National Network for Equitable Library Service

Poetry is a fascinating use of language. With almost a million words at its command it is not surprising that these Isles have produced some of the most beautiful, moving and descriptive verse through the centuries. In this volume we look at death, the end of mortality. Through the eyes and minds of our most gifted poets the emotions of this subject are distilled to bring you a unique poetic guide. It is a subject that few of us talk about, but many think about and more than a few of us dread.

"if you read this after I am dead It means I made it" —"The Creation Coffin" The People Look Like Flowers at Last is the last of five collections of never-before-published poetry from the late great Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski. In it, he speaks on topics ranging from horse racing to military elephants, lost love to the fear of death. He writes extensively about writing, and about talking to people about writers such as Camus, Hemingway, and Stein. He writes about war and fatherhood and cats and women.

From the Pulitzer Prize and T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry winner – a stunning collection of poems about history, childhood, nurturing a new generation of children, and the transformative power of marital love. With poems that project a fresh spirit, a startling energy of language and counterpoint, and a moving, elegiac tone shot through with humor, Sharon Olds takes risks, writing boldly of physical, emotional, and spiritual sensations that are seldom the stuff of poetry.

Sharon Olds's dazzling new collection is a sequence of poems that reaches into the very wellspring of life. The poems take us back to the womb, and from there on to childhood, to a searing sexual awakening, to the shock of childbirth, to the wonder and humor of parenthood—and, finally, to the depths of adult love. Always bold, musical, honest, these poems plunge us into the essence of experience. This is a highly charged, beautifully organized collection from one of the finest poets writing today.

From the winner of the 2013 Barnard Women Poets Prize, chosen by Louise Glück, a daring and exuberant new collection. Moving through myths of the American landscape, the fatalism of American Puritanism, family history, New England winters, aesthetic theory, and the suavities and anxieties of contemporary life, the poems in this astonishing collection ultimately speak about the individual soul's struggle with its own meaning. "In its stern and quiet way Sandra Lim's The Wilderness is one of the most thrilling books of poetry I have read in many years" (Louise Glück).

A Time Magazine Best Paperback of 2017. One of Oprah Magazine's "Ten Best Books of 2017." "This singular poetry collection is a dynamic meditation on the experience of, and societal narratives surrounding, contemporary black womanhood. . . . These exquisite poems defy categorization." —The New Yorker. The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist's office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive.

Hannah Sullivan's debut collection is a revelation—three poems of startling intensity, ambition and length. Though each poem stands apart, their inventive and looping encounters make for a compelling unity. 'You, Very Young in New York' is a study of romantic possibility and disillusion in a great American city. 'Repeat Until Time' begins with a move to California and unfolds into a philosophical essay on repetition. 'The Sandpit After Rain' explores the birth of a child and the loss of a father with exacting clarity.

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Harvard University graduate, is best known for his rejection of traditional poetic forms. As E. E. Cummings, he conducted radical experiments with spelling, syntax, and punctuation that inspired a revolution in twentieth-century literary expression and excited the admiration and affection of poetry lovers of all ages.

Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize — Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. The extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States. Even the men in black armor, the ones jangling handcuffs and keys, what else are they so buffered against, if not love's blade sizing up the heart's familiar meat? We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat. Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean. Love: naked almost in the everlasting street, skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze.

The forty-seven new works in this volume include poems on crickets, toads, trout lilies, black snakes, goldenrod, bears, greeting the morning, watching the deer, and, finally, lingering in happiness. Each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet who considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us and finds a multitude of reasons to wake early.