Book SynopsisJohn Cherry recently retired as Keeper of the medieval collections in the British Museum. He is the author of Medieval Decorative Art and Goldsmiths (Medieval Craftsmen series) and editor of The British Museum Book of Mythical Beasts.

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Book SynopsisAny translation is a reading. Chris McCully reads Beowulf as an epic written in English using all the complex metrical conventions of its time, as well as distinctive epic tropes including sea-crossings, oracular pronouncements and encounters with the monstrous. This version renders the original in readable contemporary English but also keeps as close as it can to the older, alliterative metrical system, so that readers may experience something of the textures and formal properties of the original. An `Afterword’ explains the translator’s formal choices and explores the nature of this epic, with its emphasis on tribe, location and mortality. `McCully captures the special magic and power of the Beowulf poet’s word-pile and life-thoughts.’ (Martin Duffell, Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London)

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Book SynopsisThe first art book to explore Rossetti's art and poetry together, including her own artworks, illustrations to her writing, and art inspired by her Christina Rossetti (18301894) is among the greatest of English Victorian poets. The intensity of her vision, her colloquial style, and the lyrical quality of her verse still speak powerfully to us today, while her striking imagery has always inspired artists. Rossetti lived in an exceptionallyvisual environment: her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was the leading member of the avant-garde Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and she became a favorite model for the group. She sat for the face of Christ in William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, while both John Everett Millais and Frederick Sandysillustrated her poetry. Later on, the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and the great Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff wereinspired by Rossetti's enigmatic verses. This engaging book explores the full artistic context of Rossetti's life aTrade Review“Handsome publication”— Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective“This lovely-looking book explores Christina Rossetti’s artistic context in new and unexpected ways.” —Aileen Reid, World of Interiors“The catalogue for the recent exhibition at the Watts Gallery, Christina Rossetti: Poetry in art, brings together many surprising items from public and private collections to reveal unusual aspects of the poet's life and work. […] The scholarly work of the editors and contributors and the book's many illustrations greatly expand our knowledge of Christina Rossetti and her widening circle.” —Lindsay Duguid, Times Literary Supplement“The volume is abundantly illustrated and provides a satisfying contribution to the study of an immensely complex poet and an aspect of 19th century art with which she is unavoidably intertwined” —Tom Fleming, Apollo Magazine“Her influence on other artists is shown both in the exhibition and in the beautiful accompanying book – far more than a catalogue – Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art. We see her impact in their illustrations for different editions of her books of poetry, and the many paintings inspired by her poems, such as Arthur Hughes’s The Mower, while in art photography, Julia Margaret Cameron based her charming The Minstrel Group on one of her poems.” —David V Barrett, Catholic Herald“Throughout, handsome design and well-placed illustrations make this a pleasing, fresh addition to the literature on Victorian art, poetry and aesthetics.” —Frances Spalding, Literary Review“Handsome book” —Jeremy Musson, Country Life“The volume now published by Yale University Press, in relation with an exhibition on display at the Watts Gallery in Compton does manage to shed some new light on a largely overlapping subject.” —Laurent Bury, Cercles“[A]n accessible, wide-ranging and beautifully presented introduction to the visual contexts of Rossetti’s work…[which] honours the established view that her poetry participates in a lively interplay with the visual arts, offering an alluring record of a beautiful exhibition.”—Fiona Macdonald, The Journal of Religious HistoryLong listed for the Historians of British Art Book Prize

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Book SynopsisYouth spoken word poetry groups are on the rise in the United States, offering safe spaces for young people to write and perform. These diverse groups encourage members to share their lived experiences, decry injustices, and imagine a better future. At a time when students may find writing in school alienating and formulaic, composing in these poetry groups can be refreshingly relevant and exciting.Listen to the Poet investigates two Arizona spoken word poetry groups - a community group and a high school club - that are both part of the same youth organization. Exploring the writing lives and poetry of several members, Wendy R. Williams takes readers inside a writing workshop and poetry slam and reveals that schools have much to learn about writing, performance, community, and authorship from groups like these and from youth writers themselves.

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Book SynopsisDavid A. Campbell is Emeritus Professor of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Abbreviations Archilochus Cal linus Tyrtaeus Semonides Alcman Mimnermus Solon Stesichorus Sappho Alcaeus Ibycus Anacreon Xenophanes Phocylides Demodocus Theognis Hipponax Simon ides Pratinas Timocreon Corinna Bacchylides Praxilla Carmina popularia Scolia Appendix on Metre Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on an extensive knowledge of the critical history of Olympian One, Professor Gerber here presents a thorough analysis of the language thought, myth, structure, and poetic technique of Pindar's most famous ode. He deals with virtually every word in the poem, elucidating disputed passages, defining Pindar's use of imagery and myth and his structural techniques, and revealing the significance of his statements about the gods, the victor, and his own poetic practice.In doing so he makes a major contribution to Pindaric studies, aiding an understanding of this ode in particular, and of the poet's other works in general.

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Book SynopsisBringing together internationally leading scholars whose work engages with the continued importance of literary experiment, this book takes up the question of 'reading' in the contemporary climate from culturally and linguistically diverse perspectives.

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Book SynopsisThis guide is written from the conviction that Prophets is a major work of Caribbean poetry, and that whilst it can be read with enjoyment without the aid of a book of this kind, it is a work so rich in local reference and allusion that a little help can enhance the reader's understanding and pleasure. The introduction discusses Prophets in its social and political setting of 1980s Jamaica and the significance of the poem's social geography. It discusses Prophets' relationship to the key texts that influenced it, or against which it was written, including Derek Walcott's Omeros, Sylvia Wynter's The Hills of Hebron and the early novels of Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. The second section of summaries and annotations provides a line by line guide to the poem. This includes notes to its very specific references to the social and cultural manifestations of 1980s Jamaica, identification of places identified in the poem, and notes to the poems' many allusions: to the Bible, but also to other works of literature and to the reggae lyrics that form a bridge between the Bible, the prophetic and Jamaican popular culture.

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Book SynopsisKatherine Kretler plumbs the virtues of the Homeric poems as scripts for solo performance. What is lost in the journey from the stage to the page? The book focuses on the performer not as transparent mediator, but as one haunted by multiple stories, bringing suppressed voices to the surface.Trade ReviewThis study will be of great interest to advanced scholars. * Choice *

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Book SynopsisA seminal contribution to the corpus of Basho translations and the first to present English renditions in the original 5-7-5 form.

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Book SynopsisReveals Language poetry in its nascent stage, with letters written by Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, and others in intense and intimate conversation regarding poetry and poetics; the contemporary poetry and arts scenes; publication venues, journals, and magazines; and issues of community, camaraderie, and friendship.

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Book SynopsisThough North Korea holds the attention of the world, it is still rare for us to hear North Korean voices, beyond those few who have escaped. Known only by his pen name, the poet and author ‘Bandi’ stands as one of the most distinctive and original dissident writers to emerge from the country, and his work is all the more striking for the fact that he continues to reside in North Korea, writing in secret, with his work smuggled out of the country by supporters and relatives. The Red Years represents the first collection of Bandi’s poetry to be made available in English. As he did in his first work The Accusation, Bandi here gives us a rare glimpse into everyday life and survival in North Korea. Singularly poignant and evocative, The Red Years stands as a testament to the power of the human spirit to endure and resist even the most repressive of regimes.Trade ReviewAs a collection of poems by an anonymous North Korean dissident sees the light here for the first time, Katie Law learns the extraordinary story of how he risked his life to smuggle his work out of the country ... The Red Years, a slim volume of 51 short poems, makes for pretty depressing reading, the brutality of life under Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il expressed even more crudely than in the stories. * Evening Standard *In 'The Red Years', we are shown the possibility of this kind of communal solidarity persisting. The collection, then, is a fragment of this private enclave – the ardent defense of an interiority unbroken by propaganda. * NK News *Powerful insights into a world behind walls. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Guardian *Courageous and confounding ... It's a quiet privilege to be given access to the voiceless by listening to such vivid and uncompromised storytelling. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, New Statesman *A fierce indictment of life in the totalitarian North. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, New York Times *Spare, direct, unflinching and bitterly angry. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Observer *Bandi [presents] a world in which North Koreans are nuanced: broken-hearted, idealistic, still full of life. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Times Literary Supplement *Its very existence is still a hopeful symbol that change is inevitable, if not imminent. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Vice *Fascinating and chilling. Heartfelt and heartbreaking. * Praise for Bandi’s The Accusation, Margaret Atwood *Table of ContentsPreface Poem 1. Barren Earth A New Arirang for the North Green Leaves, Falling Blizzard Bloody Fall A Maiden’s Window Song of the Fire Swallows Chajabi (The Hitchhiker) Ugly, White Snow The Mill on the Mountain New Seongcheon Station 2. Exhausted Heart Song of the Red People Roundabout Blues Toads No Ingredients Blues Idol 50 Years of Red Five Thieves Blues Stepmother The Song of Kim Juseok Heartsick Red Locomotive Night at the Military Camp Affliction in the Red House 3. Longing for You, My Love One Heart Long, Long Winter Nights Ah! KBS Educational Channel My Love How Much I Love You Please Deliver Just This Blow, South Wind This Lonely Life I Awaited You, My Love 4. Attached to a Life Youth is a Forking Road O Azaleas Song of Life Pine Trees Thoughts of Mother Woman of Pure Love Oak Tree in Winter A Man Your Lover 5. Wishes Bandi (Firefly) Landscape White with Snow Why I Love Wildflowers Me for Myself The Whistling Man Today The World Where People Live Open-minded Life Sow Love, Reap Love A Dream Afterword: Bandi’s Dream - Do Hee-yun

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Book SynopsisThis book pairs close readings with a strong overview of the movement and ranges from Women's Beat Writing to African American Beats.

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Book SynopsisFollowing the success of CATCHING LIFE BY THE THROAT, Josephine Hart compiles more poetry from the like of such poets as Milton, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Frost and Lowell. An audio CD accompanies.Trade Review** 'For all ages . . . [the poets'] work is enhanced by some of our greatest actors' FT MAGAZINE * ** 'The performances illuminate afresh’ *SUNDAY TIMES * ** 'How gratifying for once to find an audiobook that's a million times better than its print counterpart . . . Inspired’ *GUARDIAN * ** 'Live readings by good voices are a terrific idea. All the greats are here’ *BOOKSELLER

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Book SynopsisPoet and scholar team Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith collect and foreground an impressive range of sonnets, including formal and formally subversive sonnets by established and emerging poets, highlighting connections across literary moments and movements. Poets include Phillis Wheatley, Fredrick Goddard Tuckerman, Emma Lazarus, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gertrude Stein, Fradel Shtok, Claude McKay, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ruth Muskrat Bronson, Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Dunstan Thompson, Rhina P. Espaillat, Lucille Clifton, Marilyn Hacker, Wanda Coleman, Patricia Smith, Jericho Brown, and Diane Seuss. The sonnets are accompanied by critical essays that likewise draw together diverse voices, methodologies, and historical and theoretical perspectives that represent the burgeoning field of American sonnet studies.Trade Review“With keen observation and rigorous inquiry, The American Sonnet documents and celebrates American poets’ vital contributions to an ancient, global verse form. The poems and essays collected here situate the ‘American sonnet’ within a centuries-long conversation about how poetry happens on the page and in the mind. By centering diverse, living American poets for whom the sonnet is a way to think deeply about social and political questions, this work offers a timely snapshot of our urgent literary moment. The American Sonnet is a feast of discovery for all readers.”—Kiki Petrosino, author, White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia “The American Sonnet will be embraced by all who’ve noted the lack of diverse scholarship on the sonnet, particularly regarding historically underrepresented sonneteers. Malech and Smith have deepened and expanded the range of our thinking on this form. I can’t wait to teach this book—and be taught by it.”—Beth Ann Fennelly, author, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs “I can’t imagine a group of people with whom I would be more excited to talk with about the sonnet than the essayists herein, nor talk more illuminating than their essays. And the sonnets themselves cover whatever the essays don’t (more Dunstan Thompson in anthologies, please). This is an ideal anthology.”—Shane McCrae, author, Cain Named the Animal “’We shall not always plant while others reap,’ promised Countee Cullen; the robust tradition of sonnets he represented is just one of several in this memorable, thoughtful, useful, and sometimes stellar collection’s deeply American braid, reflecting both a panoply of sonnets from U.S.-based writers (and translators!) and a splendid variety of contemporary writings on the form, a modern—but not too modern—pattern designed to make ‘the soul swing open’ (as Mona Van Duyn puts it) ‘on its hinges.’ Sonnets themselves train up to the present day and then introduce up-to-date reflections on the form, from major critics’ takes to up-and-coming poets’ thoughts: Jahan Ramazani on this ‘tightly wound global form,’ Meg Day's ‘Deaf and disabled existence,’ Timo Muller on Harlem Renaissance translation, arguments about neuroqueerness and autism in (wait for it) Robert Frost, and about where on Earth this form is going beyond the pentameter, beyond—or is it back to?—the past. ‘A sonnet is a mother,’ as the great Diane Seuss writes: here are its children.”—Stephanie Burt

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Book SynopsisToward an Anti-Racist Poetics seeks to dislodge the often unspoken white universalism that underpins literary production and reception today. In this personal and thoughtful book, award-winning author Wayde Compton explores how we might collectively develop a poetic approach that makes space for diversity by doing away with universalism in both lyric and avant-garde verse. Poignant and contemporary examples reveal how white authors often forget that their whiteness is a racial position. In the propulsive push to experiment with form, they essentially fail to see themselves as white artists. Noting that he has never felt that his subjectivity was universal, Compton advocates for the importance of understanding your own history and positionality, and for letting go of the idea of a common aesthetic. Toward an Anti-Racist Poetics offers validation for poets of colour who do not work in dominant western forms, and is for all writers seeking to engage in anti-racist work.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers the first in-depth account of the relationship between English and Scottish poets and the international concrete poetry movement of the 1950s to the 1970s. Concrete poetry was a literary and artistic style which reactivated early twentieth-century modernist impulses towards the merging of artistic media, while simultaneously speaking to a gamut of contemporary contexts, from post-1945 reconstruction to cybernetics, mass media and the sixties counter-culture. The terms of its development in England and Scotland suggest new ways of mapping ongoing complexities in the relationship between the two national cultures, and of tracing broader sociological and cultural trends in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. Focusing especially on the work of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Bob Cobbing, Border Blurs is based on new and extensive archival and primary research, and will fill a vital gap in contemporary understandings of an important but much misunderstood genre: concrete poetry. It will also serve as a vital document for scholars and students of twentieth-century British literature, modern intermedia art and modernism, especially those interested in understanding modernism’s wide geographical spread and late twentieth-century legacies.Trade Review‘This is an excellent, well-researched and up-to-date account of the development of concrete poetry in England and Scotland from the 1950s onwards. It will make an outstanding contribution to knowledge in the related fields of concrete poetry, late modernism, the history of the 1960s counter-culture and the British Poetry Revival.’ Dr Steve Willey, Birkbeck, University of LondonReviews 'Greg Thomas here gives us the first full treatment of English and Scottish concrete poetry. His survey is detailed and comprehensive, and he is especially acute in his treatment of both the interaction of two distinct literary cultures – nationalism and internationalism – and the reciprocity of literature and other media. He thus argues that “classical concrete” was followed by another concrete “more concerned with complicating or undermining linguistic sense, and with instating in language’s place various forms of multi-media communication and expression ...”. A genuinely inventive and valuable book for students and scholars of modernism, intermedia art, and British literature.'Dr Nancy Perloff, Curator, Modern & Contemporary Collections, Getty Research Institute‘Border Blurs is a welcome and long overdue study of what is a key component of the general turn of British poetry towards what we might loosely describe as modernism and experiment that began in the 1960s and continues to this day. Thomas writes well and clearly… and has done anyone interested in poetry in all its variety an enormous favour. I highly recommend this book.’ Billy Mills, Elliptical MovementsTable of Contents1. Introduction2. Concrete Poetry/ Konkrete Poesie/ Poesia Concreta: The International Scene3. Order and Doubt: Ian Hamilton Finlay4. Off-Concrete: Edwin Morgan5. Apophasis: Dom Sylvester Houédard6. Abstract Concrete: Bob Cobbing7. Concrete Poetry and After: Conclusion

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Book SynopsisBringing to the fore the voices of Maya authors and what their poetry tells us about resistance, sovereignty, trauma, and regeneration In 1954, Guatemala suffered a coup d’etat, resulting in a decades-long civil war. During this period, Indigenous Mayans were subject to displacement, disappearance, and extrajudicial killing. Within the context of the armed conflict and the postwar period in Guatemala, K’iche’ Maya scholar Emil’ Keme identifies three historical phases of Indigenous Maya literary insurgency in which Maya authors use poetry to dignify their distinct cultural, political, gender, sexual, and linguistic identities.Le Maya Q’atzij / Our Maya Word employs Indigenous and decolonial theoretical frameworks to critically analyze poetic works written by ten contemporary Maya writers from five different Maya nations in Iximulew/Guatemala. Similar to other Maya authors throughout colonial history, these authors and their poetry criticize, in their own creative ways, the continuing colonial assaults to their existence by the nation-state. Throughout, Keme displays the decolonial potentialities and shortcomings proposed by each Maya writer, establishing a new and productive way of understanding Maya living realities and their emancipatory challenges in Iximulew/Guatemala.This innovative work shows how Indigenous Maya poetics carries out various processes of decolonization and, especially, how Maya literature offers diverse and heterogeneous perspectives about what it means to be Maya in the contemporary world.Trade Review "This book offers brilliantly conceptualized and well-grounded readings on the work of Maya poets in times of colonial, patriarchal, and racial violence in Guatemala. Emil’ Keme's critical journey is permeated by a powerful sense of anti-colonial resistance and an imaginary of Indigenous liberation that is both poetic and political."—Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante, founding member of the Comunidad de Historia Mapuche "With Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word, Emil’ Keme has given us a brilliant analysis of how Maya literary production constitutes resistance to the ongoing imposition of settler capitalist colonization in Iximulew/Guatemala. From the perspective of a Maya scholar, Keme offers a sophisticated and insightful read of works by K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Q’eq’chi’, Q’anjob’al, and Pop’ti poets in their political context, guided throughout by a clear and decisive love of le Maya tzij, or the Maya word. This book makes a valuable contribution not only to Maya studies and literary studies, but also to Native and Indigenous studies hemispherically and globally."—Shannon Speed (Chickasaw), University of California, Los Angeles "Le Maya Q’atzij / Our Maya Word is an energetic attempt to recover and promote Mayan identity, culture, and language from over five hundred years of encroachment. The author critically analyzes poetry that delves into the challenges of the Mayan people in the land claimed as Mayan: Iximulew "—Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature "It is clear both from the studied works and from Keme's analysis that contemporary Mayan literature has a complexity that seems not only to evolve but is constantly differentiating and diversifying itself."—The Canadian Journal of Native Studies Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: Iximulew’s/Guatemala’s Indigenous Poetry since 19601. Kaqchikel Maya Identity: Francisco Morales Santos and Luis de Lión2. Strategic Essentialism against State Terrorism: Humberto Ak’abal, Victor Montejo, and Gaspar Pedro González3. Xib’alba and Globalism: Rosa Chávez, Pablo García, and Sabino Esteban Francisco4. Maya Feminism and Queer Poetics: Maya Cu and Manuel TzocConclusion: The Maya Word Will Never DieAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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