National Network for Equitable Library Service

The radio show celebrating Jack Layton is up on Gathering Voices. It features songs by Nancy White, James Gordon and Laura Bird as well as Penn Kemp’s sound poem, “J’Activiste," performed with Anne Anglin. Jack Layton: Art in Action is a collection of anecdotes about Jack Layton’s involvement in Canadian arts and culture, and how his spirit continues to influence activism in Canada today. His interest in the Canadian cultural landscape was an underlying presence throughout his career.

The Rules of the Game reintroduces Ludwig Zeller, the great Chilean-Canadian “poet’s poet,” through a selection of his most engaging works. These short poems span a development of almost 60 years. They are Zeller’s brief songs of eroticism and love, adventure and nostalgia, youthful ardor, the sorrow of age, and undying hope. They give the reader a great poet’s door into the riches of surrealism, European Romanticism and the age-old Spanish lyric tradition.

Voyageur Classics is a series of special versions of Canadian classics, with added material and new introductions. In this bundle we find five classic works of twentieth century fiction, drama and poetry, a period when Canada’s literary identity was shaped. Originally published in 1962, The Silence on the Shore is considered by many critics to be renowned Hugh Garner’s best, most ambitious novel. Originally published in 1967, Combat Journal for Place d'Armes was initially met with shock and anger by most reviewers but has become a literary touchstone.

From Shakespeare to Blake to Rosetti to Wordsworth to classic nursery rhymes, cats have been celebrated in poetry for as long as they have been warming laps. Cats are mysterious, adorable, finicky and cherished; and they have been beloved muses for some of our most renowned poets, writers and artists. This inspired collection presents treasured poems and nursery rhymes illustrated with the whimsical, irresistible art of Yasmine Surovec.

The Love Poems of Rumi, as translated by Philip Dunn in this gorgeous little book, maintain the same emotional significance with readers today as they did seven centuries ago when originally composed by the Persian poet.   Samples: The heart is comforted by true words, just as a thirsty man is comforted by water. Don’t hide your heart but reveal it, so that mine might be revealed, and I might accept what I am capable of. If the heart isn’t there, how can the body speak?  If the heart doesn’t seek, how can the body seek?

"Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes."  —Victor Hugo Pocket Posh 100 Classic Love Poems will absolutely warm your heart. This pocket-sized collection is a beautiful keepsake for yourself or for giving to that special person in your life. Shakespeare’s sonnets, the elegant words of Robert Browning, the poignant sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the stirring poetry of Christina Rossetti—all are collected here in this celebration of romantic passion and deep abiding love.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Poetry can lift our spirits and inspire our daily lives. William Blake's "The Tyger," Emily Dickinson's "Hope Is the Thing with Feathers," William Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much with Us," and John Keats's "A Thing of Beauty" (from Endymion) are among the classic poems collected in this pocket-sized edition. Now you can readily spend a few moments each day with these timeless verses because Pocket Posh 100 Classic Poems fits easily into any size bag, tote or briefcase.

"On September 11, 2001, journalist Tom Flynn set off on his bike toward the World Trade Towers not knowing what he was riding into. Bikeman is one man's journey back to the horrors of that day and to the humanity that somehow emerged from the dust and the death.

Clementine von Radics writes of love, loss and the uncertainties and beauties of life with a ravishing poetic voice and piercing bravura that speak directly not only to the sensibility of her generation, but to anyone who has ever been young.