"Tell the truth. No decoration. Remember death." These are the demands Chase Twichell has made of her poems for over half a century.One of America’s most prominent poets and a longtime student of Zen Buddhism, Twichell seeks to perceive what Shunryu Suzuki called "things-as-it-is". These two books, published here in tandem, confront fundamental questions about the nature of the self: childhood trauma, the fate of a damaged planet, marriage and widowhood. Twichell’s...

A distinctive collection of more than 90 effective poetry-writing exercises combined with corresponding essays to inspire writers of all levels.The Practice of Poetry is the first handbook for poets to combine poetry-writing exercises with illuminating personal essays by each contributor. The editors, Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, who are themselves poets and teachers of creative writing, have collected more than ninety tested and proven exercises intended...

"Poems of balanced wildness and instinctual grace."—New York Journal of Books“[Twichell’s poems] open out into a stark, sometimes bewildered clarity.” —The Washington Post“Suppose you had Sappho’s passion, the intelligence and perspicacity of Curie, and Dickinson’s sweet wit . . . then you would have the poems of Chase Twichell.” —Hayden Carruth“A major voice in contemporary poetry.” —Publishers WeeklyChase Twichell’s eighth collec...

Northern Appalachia is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth and home to a broad range of ecological and human cultures. With A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia, editors Todd Davis and Noah Davis recognize and celebrate this diversity and the fact that humans are storytelling creatures who develop relationships with their landscapes at the intersection of art and science.A companion volume to A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, this gui...

“[Twichell’s] poems generate the requisite heat with the poet’s precise, original and frequently brilliant use of language. . . . A major voice in contemporary poetry.” —Publishers Weekly“[Twichell’s poems] track the inner movements of one life with an unexpected freshness.” —The Washington PostPublishers Weekly called Chase Twichell “a major voice in contemporary poetry,” and this long overdue retrospective supports the claim. Selected from six a...

Tagore's supressed book now available in an English-Bengali editionFor the first time in English, here is the sequence of poems Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (18611941) worked on his entire life-the erotic and emotionally powerful dialogue about Lord Krishna and his young lover Radha.These "song offerings" are the first poems Tagore ever published, though he passed them off as those of an unknown Bengali religious poet. As the first and last poems Tag...

“Mary Oliver would probably never admit to anything so grandiose as an effort to connect the conscious mind and the heart (that’s what she says poetry can do), but that is exactly what she accomplishes in this stunning little handbook.”— Los Angeles TimesFrom the beloved and acclaimed poet, an ultimate guide to writing and understanding poetry.With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise on the poet’s craft from h...

In Writing Poetry from the Inside Out, poet and national poetry workshop leader, Sandford Lyne, offers the writing exercises, guidance, and encouragement you need to find the poet inside you. Lyne's techniques, which he developed through twenty years of teaching poetry workshops, flow from an understanding that poetry is an art form open to everyone. We all can-and should-write poetry.In this enchanting and inspiring volume, Lyne will introduce you to the pleasures and surprises of...

Comedian and actor Stephen Fry's witty and practical guide, now in paperback, gives the aspiring poet or student the tools and confidence to write and understand poetry.Stephen Fry believes that if one can speak and read English, one can write poetry. In The Ode Less Travelled, he invites readers to discover the delights of writing poetry for pleasure and provides the tools and confidence to get started. Through enjoyable exercises, witty insights, and sim...

An enlightening look at animal behavior and the cycle of life and death, from "one of the finest naturalists of our time" (Edward O. Wilson).When a good friend with a severe illness wrote, asking if he might have his "green burial" at Bernd Heinrich's hunting camp in Maine, it inspired the acclaimed biologist to investigate a subject that had long fascinated him. How exactly does the animal world deal with the flip side of the life cycle? And what are the lessons, ...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“The book is a form of meditation, written with headlong urgency, about seeing. . . . There is an ambition about [Dillard's] book that I like. . . . It is the ambition to feel.” — Eudora Welty, New York Times Book ReviewPilgrim at Tinker Creek is the story of a dramatic year in Virginia's Roanoke Valley, where Annie Dillard set out to chronicle incidents of "beauty tangled in a rapture w...

A treasure trove of collected works from the legendary author of The Handmaid's Tale and Alias GraceQueen Gertrude gives Hamlet a piece of her mind.An ugly sister and a wicked stepmother put in a good word for themselves.A reincarnated bat explains how Bram Stoker got Dracula hopelessly wrong.Bones and Murder is a bewitching cocktail of prose and poetry, fiction and fairytales, as well as some of Atwood's own illustr...