A CLASSIC IN AMERICAN POETRY... When Spoon River Anthology was published in 1915 it garnered immediate national attention for its truth and its shocking transgression of societal mores. A collection of poems from the graveyard of a rural Illinois town, Spoon River Anthology poignantly captures the politics, love, betrayals, alliances, hopes, and failures of this small American town. Here is the respected doctor, jailed for swindling; here is the chaste wife, rapt with desire; here is the pastor, angry and resentful; here is the quiet man, filled with unrequited love and devotion. Beneath the midwestern values of honesty, community, family, hard work, and chastity, Spoon River Anthology reveals the disillusionment and corruption in modern life. With the publication of Spoon River Anthology Masters exploded the powerful myth that small-town America was a social utopia. Here for the first time was a community that people recognized in its wholeness and complexity. Comprised of distinctly modern poems that collectively read as a novel, Spoon River Anthology is the story of a quiet midwestern town whose truths and contradictions are celebrated by its dead.

A book-length poem about how an American Indian writer can’t bring himself to write about nature, but is forced to reckon with colonial-white stereotypes, manifest destiny, and his own identity as an young, queer, urban-dwelling poet. A Best Book of the Year at BuzzFeed, Interview, and more. Nature Poem follows Teebs—a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet—who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant—bratty, even—about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.

Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov's "Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia?" dives deep into the complexities of Russian life in the mid-19th century, offering a vivid portrayal of societal struggles, individual aspirations, and the overarching themes of freedom and happiness. Through a blend of lyrical poetry and poignant narrative, Nekrasov explores the moral challenges faced by ordinary Russians against a backdrop of political oppression and social injustice. His unique literary style'Äîmarked by emotional depth and a resonant lyricism'Äîencapsulates the zeitgeist of a nation grappling with its identity, as he deftly intertwines personal plight with collective societal issues, demonstrating a profound empathy for the disenfranchised. Nekrasov, a prominent poet and thinker, was deeply influenced by the tumultuous socio-political environment of his time, including the serfdom system and the burgeoning revolutionary sentiments among the populace. His own experiences of hardship, coupled with his interactions with the Russian intelligentsia and progressive thinkers, galvanized his commitment to social reform and the pursuit of justice. This work serves as a reflection of his ideals, revealing the stark contrasts between aspiration and reality in a society yearning for change. For readers interested in Russian literature, social justice, and historical contexts, "Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia?" is an invaluable text that not only sheds light on the human condition but also serves as a timeless reminder of the struggles for freedom and happiness. Nekrasov'Äôs masterful articulation of the joys and sorrows of the Russian soul invites deep reflection and connection, making this book an essential read for anyone seeking to understand the intricate tapestry of Russian history and literature.

One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves Of Grass is his one book. First published in 1855 with only twelve poems, it was greeted by Ralph Waldo Emerson as "the wonderful gift . . . the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed." Over the course of Whitman's life, the book reappeared in many versions, expanded and transformed as the author's experiences and the nation's history changed and grew. Whitman's ambition was to creates something uniquely American. In that he succeeded. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character. From his solemn masterpieces "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" and "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" to the joyous freedom of "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," and "Song of the Open Road," Whitman's work lives on, an inspiration to the poets of later generations.

Neruda's epic hymn against fascism, Spain in Our Hearts, now available in this pocket Bibelot edition.

"This great poem stands with Virgil's Aeneid as one of the vital and enduring achievements of Latin literature ... Based on the tenets of Epicurean philosophy, On the Nature of Things asserts that matter is composed of an infinite number of small particles; that even the soul, like the body, is made up of these atoms and dissolves painlessly after death; that there is no afterlife and therefore no cause for fear; and that the universe operates without the aid or attention of gods."--Page 4 of cover.

This celebratory edition of the classic poetry collection reminds us of Hughes's stunning achievement, speaking directly, intimately, and powerfully of Black experiences at a time when Black voices were newly being heard in American literature. • With an introduction by poet Kevin Young. Beginning with the opening “Proem” (prologue poem) Huges writes, “I am a Negro: / Black as the night is black, / Black like the depths of my Africa." As the legendary Carl Van Vechten wrote in a brief introduction to the original 1926 edition, “His cabaret songs throb with the true jazz rhythm; his sea-pieces ache with a calm, melancholy lyricism; he cries bitterly from the heart of his race...Always, however, his stanzas are subjective, personal,” and, he concludes, they are the expression of “an essentially sensitive and subtly illusive nature.” That illusive nature darts among these early lines and begins to reveal itself, with precocious confidence and clarity. In a new introduction to the work, the poet and editor Kevin Young suggests that Hughes, who was 24 at the time of the original publication, from this very first moment is “celebrating, critiquing, and completing the American dream,” and that he manages to take Walt Whitman’s American “I” and write himself into it. We find here not only such classics as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and the great twentieth-century anthem that begins “I, too, sing America,” but also the poet’s shorter lyrics and fancies, which dream just as deeply. “Bring me all of your / Heart melodies,” the young Hughes offers, “That I may wrap them / In a blue cloud-cloth / Away from the too-rough fingers / Of the world.”

These playful verses by a celebrated poet have delighted readers and cat lovers around the world ever since they were gathered for publication in 1939. As Valerie Eliot has pointed out, there are a number of references to cats in T.S. Eliot's work, but it was to his godchildren, particularly Tom Faber and Alison Tandy, in the 1930s, that he first revealed himself as "Old Possum" and for whom he composed his poems; later inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's legendary musical "Cats."

The complete collection of Tolkien’s essays, including two on Beowulf, which span three decades beginning six years before The Hobbit to five years after The Lord of the Rings.

Finalist, 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Dorianne Laux's poetry is a poetry of risk; it goes to the very edge of extinction to find the hard facts that need to be sung. What We Carry includes poems of survival, poems of healing, poems of affirmation and poems of celebration.