98 results for "History"

Ruin and Beauty New and Selected Poems

Deena METZGER
Poetry arises from the search for sacred language that describes the awe and mystery of the real world. Deena Metzger is a contemporary poet who has aligned herself with this ancient tradition. This collection, that includes selections from her earlier books of poetry Dark Milk, The Axis Mundi Poems, Looking For the Faces of God , A Sabbath Among the Ruins and Skin: Shadows/Silence draws on her life s work, more than forty years of devotion to the word, and aligns itself with such a quest for meaning that has increasing urgency because of the spiritual and political ruins of our time. It is no longer sufficient, she believes, for the poet to be an unacknowledged legislator of the world, for the committed poet is called to engage with full heart in the continuous activity of restoration on behalf of beauty, wisdom and the natural world. Here we meet the articulate voices of the otherwise silenced, the voices of the animals, the land and the elementals, rain, wind fire and earth, and our responsibility to them. This book combines a searing look at the horrors that we permit, the anguish of human cruelty, brutality, and indulgence, but carrying the fierce determination to live, act, and write on behalf of the soul in all its manifestations. In this collection, despair is acknowledged but not indulged, as Metzger engages in the meticulous task of reconstructing a world, informed by the past and history as language demands, but, extracting ourselves from its violence and caprices, looking toward a viable future and all its unexpected possibilities. Poetry arises from the search for sacred language thatdescribes the awe and mystery of the realworld.Deena Metzger is a contemporarypoet who has aligned herself with this ancient tradition. This collection, thatincludes selections from her earlier books of poetry, and draws on her life swork, more than forty years of devotion to the word, and aligns itself withsuch a quest for meaning that has increasing urgency because of the spiritualand political ruins of our time.It isno longer sufficient, she believes, for the poet to be an unacknowledgedlegislator of the world, for the committed poet is called to engage with fullheart in the continuous activity of restoration on behalf of beauty, wisdom andthe natural world.Here we meet thearticulate voices of the otherwise silenced, the voices of the animals, theland and the elementals, rain, wind fire and earth, and our responsibility to them.This book combines a searing look at thehorrors that we permit, the anguish of human cruelty, brutality, andindulgence, but carrying the fierce determination to live, act, and write onbehalf of the soul in all its manifestations. In this collection, despair isacknowledged but not indulged, as Metzger engages in the meticulous task ofreconstructing a world, informed by the past and history as language demands, but, extracting ourselves from its violence and caprices, looking toward aviable future and all its unexpected possibilities. "
Red Hen Press 2009 312 pages

Wild civility

Biespiel, David
David Biespiel's long poetic lines crackle with rhythmic energy and a jazzy, bittersweet richness of language. Rolling out across the page like darkly luminous highways, his innovative, nine-line "American sonnets" promise adventure, offering a variant on the sonnet form that is both lyric and dramatic and bringing his masterful formal inventiveness to free verse. "I've come to imagine the nine-line sonnet to be like one of those classic Thunderbirds," says Biespiel, "something distinctly American: wide, roomy, and with a robust engine." The vastly varied voices within the poems are united by a wonderfully limber diction. Using with revelatory precision the vocabularies of history, science, art, sport, philosophy, religion, literature, government, and domestic life, Biespiel has crafted a hip, melodic, elastic language that travels the registers of expression: lush and coarse, gaudy and austere, pliant and rigidly tough. The civility of the poems is the form; the wildness is the bristling energy of the language. Passionate, resilient, rich with wit and word play, these poems affirm David Biespiel's increasing stature as a poet of remarkable accomplishment and promise. David Biespiel teaches English at Oregon State University and is Writer in Residence at The Attic in Portland, Oregon. His honors include a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature. He is the author of Shattering Air. "Like microprocessors, the poems in Wild Civility deliver an almost incalculable amount of information instantaneously. As a result, they demonstrate the pure and powerful recombinant energy of language that is the essence of lyric poetry." - Michael Collier, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference "Wild in its imaginative thrust, civil in its formal command, this glowing new sequence represents David Biespiel's best poetry to date." - Stanley Plumly
University of Washington Press 2003 69 pages

West Side Story

Irving Shulman
The classic novelization of one of Broadway’s most enduring and beloved musicals, updated with a beautiful new cover. Maria is young and innocent and has never known love—until Tony. And Tony, searching for life beyond the savagery of the streets, has discovered love for the first time with her, too. But Maria’s brother is the leader of the Sharks and Tony had once led the rival Jets. Now, both gangs are claiming the same turf and with tensions rising to the point of explosion, it seems there is no way to stop a rumble. Tony promised Maria that he would stay out of it. But will he be able to keep his word or will their newfound love be destroyed by violence or even death? Evocative and unforgettable, this novelization brings out all of the depth, drama, and beauty of one of the most enduring stories in the history of American theater.
Simon and Schuster 2021-11-16 160 pages

Charming Gardeners

David Biespiel
The formally nuanced and wise epistolary poems in David Biespiel?s new collection are grounded in friendship, camaraderie, and the vulnerability and boldness that defines America. Roving from the old Confederacy of Biespiel's native South to Portland, Oregon, Charming Gardeners explores the wildness of the Northwest, the avenues of Washington, D.C., the coal fields of West Virginia, and an endless stretch of airplanes and hotel rooms from New York to Texas to California. These poems explore the ?insistent murmurs? of memory and the emotional connections between individuals and history, as well as the bonds of brotherhood, the ghosts of America?s wars, and the vibrancy of love, sex, and intimacy. We are offered poems addressed to family, friends, poets, and political rivals ? all in a masterful idiom Robert Pinsky has called Biespiel?s ?own original grand style.? I should stop back there And stand on both feet in the grazing sunlight And hear this chorus of America singing. But I am so afraid of the testament of the delivered. from ?TO __________ FROM THE JEWISH CEMETERY IN WILLIAMSON, WEST VIRGINIA
University of Washington Press 2014-12 144 pages

Everything Must Go The Life and Death of an American Neighborhood

Kevin Coval
Everything Must Go is an illustrated collection of poems in the spirit of a graphic novel, a collaboration between poet Kevin Coval and illustrator Langston Allston. The book celebrates Chicago's Wicker Park in the late 1990's, Coval's home as a young artist, the ancestral neighborhood of his forebears, and a vibrant enclave populated by colorful characters. Allston's illustrations honor the neighborhood as it once was, before gentrification remade it. The book excavates and mourns that which has been lost in transition and serves as a template for understanding the process of displacement and reinvention currently reshaping American cities.
Haymarket Books 2019 102 pages

Winnie Winkle and the Diamond Heirlooms An Original Story Based on Martin Branner's Famous Newspaper Strip Winnie Winkle

Helen Berke,Martin 1888- Branner
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2021-09-10 256 pages

The Art of Thomas Rose

Thomas Rose
I paint with acrylic and oil paint on canvas, I use gold leaf and glazes in many works, I often write poetry to accompany my paintings. I paint many subjects from birds and patriotic art, to marriage equality. Most of the images and ideas I use are taken from real life, the birds that walk around my pond, the fabric of my mother's dress, the wallpaper in her bedroom. I use imagery that I have drawn from memories of growing up in Boston, Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam, weathervanes and antiques, geometrics from the nineteen seventies and eighties, rain running down a pane of glass. The poems I write may be reflective of my artwork or reflective of my life experience. I have exhibited my art in Boston and Vero Beach, Florida for; Art Ark, Dale Sorensen, Vero Beach Museum of Art, The Regina Stark Gallery and President Obama. In 2012 I was asked by the Democratic Party and Forward America to exhibit nine of my paintings for President Obama's election, that exhibit ran for several months here in Vero Beach, Florida, something I am very proud of. I have since created two paintings for President and Mrs. Obama I have spent my life like most people in America, working full time and taking care of my home and family. It wasn't until the year 2011 that I was able to make the commitment to paint and write full time. Three years later, the result of that commitment is "The Art of Thomas Rose." My hope is that "The Art of Thomas Rose" brings enjoyment to the reader and encourages free thought about life and love. We are all beautiful people, deserving of love, respect and understanding. I hope you enjoy my book. As always, peace and love. Tom
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2014-09-12 94 pages

Days to Come

Lillian 1905-1984 Hellman
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2021-09-09 132 pages

A Correspondence of Americans

Jack 1933- Hirschman
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2021-09-09 68 pages

Ode to Anna Moffo and other poems

Koestenbaum, Wayne
Review The Answer Is In The Garden Asie (sheherazade) Cash The Debut (ode To Anna Moffo) Doctor Type Dog Bite Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: I Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Ii Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Iii Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Iv Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Ix Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: V Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Vi Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Vii Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: Viii Erotic And Sepulchral Epigrams From The Cinquencento: X Est-ce Que Fantasia On My Father's Gift Faust In Seersucker Shorts Fugitive Blue A History Of Private Life L'indifferent (sheherazade) La Flute Enchantee (sheherazade) The Letter (ode To Anna Moffo) The Moving Occupations The Ornate And Lovely Corner House A Professor Young And Old Relics Of The True Cross The Square Of Swan Tea Dance -- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® From Publishers Weekly In the title poem and centerpiece of this debut collection, 1989 "Discovery"/ Nation poetry award co-winner Koestenbaum writes, "Mired in low culture, / I was aching to reach the high."41 But it is precisely the low that allows him to exult in the lavish heights of the Metropolitan Opera, idolizing a diva who rises above the mundane only in her performances. Koestenbaum's own performances are formal and fluidly elegant: "I think that Anna / Moffo sings, / to this day, in a second, / parallel Met, a hologram of the original / projected in air, / where failing voices continue / to thrive amidst a system of strange geysers / and girders, cables / linking the golden prompter's box / to a sky that burns directly on the stage."45 His wit can become self-conscious, his metaphors heavy, but the unifying strength of the poems is Koestenbaum's burgeoning awareness of being gay, with all its emotional ramifications: "Thinking I was invisible, I wore the peacock / Blue and found I was too visible. I wanted to shock / My public into cheers, until I learned that they were primitives . . . / When Carla put her hand on Ricky's knee / I saw my future's blueprint. I was wearing pants of lapis lazuli."11 Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Half operatic libretto, half slangy conversation, Koestenbaum's first book of poems interweaves sophisticated urban wit with a sense of lost happiness ("I am a landlord of a sadness"). With Anna Moffo, well-known coloratura soprano (born in 1932 in Wayne, Pennsylvania) as muse and "favorite," Koestenbaum explores role-playing, sexual identity, friendship, homoeroticism, and art as a refuge from psychic discontinuity. Through his rapid-fire digressions and formally rhyming arpeggios emerges a longing for elusive interpersonal realities "in which the secret life is fully seen." "I read/ these urgent things too quickly, as if I were not fixed/ By what occurs, as cats, cards, and elections/ Are fixed." Koestenbaum's extravagant fantasies nurse "a foolish daydream" of opera as a metaphor of life. "I mail/ this letter,/ addressed to Miss Moffo, care/ of the mind's Met, where Broadway joins forgotten avenues."-- Frank Allen, SUNY at CobleskillCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Persea Books 1990 79 pages

Revolutionary Alchemy

John Curl
Collected poems, 1967-2012 From the Foreword by Jack Hirschman, former Poet Laureate of San Francisco: "I think I can say a few words about what makes American poetry tick..., and by way of that indicate the importance of this book and John Curl in the pantheon of revolutionary poets... it is 'transform, transform' that John Curl is forever sounding and resounding with his depth charges... We're talking about transforming a society totally in which process poetry serves as a beaconing forward. Curl's signature achievement linguistically, it seems to me, is to have developed a language where lines of images often are contrary to one another and that friction or opposition does more than 'surrealize' the lines (Curl knows the techniques of all the avant-garde poetry movements of the 20th century)-what he is writing is often a poetry of dialectical motion itself. The singular intent behind John's writing is to actualize in poetry the urgent need for working-class consciousness, ... and Curl succeeds in so many poems and in so many imaginings in this book that one realizes that Revolutionary Alchemy is a book of major importance. John Curl... has earned a place-with this book of poems-among the foremost revolutionary American poets since the end of WW2." From Sharon Doubiago, National Book Award nominee: "John Curl's Revolutionary Alchemy is a magnificent account of a radical poet's work, the lifetime of poems, the inner story of an important generation, its psyche, the history. What deep and meaningful pleasure to read this alchemy, mix of love with the bombs. 'I cried when I heard the war was over and/ when I remember/the war still rages on/ I cry again...To resolve my pain I/must resolve yours....'" From Art Goodtimes, Poet Laureate of the Western Slope: "The procreative force, the cosmic sensibility, the oracular insight Curl brings to the reader is constantly astonishing. These poems help define and give rise to a verse of the surreal poetarian vision of the left. Here unrealism attempts to seize and transform imperialist reality. Curl writes like the lead miner in a pit crew. As such, he is a major poet on the people's side. There is not a thing to be bought off in his poems, there is only the amazement of truth." From Mary Rudge, author of Water Planet: "A Master Poet who uses language in a remarkable, innovative way, he gives us information on contradictions in the evolving state of human consciousness. The tensile lines of these poems are a strong loom holding the strength of an interwoven theme of Social Justice making deliberate design through the poet's understanding of actions and attitudes. John Curl shows us the undersides of clouds and cultures but also shows immutable order in chaos. He can, in a single poem, give at least 15 ways of changing personal, social, political darkness, including purification by fire. Though some are seemingly surreal, strange and new, your intellect tells you each line is someone's reality at the core."
Homeward Press 2012-12-06 364 pages

The blue pearl

Blonstein, Anne
The poem works with patterns of phrase and space. Orders of words and deaths. Dispersed, with the precision and craft of stone inscriptions, the verses transform the page into sites to represent loss and knowledge.The poem cannot retrieve all disintegrations. But recovers some in the ebb and flow of imagination across a sundered tradition. Depositing what it has recollected fretted through the caesuras of history.The poem opening from the past opens the subject. It knows the body porous, but selective. A writing that reconceives with no endpoint.Continuities like veins of impurity in a turquoise bead. Continuities like cracks in the faience of a Pharaonic amulet. Continuities like indigo-dyed threads in an ikat shawl.Faults. Faults in grammar. Faults and forms in dialogue to adopt the otherwise.One reader read through her station on the Berlin U-Bahn. One reader asks if this is a journal of the soul. One reader could be the angel of memory.> o
Salt 2003 110 pages