As an Iranian American poet, Roger Sedarat fuses Western and Eastern traditions to reinvent the classicalPersian form of the ghazal. For its humor as well as its spirituality, the poems in this collection can perhapsbest be described as “Wallace Stevens meets Rumi.” Perhaps most striking is the poet’s use of the ancient ghazal form in the tradition of the classical masters like Hafez and Rumi to politically challenge the Islamic Republic of Iran’s continual crackdown on protesters. Not since...
Planted by the Signs brings us the contemporary Appalachian poetry—cultivated in the dirt of Elliott County, Kentucky—of Misty Skaggs. With an eye for details that exquisitely balance personal and social observation to communicate volumes, she tells the stories of generations of women who have learned to navigate a harsh world with a little help from the Farmers’ Almanac and the stars. The collection is separated into three sections that reference the best times to grow and harvest. Knowing...
As he approaches eighty, Turner Cassity may finally be out of control. His hatchet has never fallen more lethally, meaning if you have the stomach for him he is more enjoyable than ever. Under the blade come Martha Graham, Johann Sebastian Bach, musicologists, tree huggers, Frank Gehry, folk music, folk art of all times and all places, folk… . There are, however, his unpredictable sympathies: Edith Wilson, skyscrapers, Pontius Pilate, Pilate’s legionnaires. He obviously has a soft spot for Pop...
In Doubtful Harbor, Idris Anderson turns wandering into art. From large landscapes to the minutest details, she seeks with each poem to convey the world more clearly, acutely, and exquisitely. As she meditates on indelible moments with intimate others, friends, and strangers, she teases from these encounters their elusive connections and disconnections. As Sherod Santos wrote when selecting the book for the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, “These are not the journeys of a tourist, but of a...
For the retired and/or retiring, a personal exploration claiming to be a self-help manual, a poet's musings on the experience of no longer having much to do and being disinclined by shyness to join a book club. Life could become a summer afternoon, a slow swim in a warm lake. I could become another backyard roustabout, part of the greedy gang eying the vegetable garden. The larcenous woodchuck returns. We exchange a long gaze but he gives no clue of what to do next. The poems ponder...
Though most of Jane Tyson Clement’s poems remained hidden in private notebooks during her lifetime, the few that traveled beyond her hands were widely admired and drew critical acclaim. Now, with this first comprehensive anthology of her work, the public can at last discover this gifted poet and give her the audience she deserves. Evoking comparisons to such better-known contemporaries as Jane Kenyon, Wendell Berry, and Denise Levertov, Clement is direct and understated. Even when technically...
Eine szenische Live-Lesung Zum siebten Mal fand im September 2012 das FESTSPIEL DER DEUTSCHEN SPRACHE statt. Norbert Beilharz, Hermann Beyer, Christian Grashof, Benjamin Krüger, Hans Stetter, Anna und Katharina Thalbach und Elisabeth Trissenaar standen auf der altehrwürdigen Bühne des Goethe-Theater in Bad Lauchstädt und haben in einer szenischen Lesung von NATHAN DER WEISE die hohe Kunst der Interpretation dargeboten und das Publikum begeistert. Lassen Sie sich von diesem einmaligen Abend in...
Nance Van Winckel's wry, provocative slant on the world and her command of images and ideas enliven these stunning poems. Presented in two parts, Pacific Walkers first gives imagined voice to anonymous dead individuals, entries in the John Doe network of the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Records. The focus then shifts to named but now-forgotten individuals in a discarded early-1900s photo album purchased in a secondhand store. We encounter figures devoid of history but enduring...
Nach dem langen, kalten Winter wird es wieder munter: Das Osterfest rückt näher und mit ihm die Jahreszeit des Erwachens. Lassen Sie sich auf einen Spaziergang von Aschermittwoch bis Ostersonntag entführen, der besinnlich zur Fastenzeit, nachdenklich zur Karwoche und ausgelassen zum Osterfest erklingt. Autoren: Andersen, Bote, Geibel, Gerhardt, Goethe, Hoffmann, Löns, Lohmeyer, Mörike, Morgenstern, Novalis, Rilke, Ringelnatz, Stifter, Storm, Tucholsky, Uhland, Waiblinger