First published in 1979, Common Sense evinces a spare street-wise style rooted in the vernacular of the city. Now something of a cult classic, the book is recognized as an understated masterpiece, pushing at the edges of spoken word. This is the language of everyday, brought onto the page in such a way that we never lose the flow of speech and at the same time we become attuned to its many registers—musical, emotional, ironic. Ted Greenwald's work has been associated with several major vei...

This collection of Ted Greenwald's poetry, edited by Miles Champion, is a sampler of some of Greenwald's most breathtaking work. A New York poet with close ties to the New York School and the Language poets, Greenwald has written daily since the early 1960s, and none of the poems in this book are included in any of his books to date. These discrete works were written in advance of or alongside the extended explorations of a mutated triolet form that increasingly occupied him from the late ...

In The Book of Marvels, award-winning poet Lorna Crozier offers a delightful series of prose meditations on household objects: everything from doorknobs, washing machines, rakes, and zippers to the kitchen sink. Operating as a kind of a literary detective, Crozier brings her rapt attention to the everyday things she explores, uncovering the mystery that lies at their essence. She offers tantalizing glimpses of the household's inhabitants, too, probing hearts, brains, noses, and na...

The New Yorker, The Best Books of Poetry of 2016New York Times, Critics PickBoston Globe, Best Books listingMiami Herald, Best LGBTQ BooksSan Francisco Chronicle, Top 100 Books of the YearLibrary Journal, Best Books of 2016“There is a powerful emotional undertow to these poems that springs from...

2017 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award: Silver for Memoir 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards: Finalist 2017 Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite for Memoir 2016 Beverly Hills Book Awards: Memoir Finalist 2016 Readers' Favorite:Silver Medal for Non-fiction Memoir New York Public Library Top Pick Summer 2017When Barbara Bracht's mother disappears, she is left a confused child whose blue-collar father is intent upon erasing any memory of her mother. F...

"In Young's work, the big essential questions-mortality, identity, the meaning of life-aren't simply food for thought; they're grounds for entertainment."-Toronto Star"Surrealism seldom seems as much like real life as in Young's hilarious and cautionary poems."-BooklistBender gathers a generous selection of new work along with treasure from Dean Young's twelve volumes. Strongly influenced by Surrealism, Dean Young's poems flash with extravagant im...

In The Last Night of the Earth Poems, Charles Bukowski reckons with writing, death and immortality, literature, city life, illness, war, and the past.“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter The poems in the first three sections of this book were published in three volumes: It Catches My Heart in its Hands, Crucifix in a Deat...

“Poetry,” writes best-selling author Ellen Bass, “is the way I pay attention, appreciate, give praise, struggle, grieve, rage, and pray. It’s the way I embody my love for the world.”The Human Line, Bass’ seventh book of poems, startles with its precise detail, intimate images, and wild metaphors. Bass brings attention to life’s endearing absurdities, and many of the poems flash with a keen sense of humor. She also faces many of the crucial moral dilemmas of our time—geneti...

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriterWhat Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire is the second posthumous collection from Charles Bukowski that takes readers deep into the raw, wild vein of writing that extends from the early 1970s to the 1990s.

Poetry that explores how accidental voyeurism can force reconsideration and reconciliationWhite⋅out: n. a surface condition … in which no object casts a shadow, the horizon cannot be seen, and only dark objects are discernible …Whiteout: when the heavy weather of daily life establishes the measure of the measureless; when the predatory nature of the accidental conjures cowboys and the comatose; when the sickly sweet pop of life underfoot contrasts the televised ima...

The classic erotic memoir of an intense and haunting relationship that spawned the film.This is a love story so unusual, so passionate, and so extreme in its psychology and sexuality that it takes the reader's breath away. Unlike The Story of O, Nine and a Half Weeks is not a novel or fantasy; it is a true account of an episode in the life of a real woman.Elizabeth McNeill was an executive for a large corporation when she began an affair with a man she met casually...

The Burning Alphabet confirms and extends Barry Dempster’s reputation as one of Canada’s most respected poets. Underpinning these poems, as in his previous work, there lies an unswerving dedication to emotional and spiritual honesty, clear-eyed recognitions rendered without pomp. In one section, "Sick Days", he focuses on that "other place" of chronic illness. Other poems present arguments against suicide, and explore the tropical wonders of a woman’s closet. The closing section renders, w...