After centuries of oppressive Ottoman rule, the Arab world began to find new vitality and freedom in the twentieth century. The accompanying resurgence of creative expression is splendidly reflected in this definitive anthology of contemporary Arabic poetry, which spans the modern Arab world from the turn of the century to the present, from the Arab Gulf to Morocco. The editor, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, a renowned expert on modern Arabic literature, presents a through introduction to the works of more than ninety Arab poets. To create the best possible English translation, each selection has been translated first by a bilingual expert and then by an English-language poet, who creatively renders it into idiomatic English.

In his charming and candid introduction Collins explains how he chose seventy-five poems from among the thousands he considered. With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's thought-provoking foreword, The Best American Poetry 2006 is a brilliant addition to a series that links the most noteworthy verse and prose poems of our time to a readership as discerning as it is devoted to the art of poetry.
Price=$6.40
Buy]]> Tue, 08 May 2012 06:01:06 -0500 http://www.poempoempoem.com/store/products/poetry-anthologies-collections/the-best-american-4.htm http://www.poempoempoem.com/store/products/poetry-anthologies-collections/the-best-american-4.htm
Until nearly the end of the 19th century, American poetry remained in its infancy. To be sure, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman had already produced their epochal (and diametrically opposed) masterpieces. But these were sui generis eccentrics, working on the fringes of a culture still in thrall to its Old World origins. Only with the dawning of the 20th century did American poets manage to cut the umbilical cord, and with astonishing results. Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Claude McKay, and T.S. Eliot all seemed to appear out of thin air, imparting their accents--mandarin or bucolic or, in McKay's case, definitively uptown--to the modernist uproar. This artistic explosion has already been the subject of numerous studies (including such classics as Hugh Kenner's The Pound Era and Ann Douglas's Terrible Honesty), and even more numerous anthologies. But for sheer splendor and big-tent inclusiveness, American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume One: Henry Adams to Dorothy Parker looks to be an essential starting point.

Weighing in at nearly 1,000 pages, Volume One is the work of Robert Hass, John Hollander, Carolyn Kizer, Nathaniel Mackey, and Marjorie Perloff. This poetic Gang of Five has made a number of decisions that will delight some readers and rankle others. For instance, they've elected to include song lyrics from the likes of W.C. Handy, Ma Rainey, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter. (Doubtless these remain diminished without the music--but who could be so churlish as to exclude the tongue-twisting couplets from "Anything Goes"?) They've also thrown in a variety of very minor works by very major writers, such as "Terminus," Edith Wharton's breathless account of her one-night stand with boy toy Morton Fullerton.

But these are truly peccadilloes. There are hundreds of poems here, representing more than 80 authors, and thumbing through the selections by Marianne Moore or Robinson Jeffers or James Weldon Johnson or Robert Frost should be enough to send most readers into linguistic rapture. Lesser figures, from Sara Teasdale to H.P. Lovecraft, get their days in the sun. So too do complete obscurities like George Sterling or Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (whose capsule biography suggests that she may have been the most unhappy of a notoriously unhappy lot). Poetry lovers are free to argue themselves hoarse over who got the short end of the stick--and indeed, the relatively small slice of the pie allotted to T.S. Eliot says a great deal about the transience of literary reputation. But anthologies are by their very nature imperfect, and it's hard to imagine a more welcome, less imperfect one than this. --James Marcus
Price=$32.79
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"Hirshfield's current collection brings together . . . an astonishing array of women writers from the 22nd century BC poet Enheduanna to Nelly Sachs and Anna Akhmatova."--Library Journal
Price=$10.19
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"... in a class by itself... sensitive, moving, and powerful jazz imagery... the perfect companion to listening to good jazz." —Jazziz Magazine

"In the course of the history of jazz, there have been only a few articles that get to the core of the meaning of jazz. These poems hit it right on the head, and the book is certainly essential for anyone who is interested in our music." —Dizzy Gillespie

"To those interested in the impact of jazz upon the poetry of our century I recommend this anthology altogether without reservation." —John Lucas, JazzTimes

"... essential... Its virtues are varied and copious, and not the least among them is discovering a writer whose work is new to you." —Los Angeles Reader

"What makes this work most enjoyable is knowing the music and musicians and using that knowledge to understand and judge the poets' reactions to the elements in the music that please and inspire us." —MultiCultural Review

"Filled with a variety of form, rhythm, and sound, this anthology is an absolute MUST for anyone who is even remotely interested in jazz and modern literature." —David Baker

Since the turn of the century, poets have responded to jazz in all its musical and cultural overtones. The poems here cover the range of jazz itself: from early blues to free jazz and experimental music. Among the 132 poets included are James Baldwin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Mina Loy, Ishmael Reed, and Sonia Sanchez. This anthology represents the broad appreciation for jazz as poetic inspiration, not only from the Beat movement but from writers across the decades and around the world.

In this "guided" anthology, experts lead students through the major genres and eras of Chinese poetry from antiquity to the modern time. The volume is divided into 6 chronological sections and features more than 140 examples of the best shi, sao, fu, ci, and qu poems. A comprehensive introduction and extensive thematic table of contents highlight the thematic, formal, and prosodic features of Chinese poetry, and each chapter is written by a scholar who specializes in a particular period or genre. Poems are presented in Chinese and English and are accompanied by a tone-marked romanized version, an explanation of Chinese linguistic and poetic conventions, and recommended reading strategies. Sound recordings of the poems are available online free of charge. These unique features facilitate an intense engagement with Chinese poetical texts and help the reader derive aesthetic pleasure and insight from these works as one could from the original.

The companion volume How to Read Chinese Poetry Workbook presents 100 famous poems (56 are new selections) in Chinese, English, and romanization, accompanied by prose translation, textual notes, commentaries, and recordings.

Contributors: Robert Ashmore (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Zong-qi Cai; Charles Egan (San Francisco State); Ronald Egan (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara); Grace Fong (McGill); David R. Knechtges (Univ. of Washington); Xinda Lian (Denison); Shuen-fu Lin (Univ. of Michigan); William H. Nienhauser Jr. (Univ. of Wisconsin); Maija Bell Samei; Jui-lung Su (National Univ. of Singapore); Wendy Swartz (Columbia); Xiaofei Tian (Harvard); Paula Varsano (Univ. of California, Berkeley); Fusheng Wu (Univ. of Utah)

The history of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of the greatest poets of our time.

Latin Americans have written some of the world's finest poetry in the twentieth century, as the Nobel Prizes awarded to Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz attest. Yet this rich literary production has never been gathered into a single volume that attempts to represent the full range and the most important writers-until now. Here, under one cover, are the major poets and their major works, which appear both in the original language (Spanish or Portuguese) and in excellent English translations.

The poems selected include the most famous representative poems of each poetic tradition, accompanied by other poems that represent the best of that tradition and of each poet's work within it. Tapscott's selections cover the full range, from the Modernist generation though the Mexican Revolutionary post-Moderns and the Vanguardist poets to very contemporary younger writers of political and experimental commitments. In all, eighty-five poets, including Pablo Neruda, Nicanor Parra, Octavio Paz, Gabriela Mistral, Nicolás Guillén, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Carlos Pellicer, César Vallejo, and Cecília Meireles, and over 400 poems are included, often in translations by some of North America's most esteemed poets.

The most wide-ranging collection of its kind, The Norton Introduction to Poetry offers a complete course in reading and writing about poetry that is designed to appeal to students of all backgrounds, abilities, and interests.

This landmark anthology, the first of its kind, takes it impulse from the words of Bertolt Brecht: "In these dark times, will there also be singing? / Yes, there will be singing. / About the dark times."

In this remarkable anthology, introduced and edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris, poetic visions from the twentieth century will be reinforced and in many ways revised. Here, alongside renowned masters, are internationally celebrated poets who have rarely, if ever, been translated into English.

Over the last twenty-five years, the Best American Poetry series has become a mainstay in the poetry world and beyond. An eagerly awaited yearly event, it is an essential guide to contemporary American verse and the poets who define it.

     The poems appearing in the 2012 edition of The Best American Poetry have been chosen by National Book Award-winning poet Mark Doty with his customary care, intelligence, and passion for the art.

     Stanley Kunitz said, “With his clarity of vision and great heart, Doty stands as an emblematic and shining presence.” The vitality, imagination, and compassion that have illuminated Doty’s own work are reflected in his selections for this year’s anthology. In it are poems of high moral earnestness and poems in a comic register; poems in venerable forms and poems that test the boundaries of innovative composition; poems by eminences and by virtual unknowns.

     And as always, the anthology opens with David Lehman’s incisive look at the current state of American poetry.
Price=$10.98
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A dazzling new anthology of 180 contemporary poems, selected and introduced by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins.

Inspired by Billy Collins’s poem-a-day program with the Library of Congress, Poetry 180 is the perfect anthology for readers who appreciate engaging, thoughtful poems that are an immediate pleasure.

A 180-degree turn implies a turning back—in this case, to poetry. A collection of 180 poems by the most exciting poets at work today, Poetry 180 represents the richness and diversity of the form, and is designed to beckon readers with a selection of poems that are impossible not to love at first glance. Open the anthology to any page and discover a new poem to cherish, or savor all the poems, one at a time, to feel the full measure of contemporary poetry’s vibrance and abundance.

With poems by Catherine Bowman, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Dana Gioia, Edward Hirsch, Galway Kinnell, Kenneth Koch, Philip Levine, Thomas Lux, William Matthews, Frances Mayes, Paul Muldoon, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Katha Pollitt, Mary Jo Salter, Charles Simic, David Wojahn, Paul Zimmer, and many more.
Price=$10.19
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The anthology’s mainstays are in place: It opens with series editor David Lehman’s incisive foreword about the state of American poetry and has a marvelous introduction by Amy Gerstler. Notes from the poets, illuminating their poems and their writing processes, conclude this delightful addition to a classic series.Dick Allen * John Ashbery * Sandra Beasley * Mark Bibbins * Todd Boss * Fleda Brown * Anne Carson * Tom Clark * David Clewell * Michael Collier * Billy Collins * Dennis Cooper * Kate Daniels * Peter Davis * Tim Dlugos * Denise Duhamel * Thomas Sayers Ellis * Lynn Emanuel * Elaine Equi * Jill Alexander Essbaum * B. H. Fairchild * Vievee Francis * Louise Glück * Albert Goldbarth * Amy Glynn Greacen * Sonia Greenfield * Kelle Groom * Gabriel Gudding * Kimiko Hahn * Barbara Hamby * Terrance Hayes * Bob Hicok * Rodney Jones * Michaela Kahn * Brigit Pegeen Kelly * Corinne Lee * Hailey Leithauser * Dolly Lemke * Maurice Manning * Adrian Matejka * Shane McCrae * Jeffrey McDaniel * W. S. Merwin * Sarah Murphy * Eileen Myles * Camille Norton * Alice Notley * Sharon Olds * Gregory Pardlo * Lucia Perillo * Carl Phillips * Adrienne Rich * James Richardson * J. Allyn Rosser * James Schuyler * Tim Seibles * David Shapiro * Charles Simic * Frank Stanford * Gerald Stern * Stephen Campbell Sutherland * James Tate * David Trinidad * Chase Twichell * John Updike * Derek Walcott * G. C. Waldrep * J. E. Wei * Dara Wier * Terence Winch * Catherine Wing * Mark Wunderlich * Matthew Yeager * Dean Young * Kevin Young
Price=$6.40
Buy]]> Tue, 27 Mar 2012 06:00:03 -0500 http://www.poempoempoem.com/store/products/poetry-anthologies-collections/the-best-american-2.htm http://www.poempoempoem.com/store/products/poetry-anthologies-collections/the-best-american-2.htm

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics is a comprehensive reference work dealing with all aspects of its subject: history, types, movements, prosody, and critical terminology. Prepared by recognized authorities, its articles treat their topics in sufficient depth and with enough lucidity to satisfy the scholar and the general reader alike. Entries vary in length from relatively brief notices to substantial articles of about 20,000 words.

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, published in 1965, established itself as a standard work in the field. Among the 215 contributors were Northrop Frye writing on allegory, Murray Krieger on belief in poetry, Philip Wheelwright on myth, John Hollander on music, and William Carlos Williams on free verse. In 1974, the Enlarged Edition increased the entries with dozens of new subjects, including rock lyric, computer poetry, and black poetry, to name just a few.

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics accounts for the extraordinary change and explosion of knowledge within literary and cultural studies since the 1970s. This edition, completely revised, preserves what was most valuable from previous editions, while subjecting each existing entry to revision. Over 90 percent of the entries have been extensively revised and most major ones entirely rewritten. Completely new entries number 162, including those by new contributors Camille Paglia, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Elaine Showalter, Houston Baker, Andrew Ross, and many more. New entries include those on cultural criticism, discourse, feminist poetics, and Chicano poetry.

Improvements cover several areas: All the recent developments in theory that bear on poetry are included; bibliographies of secondary sources are extended; cross-references among entries and through blind entries have been expanded for greater ease of use; and coverage of emergent and non-Western poetries is dramatically increased. Indeed, a hallmark of the encyclopedia is its world-wide orientation on the poetry of national and cultural groups.

"Teaching with Fire is a glorious collection of the poetry that has restored the faith of teachers in the highest, most transcendent values of their work with children....Those who want us to believe that teaching is a technocratic and robotic skill devoid of art or joy or beauty need to read this powerful collection. So, for that matter, do we all."
?Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities

"When reasoned argument fails, poetry helps us make sense of life. A few well-chosen images, the spinning together of words creates a way of seeing where we came from and lights up possibilities for where we might be going....Dip in, read, and ponder; share with others. It's inspiration in the very best sense."
?Deborah Meier, co-principal of The Mission Hill School, Boston and founder of a network of schools in East Harlem, New York

"In the Confucian tradition it is said that the mark of a golden era is that children are the most important members of the society and teaching is the most revered profession. Our jour ney to that ideal may be a long one, but it is books like this that will sustain us - for who are we all at our best save teachers, and who matters more to us than the children?"
?Peter M. Senge, founding chair, SoL (Society for Organizational Learning) and author of The Fifth Discipline

Those of us who care about the young and their education must find ways to remember what teaching and learning are really about. We must find ways to keep our hearts alive as we serve our students. Poetry has the power to keep us vital and focused on what really matters in life and in schooling. Teaching with Fire is a wonderful collection of eighty-eight poems from such well-loved poets as Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, Billy Collins, Emily Dickinson, and Pablo Neruda. Each of these evocative poems is accompanied by a brief story from a teacher explaining the significance of the poem in his or her life's work. This beautiful book also includes an essay that describes how poetry can be used to grow both personally and professionally.

Teaching With Fire was written in partnership with the Center for Teacher Formation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Royalties from this book will be used to fund scholarship opportunities for teachers to grow and learn.
Price=$10.90
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Offering over one thousand years of verse from the medieval period to the present, The Norton Anthology of Poetry is the classroom standard for the study of poetry in English.

"The most acute rendering of an era’s sensibility is its poetry," wrote the editors in their preface to the first edition.

This tenth-anniversary reissue of a timeless collection celebrates the joys of poetry for children of all ages. Bringing together essential classic children's poems with the best of modern and contemporary international poetry, A Child's Anthology of Poetry is an indispensable introduction to literature and life for the young reader.

The simple pleasures of reading and listening to poetry are unforgettable memories of childhood, and, for young minds, poetry is the gateway to an interest in language and storytelling. From Robert Frost to Maya Angelou, Shel Silverstein to Emily Dickinson, this collection emphasizes the fun and diversity of poetry, providing readers with a well-rounded, inclusive selection of poets. With the guidance of a special advisory board of esteemed poets—Deborah Digges, Gerald Early, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Edward Hirsch, Garrett Hongo, Maxine Kumin, Cynthia MacDonald, William Matthews, Thylias Moss, Ishmael Reed, Sarah Rosenstock, and Mark Strand—the editors have fashioned a delightful volume that encourages parents not to underestimate their children's ability to appreciate the music of the written word. It is a volume that will be treasured by generations of readers.

Featuring artwork by Tom Pohrt, the well-known illustrator of Crow and Weasel, and including favorite poems such as William Blake's "The Tyger" and Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," in addition to more-recent classics such as Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina" and Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," A Child's Anthology of Poetry is full of surprises and lyric charm.

• The Upanishads • The Book of Psalms • Lao-tzu • The Bhagavad Gita • Chuang-tzu • The Odes of Solomon • Seng-ts'an • Han-shan • Li Po • Tu Fu • Layman P'ang • Kukai • Tung-shan • Symeon the New Theologian • Izumi Shikibu • Su Tung-p'o • Hildegard of Bingen • Francis of Assisi • Wu-men • DÕgen • Rumi • Mechthild of Magdeburg • Dante • Kabir Mirabai • William Shakespeare • George Herbert • Bunan • Gensei • Angelus Silesius • Thomas Traherne • Basho • William Blake • RyÕkan • Issa • Ghalib • Bibi Hayati • Wait Whitman • Emily Dickinson • Gerard Manley Hopkins • Uvavnuk • Anonymous Navaho • W. B. Yeats • Antonio Machado • Rainer Maria Rilke • Wallace Stevens • D.H. Lawrence • Robinson Jeffers •

"Concise, learned, revisionary... should enrich the passionate conversation about poetic forms for years to come."— Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry

Here, for the first time, is our generations' definitive view of the greatest poetry in the English language. This is the story of poetry in English, a collection of the best 500 poems, based not on one critic's choice, not on one poet's choice, but on the collective choice of 550 critics, editors, and poets.

Here are the 500 poems that speak to us across the centuries, beginning with Chaucer's words, moving to Shakespeare's masterpieces, through Donne's wonderful witticisms and Pope's elegant satires, through the perennial favorites of Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats, on through Dickinson's jewels of profundity to the ironies of Eliot and to the passion of Plath and Ginsberg in out own time. These are the 500 poems we know or want to know, arranged as an unfolding story of great literature, with comments on each by William Harmon and with a general introduction on the entire collection.

Years in the making, this full-color treasury contains nearly two hundred poems, all of them handpicked by Bill Martin Jr. Traditional children's poems are presented alongside contemporary pieces, and the collection is capped off with tributes by Eric Carle and Steven Kellogg, two of Bill Martin Jr's best-known collaborators. This essential compilation also features original illustrations by award-winning artists, including Ashley Bryan, Lois Ehlert, Steven Kellogg, Chris Raschka, Dan Yaccarino, Nancy Tafuri, and Derek Anderson. This beautiful anthology is sure to become a classic.
Price=$15.75
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A rare and thrilling listening experience. A choice gathering of some of the twentieth century's greatest poetry... read by the century's greatest poets - here available on CD

A reawakened love for the sound of poetry has made modern poems subtly different from the poems of the eighteenth and nineteenth centures. We have only to listen to these poets reading their own works to know how important their interpretations are to a full comprehension of their poems. The ministerial intonations of Eliot, the passionate orchestrations of Thomas, the very very precise formulations of Cummings, the easy conversational inflection of Frost are integral, lending subtle clarifications which go beyond the printed page.

The fact that this recording includes the voice of Yeats is something of a miracle. In the early 1930's, when the thought of recording poets occurred to few, Yeats himself made several recordings for radio broadcast. By sheer luck, an unmutilated copy was preserved; and now the rich and melodious voice can be heard by a new generation.

The Caedmon Poetry Collection eliminates the struggle for perfect communication between author and reader. Just listen and you'll understand...

Contents:

CD 3:

Offering over one thousand years of verse from the medieval period to the present, The Norton Anthology of Poetry is the classroom standard for the study of poetry in English.

Beginning in 1950 with Charles Olsen, Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology is the first anthology since Donald Allen’s groundbreaking collection to fully represent the movements of American avant-garde poetry.

A new edition of the acclaimed anthology—the most comprehensive collection of twentieth-century poetry in English available.

This anthology contains the works of some of the greatest poets of the Romantic Age, including Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Byron and Clare.
Price=$14.38
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Poetry of rising from ashes, and being queen even after your kingdom falls apart. This diverse collection of 16 poems focuses on seeing a better future, rebellion, homosexuality, ambitions and dreams. With moments of self-acceptance and sorrow at the thought of what used to be a miserable life. Drag Queen is the debut poetry collection written through the eyes of my alter-ego Hermana Alacran.
Includes Poems:
"Homo-Sapien"
"Where Are The Hot Herterosexuals?"
"Faggots, Queers, but Queens"
and "There Is No Love"
Price=$0.99
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NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND INCLUDED IN THE BOOKLIST TOP 10 ART BOOKS FOR YOUTH!

Our consensus is Hip Hop Speaks to Children is the most essential poetry purchase to make this year.
The poetry is enough.
The illustrations are enough.
The CD is enough.
Together, this book is a treasure of which you cannot get enough.
We shall accomplish much this year. Children will be encouraged to put their words to poetry and beats. Teachers will be encouraged to allow the artists to speak to children.
—Diane Chen, School Library Journal blog "Practically Paradise"

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a celebration of poetry with a beat.

Poetry can have both a rhyme and a rhythm. Sometimes it is obvious; sometimes it is hidden. But either way, make no mistake, poetry is as vibrant and exciting as it gets. And when you find yourself clapping your hands or tapping your feet, you know you've found poetry with a beat!

Like Poetry Speaks to Children, the New York Times Bestselling classic poetry book and CD that started it all, Hip Hop Speaks to Children is meant to be the beginning of a journey of discovery.

READ more than 50 remarkable poems and songs!

HEAR poetry's rhymes and rhythms from Queen Latifah to Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes to A Tribe Called Quest and more! * Also hear part of Martin Luther Kind's original "I Have a Dream" speech, followed by the remarkable live performance of the speech by Nikki Giovanni, Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward. * The Hip Hop Speaks to Children CD contains more than 30 performances, either by the artists who created them, or as unique interpretations by admiring poets and artists.

DISCOVER Langston Hughes's elegant gospel "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," A Tribe Called Quest's playful "Ham 'N' Eggs," Sterling A. Brown's hard-luck "Long Track Blues," Gwendolyn Brooks's wake-up call "We Real Cool," Kanye West's lovely "Hey Mama," and Martin Luther King Jr.'s awe-inspiring "I Have a Dream."

This is a collection of rhymes and rhythms unlike any other poetry book!

Celebrate with remarkable poets, including:
Eloise Greenfield
Mos Def
Lucille Clifton
Oscar Brown Jr.
Tupac Shakur
Maya Angelou
Queen Latifah
Nikki Grimes
Walter Dean Myers
Common
and, of course, Nikki Giovanni

Poems Include:
Ego Tripping
Rapper's Delight
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Hey Mama
Ham 'N' Eggs
Everything Is Everything
Ladies First

MORE PRAISE FOR HIP HOP SPEAKS TO CHILDREN

"With its archival recordings of poems read by the poets themselves, [Hip Hop] reminds everyone that poetry springs from an oral tradition."
—Publishers Weekly

"This is the way to get children interested in reading and loving poetry. ... A great book for both teachers and parents."
— Valerie Lewis, owner of Hicklebee's children's bookstore

"The poems, the artwork, the CD...all complement each other to create a wonderful experience."
—Becky Laney, Becky Laney's Books blog

"Love this book. I think it is a K-8 must-have for classrooms and libraries. Like I said it is packed and it may be (at first) intimidating to young readers. But, once they hear some of the audio, spend time with the illustrations, and experience some of the poetry, I think it will become a favorite."
—Franki Sibberson, A Year of Reading blog

"Hip Hop Speaks to Children is a wonderfully composed collection of poems from writers like Eloise Greenfield to late rapper and poet, Tupac Shakur. ... Whether you read poetry or you hear it in a rap song, Giovanni's genius endeavor will inspire children of all ages to have fun while listening to poetry. Rap is poetry, right?"
—Amy Bowllan, Amy Bowllan's Blog (a School Library Journal Blog)

"Ihighly recommend this one for all collections. If the title didn't include the word "children" it'd be an excellent book all the way to high school. My coworkers and I are already talking about doing a Hip Hop poetry story time for our elementary school kids."
—Jennifer Rothschild, Biblio File blog

"This is an incredibly powerful, beautiful and important book. Both the book and CD are stellar in quality and diversity. The artwork is amazing and I find myself pulling it out of the shelf over and over for just one more re-read. The grandchildren (ages 3 and 5) love it as well and ask to hear the CD while they pore over the pages and take breaks prancing around the room and singing to the beat. They KNOW all the poems in the book and learned them in a relatively short time, which I attribute to the power of the beat, and all the artists; the poets, the illustrators, the singers and spoken word artists. What an astounding thing when a book moves children so that they LEARN - quickly and enjoyably. This book is for all ages and Ican't recommend it highly enough."
—Gina Ruiz, Blogcritics Magazine

The collection includes works by Elizabeth Bishop, Sharon Olds, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda, W. H. Auden, Adrienne Rich, Sandra Cisneros, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, Dorothy Parker, Queen Elizabeth I, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shahib Nye, and W. B. Yeats. Whether it's falling in love, breaking up, friendship, marriage, motherhood, or growing old, She Walks in Beauty is a priceless resource for anyone, male or female, who wants a deeper understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a woman.

She walks in beauty
George Gordon, Lord Byron

I She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

III And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

After centuries of oppressive Ottoman rule, the Arab world began to find new vitality and freedom in the twentieth century. The accompanying resurgence of creative expression is splendidly reflected in this definitive anthology of contemporary Arabic poetry, which spans the modern Arab world from the turn of the century to the present, from the Arab Gulf to Morocco. The editor, Salma Khadra Jayyusi, a renowned expert on modern Arabic literature, presents a through introduction to the works of more than ninety Arab poets. To create the best possible English translation, each selection has been translated first by a bilingual expert and then by an English-language poet, who creatively renders it into idiomatic English.