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A New York Times Notable Book of 2018"Wilson’s language is fresh, unpretentious and lean…It is rare to find a translation that is at once so effortlessly easy to read and so rigorously considered." —Madeline Miller, author of CirceComposed at the rosy-fingered dawn of world literature almost three millennia ago, The Odyssey is a poem about violence and the aftermath of war; about wealth, poverty and power; about marriage and family; about travelers, hospitality, and the yearning for home.This fresh, authoritative translation captures the beauty of this ancient poem as well as the drama of its narrative. Its characters are unforgettable, none more so than the “complicated” hero himself, a man of many disguises, many tricks, and many moods, who emerges in this version as a more fully rounded human being than ever before.Written in iambic pentameter verse and a vivid, contemporary idiom, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey sings with a voice that echoes Homer’s music; matching the number of lines in the Greek original, the poem sails along at Homer’s swift, smooth pace.A fascinating, informative introduction explores the Bronze Age milieu that produced the epic, the poem’s major themes, the controversies about its origins, and the unparalleled scope of its impact and influence. Maps drawn especially for this volume, a pronunciation glossary, and extensive notes and summaries of each book make this is an Odyssey that will be treasured by a new generation of readers. Read more

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“This 20th collection from the former U.S. poet laureate departs only by degrees from his poems of earlier decades—but it could just be his best book.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) In his first volume of poetry since his tenure as poet laureate, Charles Simic shows he is at the height of his poetic powers. These new poems mine the rich strain of inscrutability in ordinary life, until it is hard to know what is innocent and what ominous. There is something about his work that continues to be crystal clear and yet deeply weighted with violence and mystery. Reading it is like going undercover. The face of a girl carrying a white dress from the cleaners with her eyes half-closed. The Adam & Evie Tanning Salon at night. A sparrow on crutches. A rubber duck in a shooting gallery on a Sunday morning. And someone in a tree swing, too old to be swinging and to be wearing no clothes at all, blowing a toy trumpet at the sky.“Simic’s compact poems carry concealed weapons amid unnerving juxtapositions . . . Simic’s edgy, brooding poems are like saxophone solos played under a bridge in the deep, dark hours of the spinning world’s bruising insomnia.” —Booklist“In retrospect, the man who’s referred to himself as a ‘cheerful pessimist’ succeeds again in demonstrating his ability to condense meaning without obscuring it, to empower his poems with paradox, and to mesh seamlessly the real and imagined. And though many of the poems in Master of Disguises continue a style trend, they are also verbal tightropes off which a reader rarely falls, tightropes that demand—and deserve—a reader’s complete attention.” —Rattle Read more

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A new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author Margaret AtwoodIn Dearly, Margaret Atwood’s first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and intuitively lived.While many are familiar with Margaret Atwood’s fiction—including her groundbreaking and bestselling novels The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Oryx and Crake, among others—she has, from the beginning of her career, been one of our most significant contemporary poets. And she is one of the very few writers equally accomplished in fiction and poetry.  This collection is a stunning achievement that will be appreciated by fans of her novels and poetry readers alike. Read more

I have sat and listened to too manywords of the collaborating muse,and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,not avoiding injury to others,not avoiding injury to myself—to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction,an eelnet made by man for the eel fightingmy eyes have seen what my hand did.Winner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, The Dolphin was controversial from the beginning: many of the poems include the letters that Robert Lowell’s wife, the celebrated writer and critic Elizabeth Hardwick, wrote to him after he left her for the English socialite and writer Caroline Blackwood. He was warned by many, among them Elizabeth Bishop, that “art just isn’t worth that much.” Nevertheless, these poems are a powerful document of an impulsive love, and a moving record of Lowell’s change from one life and marriage in America to a new life on new terms with a new family in England, rendered with the stunning technical power and control for which he was so celebrated. This new edition, which follows the 1973 edition, includes scans of the pages of Lowell’s original manuscript, giving us a look into the brilliant and complicated mind of one of our most beloved and distinguished poets. Read more

Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard is a deeply personal volume that brings together two legacies of the Deep South.Through elegaic verse that honors her mother and tells of her own fraught childhood, Natasha Trethewey confronts the racial legacy of her native Deep South—--where one of the first black regiments, The Louisiana Native Guards, was called into service during the Civil War.The title of the collection refers to the black regiment whose role in the Civil War has been largely overlooked by history. As a child in Gulfport, Mississippi, in the 1960s, Trethewey could gaze across the water to the fort on Ship Island where Confederate captives once were guarded by black soldiers serving the Union cause.The racial legacy of the South touched Trethewey’s life on a much more immediate level, too. Many of the poems inNative Guard pay loving tribute to her mother, whose marriage to a white man was illegal in her native Mississippi in the 1960s. Years after her mother’s tragic death, Trethewey reclaims her memory, just as she reclaims the voices of the black soldiers whose service has been all but forgotten.Trethewey's resonant and beguiling collection is a haunting conversation between personal experience and national history. Read more

John Milton’s Paradise Lost stands as one of the greatest epics of all time, a timeless tale of rebellion, temptation, and the fall of humanity. It follows the tragic journey of Adam and Eve, the revolt of Satan against God, and the ultimate consequences of disobedience. First published in 1667, Milton’s profound exploration of free will, divine justice, and redemption has inspired readers for centuries.This modern translation of Paradise Lost offers a fresh and accessible take on the original, preserving the poetic grandeur and complex themes while making the language more approachable for contemporary readers. Unlike other adaptations, this version stays true to Milton’s majestic style, maintaining the epic’s rhythm, power, and emotional depth, but without the barriers of archaic English.Whether you're a first-time reader or a seasoned fan, this translation brings Paradise Lost to life in a way that captures both the beauty of Milton’s verse and the timeless nature of his themes. Journey through the fall of angels and humanity, and experience one of literature’s most powerful works—now more readable and relatable than ever before. Read more

National Book Critics Circle Award WinnerA National Book Award FinalistMetaphysical Dog offers a vital, searching collection from one of finest American poets at work todayIn "Those Nights," Frank Bidart writes: "We who could get / somewhere through / words through / sex could not." Words and sex, art and flesh: In Metaphysical Dog, Bidart explores their nexus. The result stands among this deeply adventurous poet's most powerful and achieved work, an emotionally naked, fearlessly candid journey through many of the central axes, the central conflicts, of his life, and ours.Near the end of the book, Bidart writes: In adolescence, you thought your work ancient work: to decipher at last human beings' relation to God. Decipher love. To make what was once whole whole again: or to see why it never should have been thought whole.This "ancient work" reflects what the poet sees as fundamental in human feeling, what psychologists and mystics have called the "hunger for the Absolute"—a hunger as fundamental as any physical hunger. This hunger must confront the elusiveness of the Absolute, our self-deluding, failed glimpses of it. The third section of the book is titled "History is a series of failed revelations."The result is one of the most fascinating and ambitious books of poetry in many years.One of Publishers Weekly's Best Poetry BooksA New York Times Notable BookAn NPR Best Book of the Year Read more

This collection by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet is “a major contribution to the body of literature grappling with Vietnam” (Poetry). Yusef Komunyakaa is renowned for his ability to blend memory and history with strikingly evocative poetic imagery. Born in the rural community of Bogalusa, Louisiana, Komunyakaa served in Vietnam as a correspondent and editor of The Southern Cross and received a Bronze Star for his service as a journalist. In Dien Cai Dau, he applies this unique sensibility to his experience of the Vietnam War. The resulting poems have been called some of the finest Vietnam testimony ever documented in verse or prose.  “So finely tuned are Komunyakaa’s images, so faultless his vision, that the reader sees precisely what the poet recalls . . . A powerful must-read for those who have forgotten those days.” ―Booklist Read more

From one of America’s most celebrated poets, Nikki Giovanni, comes this poignant collection of poetry that celebrates the simple pleasures of everyday life and the bonds we share with those closest to us.“This slim volume delights on every page. There are stories, imaginings, whimsy, and startling images which prove the poet’s power and her command of language . . . Anyone with a love of language will be delighted with this book and the continuing publication of America’s treasured poet.”—San Francisco Book ReviewThe poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements and inspired songs, turned hearts and informed generations. She's been hailed as a healer and as a national treasure. But Giovanni's heart resides in the everyday, where family and lovers gather, friends commune, and those no longer with us are remembered. And at every gathering there is food—food as sustenance, food as aphrodisiac, food as memory. A pot of beans is flavored with her mother's sighs—this sigh part cardamom, that one the essence of clove; a lover requests a banquet as an affirmation of ongoing passion; homage is paid to the most time-honored appetizer: soup.With Chasing Utopia, Giovanni demands that the prosaic—flowers, birdsong, winter—be seen as poetic, and reaffirms once again why she is as energetic, "remarkable" (Gwendolyn Brooks), "wonderful" (Marian Wright Edelman),"outspoken, prolific, energetic" (New York Times), and relevant as ever."If there was a need for poetry that galvanized and inspired, there was also a demand for poetry that comforted and unified — and Ms. Giovanni provided on both counts." — The Washington Post Read more

"A gorgeous collection. . . . These poems unplug from TV and social media and the outrage of the moment and turn our attention to the immediate and the everlasting, human intimacy and the power and mystery of nature." —Tampa Bay TimesIn this intimate collection, Barbara Kingsolver, beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead, and recipient of numerous literary awards including the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters, trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are beautifully crafted, emotionally rich, and luminousIn her second poetry collection, Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild. She begins with “how to” poems addressing everyday matters such as being hopeful, married, divorced; shearing a sheep; praying to unreliable gods; doing nothing at all; and of course, flying. Next come rafts of poems about making peace (or not) with the complicated bonds of friendship and family, and making peace (or not) with death, in the many ways it finds us. Some poems reflect on the redemptive powers of art and poetry itself; others consider where everything begins. Closing the book are poems that celebrate natural wonders—birdsong and ghost-flowers, ruthless ants, clever shellfish, coral reefs, deadly deserts, and thousand-year-old beech trees—all speaking to the daring project of belonging to an untamed world beyond ourselves.Altogether, these are poems about transcendence: finding breath and lightness in life and the everyday acts of living. It’s all terribly easy and, as the title suggests, not entirely possible. Or at least, it is never quite finished.  Read more

Written with unflinching honesty about pregnancy and the first year of motherhood, The Sweetest Little Blueberryis a book for all mothers. Bluett pens everything we know and love – like feeling those baby kicks, perfect newborn toes, and the magic of motherhood – while also being vulnerable about the parts of motherhood that aren’t as magical – morning sickness (and afternoon and night sickness), fears of inadequacy, postpartum depression, and the struggles of figuring out this “new” you.The journey of motherhood is the most beautiful yet also the most challenging, and The Sweetest Little Blueberrywill be a sweet, heartfelt reminder to mothers everywhere that you are far from alone and you are a total badass. You did the unthinkable, the most magical, the most amazing thing. And you deserve to be celebrated.No matter where you are on your motherhood journey (pregnant, a new mother, or a mama of grown children), this book is a must-read during late-night pumping sessions or relaxing Sunday nights after the kids are finally asleep. Read more

A rich and challenging new collection from the young award-winning poetIn those days I began to see light under everybushel basket, light nearly splittingthe sides of the bushel basket. Light camethrough the rafters of the dairy where the gracklescongregated like well-taxed citizensuntransfigured even by hope. Understand I was the oneunderneath the basket. I was certain I had nothing to say. When I grew restless in the interior,the exterior gave.Dense, rich, and challenging, Katie Peterson’s A Piece of Good News explores interior and exterior landscapes, exposure, and shelter. Imbued with a hallucinatory poetic logic where desire, anger, and sorrow supplant intelligence and reason, these poems are powerful meditations of mourning, love, doubt, political citizenship, and happiness. Learned, wise, and witty, Peterson explodes the possibilities of the poetic voice in this remarkable and deeply felt collection. Read more

The long-awaited new and selected collection by the author of “some of the most important poetry in the world today” (The New York Times Magazine), assaying the ranges of our shared and borrowed lives: our bonds of eros and responsibilities to the planet; the singing dictions and searchlight dimensions of perception; the willing plunge into an existence both perishing and beloved, dazzling “even now, even here”In an era of algorithm, assertion, silo, and induced distraction, Jane Hirshfield’s poems bring a much-needed awakening response, actively countering narrowness. The Asking takes its title from the close of one of its thirty-one new poems: “don’t despair of this falling world, not yet / didn’t it give you the asking.” Interrogating language and life, pondering beauty amid bewilderment and transcendence amid transience, Hirshfield offers a signature investigation of the conditions, contradictions, uncertainties, and astonishments that shape our existence. A leading advocate for the biosphere and the alliance of science and imagination, she brings to both inner and outer quandaries an abiding compass: the choice to embrace what is, to face with courage, curiosity, and a sense of kinship whatever comes.            In poems that consider the smallest ant and the vastness of time, hunger and bounty, physics, war, and love in myriad forms, this collection—drawing from nine previous books and five decades of writing—brings the insights and slant-lights that come to us only through poetry’s arc, delve, and tact; through a vision both close and sweeping; through music-inflected thought and recombinant leap.            With its quietly magnifying brushwork and numinous clarities, The Asking expands our awareness of both breakage’s grief and the possibility for repair. Read more

Have you ever loved someone too much?Have you ever felt you were not loved enough?This collection of poems depicts different journeys of love that will make your heart smile and weep at the same time while hopefully helping you mend the remaining scars of any current or past stories.A must-read for all poetry lovers and love aficionados.For those who loved too much and felt they were never loved enough ♥"A breathtaking book for anyone who has ever been in love or experienced heartbreak"For anyone who loves the poetry of Michaela Angemeer, Caitlin Kelly, Alexandra Vasiliu,Jennae Cecelia, Nikita Gill, or Kate Baer.An ode to the flutters, the desire, and the tears we've all been through. Words that will heal your heart and mend your soul. Read more

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See yourself as you truly are in this emotional collection of poetry and prose inspired by ancestral and inner child healing.Please Look into the Mirror is about facing the darkness to find light. Separated into three sections: Glass, Mirror, and Reflection, it’s about the mother wound, gaining a deeper sense of self, learning to take accountability and finding relief in cycle breaking.Early Praise for Please Look into the MirrorMichaela’s voice of vulnerability and honesty provides readers a space to reflect upon their emotions and experiences. Please Look into the Mirror is a testament to the power of language to impact and heal the heart.— Whitney Hanson, author of HarmonyAngemeer’s honesty fosters a safe space for reflection, encouraging readers to not only heal their connection with the world around them but, as with all her finest work, gently guiding us toward nurturing the inner child, making space for new forms of love.— Christopher Tapp, author of may i come homePlease Look into the Mirror is for those searching for the validation they never received in their childhood, those repairing familial relationships, and those learning to accept themselves. Angemeer’s words reminded me why I stay alive for little me; for that, I am so grateful.– ari b. cofer, author of unfold: poetry + proseA story of reconnecting with the self at every age, through every step of emotional growing pains—told through Angemeer’s classically profound yet graspable voice. A must-read for softening into one’s own identity.— Kim Rashidi, author of Girl MessMichaela beautifully guides you to take your inner child by the hand and break your own generational trauma by giving them the love and healing they—and you—so desperately need.— Parker Lee, author of coffee days whiskey nights Read more