In Bound by Beauty, Ruby Blackburn draws together the artistry of the living world with the tender strength gathered from recognizing the treasure in our need for understanding. The architecture of language allows us to sympathize as if it were our own heart’s thought. Telling intricate poetic tales, she creates a perspective for the reader that allows us to share in the mystery of the mind’s dynamics while illustrating the delicate balance between beauty and brokenness.

Widely regarded as the "rock star" of American poetry, Mary Oliver is a writer whose words have long had the power to move countless readers. Regularly topping the national poetry best-seller list and drawing thousands to her sold-out readings across the coutnry, Oliver is unparalleled in her impact. As noted in the Los Angeles Times, so many "go to her for solace, regeneration and inspiration" that it is not surprising Vice President Joe Biden chose to read one of her poems durin...

Never afraid to shed the pretense of academic poetry, never shy of letting the power of an image lie in unadorned language, Mary Oliver offers us poems of arresting beauty that reflect on the power of love and the great gifts of the natural world. Inspired by the familiar lines from William Wordsworth, "To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," she uncovers the evidence presented to us daily by nature, in rivers and stones, willows and f...

This collection includes the full text and drawings from Opposites and More Opposites, plus seven additional poems and drawings about differences. Readers of all ages will delight in this volume of witty wordplay and clever illustrations from two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient and National Book Award winner Richard Wilbur.A perfect introduction to the joy of language, this collection explores:Books About Opposites: Discover the surprising, clever, and ...

A Report to an Academy (German: Ein Bericht für eine Akademie) is a short story by Franz Kafka, written and published in 1917. In the story, an ape named Red Peter, who has learned to behave like a human, presents to an academy the story of how he effected his transformation. The story was first published by Martin Buber in the German monthly Der Jude, along with another of Kafka's stories, Jackals and Arabs (Schakale und Araber...

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...

Mortality, Love, Ethics, Civilization, Divine Presence, Human Body, Modernity, The Natural World, and Constructed Spaces. The Sentinel watches and reports back to us in a voice that is timeless and worthy of trust. Whether describing renewal and regeneration, the despair brought on by global capitalism, or a place where decay and loss meet their antithesis, A. F. Moritz's magisterial voice, rare insight, and supple craft are on impressive display.

John Ashbery's wild, deliriously inventive book-length poem, inspired by the adventures of Henry Darger's Vivian GirlsHenry Darger, the prolific American outsider artist who died in 1973, leaving behind over twenty thousand pages of manuscripts and hundreds of artworks, is famous for the elaborate alternate universe he both constructed and inhabited, a "realm of the unreal" where a plucky band of young girls, the Vivians, helps lead an epic rebellion against dark fo...

"This book is the third one in children's reading material. However, the author is a writer of collections of prose-poetry, humor and biography. The seven pieces in this book cover the following genre: JUV002000 JUVENILE FICTION / Animals / General, JUV044000 JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Intermediate and JUV038000 JUVENILE FICTION / Short Stories. The reading is appropriate for children ages 9 to 12."

A book of contemporary love sonnets celebrating romance and nature.

In his second book of poems, Jason Guriel cuts a dazzling figurewhip-smart, charismatic, with a mischievousness always eager to play for more serious stakes. Guriels way of seeing the world is low-key and sly: he tries to show us the big picture by enumerating all the small oneswhat he calls the way tiny things / cant help being, next / to nothing, something. Although a zealous celebrator of ordinariness, his tightly-turned lines have the courage of their own spiky oddity.The poems in Pure...

A poetry collection roughly grouped around the motif of lines, much of this collection was written in 2006 and some was performed live as a part of the Creative Quill Bangkok Tour in 2006-7.Poems range from the opening long piece, that takes an in-depth look at "lines" throughout time, to poems drenched in love, both good love and bad. Existentialist themes are featured in some works, and some poems reveal aspects of the natural world.