Poetry

A beat movement icon and visionary poet, Allen Ginsberg broke boundaries with his fearless, pyrotechnic verse. The apocalyptic "Howl" became the subject of an obscenity trial when it was first published in 1956 — its vindication was a watershed moment in twentieth-century history. Dark, ecstatic and rhapsodic, "Howl" shows why Ginsberg was one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century. Howl and Other Poems is a collection of Ginsberg's finest work, including "Howl," one of the principal works of the Beat Generation as well as "A Supermarket in California," "Transcription of Organ Music," "Sunflower Sutra," "America," "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound," and some of his earlier works.

A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century.

In his National Book Award-winning tenth collection Sight Lines, Arthur Sze lends the reader his prismatic lens, rendering contemporary reality in stunning complexity. Moments of grace, eros, and beauty are braided with shudders of terror and threats of ecological destruction, as Sze moves nimbly through intersections of the disparate and divergent. Using formal disruption, legible erasure, and a diversity of voices—lichen on a ceiling, salt on the table, a man behind on his rent—each page transmutes simplicity into simultaneity, and chaos into compelling song. Sze is a Pulitzer finalist and a widely-revered poet, whose exquisite craft continues to expand our view: there are “so many / worlds to this world.”

Of the great poets, Dante is one of the most elusive and therefore one of the most difficult to adequately render into English verse. In the Inferno, Dante not only judges sin but strives to understand it so that the reader can as well. With this major new translation, Anthony Esolen has succeeded brilliantly in marrying sense with sound, poetry with meaning, capturing both the poem’s line-by-line vigor and its allegorically and philosophically exacting structure, yielding an Inferno that will be as popular with general readers as with teachers and students. For, as Dante insists, without a trace of sentimentality or intellectual compromise, even Hell is a work of divine art. Esolen also provides a critical Introduction and endnotes, plus appendices containing Dante’s most important sources—from Virgil to Saint Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic theologians—that deftly illuminate the religious universe the poet inhabited.

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny. The struggle rages across three worlds - heaven, hell, and earth - as Satan and his band of rebel angels plot their revenge against God. At the center of the conflict are Adam and Eve, who are motivated by all too human temptations but whose ultimate downfall is unyielding love. Marked by Milton's characteristic erudition, Paradise Lost is a work epic both in scale and, notoriously, in ambition. For nearly 350 years, it has held generation upon generation of audiences in rapt attention, and its profound influence can be seen in almost every corner of Western culture.

The Green Knight, a mysteriously powerful creature, tests the honor and courage of King Arthur's youngest knight.

This collection of Neruda’s most essential poems will prove indispensable. Selected by a team of poets and prominent Neruda scholars in both Chile and the United States, this is a definitive selection that draws from the entire breadth and width of Neruda’s various styles and themes. An impressive group of translators that includes Alaistair Reid, Stephen Mitchell, Robert Hass, Stephen Kessler and Jack Hirschman have come together to revisit or completely retranslate the poems. A bilingual edition, with English on one side of the page, the original Spanish on the other. This selection sets the standard for a general, high—quality introduction to Neruda’s complete oeuvre. Pablo Neruda was born in Chile in 1904. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.

Then the Flowers Found Me: Prose Unspoken by Lucy Isaula is a vibrant collection conveying the highs and lows of self discovery and introspection that the road to growth is fraught with. It takes you through the experiences of a young sensitive soul traversing through three poignant phases of life. Capturing both sorrow and happiness from beginning as an uncertain dreamer striving for answers, then as a vulnerable being battling the harshness of reality, to ultimately finding empowering meaning with help from lessons found in nature. This window into a whimsical whirlwind of wonder is sure to have you stop and smell the flowers, gaze into the sky, and also ask "why?" Take a peek through the lenses of someone who holds the stars, the moon, the sea, and every flower in all their shapes and forms as inspiration to create a touching world of poetry. This book is guaranteed to be a one of a kind rose in your garden of literature.