This accessible new textbook provides a clear and practical introduction to phonetics, the study of speech. Assuming no prior knowledge of the topic, it introduces students to the fundamental concepts in phonetic science, and equips them with the essential skills needed for recognizing, describing and transcribing a range of speech sounds. Numerous graded exercises enable students to put these skills into practice, and the sounds introduced are clearly illustrated with examples from a vari...

Degenerates is a small collection of poems written by South Florida author and poet Michael Garrett Ashby II. This brief collection, put together in commemoration of the tradition chapbook format, is a pocketbook of assorted poems ranging from the inane and silly to the dark and twisted.

The New York Times has said that "Jorie Graham's poetry is among the most sensuously embodied and imaginative writing we have," and this new collection is a reminder of how startling, original, and deeply relevant her poetry is. In Sea Change, Graham brings us to the once-unimaginable threshold at which civilization as we know it becomes unsustainable. How might the human spirit persist, caught between its abiding love of beauty, its acknowledgment of continuing injury an...

A collection of writings from the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America. This volume by Tony Kushner features the play Slavs!, a “comic, mordant and marvelously provocative” look at the crumbling of the Soviet Union (SF Chronicle), as well as several essays, two poems and a prayer.

First published in 1971, The Country of Marriage is Wendell Berry's fifth volume of poetry. What he calls "an expansive metaphor" is "a farmer's relationship to his land as the basic and central relation of humanity to creation." "Similarly, marriage is the basic and central community tie; it begins and stands for the relation we have to family and to the larger circles of human association. And these relationships are in turn basic to, and may stand for, our relationship to God a...

In 1990 I had my first of three mental (schizoaffective) breakdowns (the other in 1991 and 1993) and signed myself into a mental hospital for what would turn out to be a long stay. Very confused and basically in the dark about everything that was going on (having been taken there by my brother and parents), I needed some footing to the Reality that was apparent to all those around me. My best friend at the time, Adam, brought to the hospital for me a medium sized (standard poetry issue) un...

Through poems and meditations, Holy Trinity: Maiden, Mother, Crone delves into the life phases that a woman must enter, explore, and resolve to discover a hidden of wholeness. The poems are grounded in nature, each section beginning with a prose meditation that addresses trees as totems of the human experience.While the poems are particular to the life of one immigrant woman, the whole is emblematic of the spiritual lives of all women, especially immigrant women, who strug...

Find a love of nature and our human connections with the supernatural, from earthquakes to lightning storms, in these poems. J.J.Brown's words pull readers into a stream of union with the natural world. The author writes of supernatural fears, spiritual visions, and love poems to probe both tender bonds.

These poetic gems were found like pebbles on the sands of my life. Poems of love, joy, fact, fiction, depression and inspiration. Stories of romance and tragedy, war and peace, and father and motherhood. All born from my overactive imagination and I call them "My Kinda Poetry." And I hope they are your kind too.

The fourth collection from award-winning poet Rachel Rose, Marry & Burn is a journey through a troubled relationship and a troubled city, charting the territory of love and addiction, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Inspired by struggles both personal and global, these are not gentle poems-they probe deep into comforting personal and cultural myths, rending them to pieces even as they expose the beauty in the bright shards that remain.Although the langua...

These seventeen carefully chosen poems are divided into three chapters. By turns sweet, sexy, pointed and provocative, I strive at all times to be both entertaining and tasteful.The major threads (that I can see) are romantic love, ill-fated and wise choices, finding a voice in the world, nature, birds, and the cosmos.Degrees of choice, degrees of fate;Find your voice before it's too late.Inspired in so many ways by my best friend John, whose influence on me o...

Intense and Intimate: A Searing Collection from an Important American Poet"Memories merciesmostly aren'tbut there wereI sweardaysveined with grace"One of The New York Times' 10 Favorite Poetry Books of 2014 and a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, Once in the West is Christian Wiman's fourth collection, plumbing the depths of "suffering of primal silence" and achieving the "rockshri...