National Network for Equitable Library Service

Arranged as a mother’s survival guide to her daughter, For Tamara is a touching and inventive long poem about surviving and thriving from the author of The Work of Days. It seems simple: a long letter, from a mother to a daughter, relaying the information needed to survive on this earth. But as Sarah Lang’s second book, For Tamara, unfolds, it becomes a roughly-hewn, genre-bending, post-apocalyptic survival guide. The world with which we are familiar has ended, and in its wake are the countless dead and survivors who are little more than scavengers.

The debut poetry collection by the actor, director, and writer James Franco. I’m a nocturnal creature, And I’m here to cheat time. You can see time and exhaustion Taking pay from my face—In fifty years My sleep will be death, I’ll go like the rest, But I’ll have played All the games and all the roles. —from “Nocturnal” “There’s never been a book quite like this. Hollywood — fame, celebrity, the promise of becoming an artist — is the beast at its center. Franco knows it like Melville knows whaling. Hollywood in this book devours its young.

Very Bright, Almost Pretty, by Alexander Williamson explores the largely under-represented impact of Cystic Fibrosis, a life-threatening disease affecting over four thousand Canadians, and their families. The poems wander through hopelessness, the fight for health, quiet moments of gratitude in the face of mortality, and dark, urgent prayers, joys, and ideals. At once visceral and contemplative, these poems ask what it takes to live a doomed life, and what it takes to reconcile with death.

Nautilus and Bone" chronicles the life and work of the radical, passionate Russian-Jewish American poet Anna Margolin on her path toward self-determination. Blending myth, surrealism, historical fact and fiction, this collection of persona poems brings to life one of the most celebrated Yiddish poets of her generation.

Poems masquerading as recipes, poems masquerading as survival guides, poems simmered in love, Pressure Cooker Love Bomb is a humorous collection of poems. Ruprai's second collection is infused with intense sexuality, racial tensions, and questions of gender conformity. With various textures of poems, the collection reads as woman of colour's manifesto with instructions.

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) was a priest, a mystic, and nearly a heretic (he died before the Church court's verdict). In the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church rehabilitated him and the late Pope John Paul II spoke of his work with fondness. However, what makes him of particular interest is the fact that he has influenced a wide range of spiritual teachers and mystics both inside and outside the Christian tradition. Erich Fromm, Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, D. T. Suzuki, and Rudolf Steiner have all credited Eckhart as being an important influence on their thought.

From Madonna to Deepak Chopra, celebrities have been recording and embracing Rumi's poetry for the past two decades, creating a resurgence of interest in this 13th century Sufi mystic. This beautiful collection of 196 of his poems, previously unavailable in English and now translated by native Persian speakers Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, will appeal to Rumi lovers everywhere who want a guidebook for their inner journey.

Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen-tear-shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear-collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women's tears play in racist violence.

These poems reach through time to tell the remarkable story of Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry, and who did so while she was enslaved. Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to publish a book of poetry. In 1773, her book, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published to international acclaim. Wheatley was presented In London as "the African genius," and her writing was published in New England and England alike. Phillis Wheatley's name was known in households throughout literate North America.

The highly anticipated spoken word poetry collection from Lana Del Rey, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass. "Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each word to make the perfect poem. They are eclectic and honest and not trying to be anything other than what they are and for that reason I'm proud of them, especially because the spirit in which they were written was very authentic." —Lana Del Rey.