Modern American Poetry

With lively writing and illuminating examples, David Caplan argues that two characteristics mark the vast, contentious literature. On the one hand, several of America's major poets and critics claim that America needs a poetry equal to the country's distinctiveness. They advocate for novelty and for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign.

In this poetry collection, Elektra Flowers transforms the traditional card suit of coins/pentacles into meditations on the earth.

Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those often underrepresented.

'Intelligent and unpretentious Modern Poetry for intelligent, unpretentious and modern-minded people.' Barn Swallow. In groups: a mad woman's hyperactive Tourette's tearing at her hair; her flailing fists, and rapid arm-weaving, everywhere and nowhere; alone: a Tartar's arrow-bolt ~ fletched with blue steel... This masterful collection brings exquisite high-art poetry to ordinarily educated readers. Each poem comes with a set of explanatory notes, written by the author himself; and this edition also includes an informative essay to explain what makes free-verse successful. The few technical...

Marlon & Zenoviah Love, dreams, and all the drama of high school life collide in Marlon & Zenoviah, a fresh, heartfelt story about finding your person when you least expect it. Meet Marlon—a smooth-talking basketball star with big hoop dreams—and Zanoviah, the low-key poetic genius who’d rather hide in her journal than step into the spotlight. Their worlds couldn’t be more different, but when a class project throws them together, sparks fly in the most unexpected way. From sneaky glances in the hallway to deep conversations under the bleachers, Marlon and Zanoviah discover what it ...

Walt Whitman said, "...poetry is the voice of the nation, expressing its deepest concerns, ambitions and longings," which is certainly true of the great classic poetry of America. This wide-ranging anthology, from the earliest poets of the 16th century to the present day, reflects the changing preoccupations and visions of Americans, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, and more.

'Intelligent but unpretentious rhyming poetry for intelligent but unpretentious people.' Queenly Kitten, Rosette of Snows Where few dirty mortals go; Why did God grant pretty grace To a perfect killer’s face? The time is right - and the reading public craves - for a return to rhyming poetry that is both understandable to all but also 'aristocratic' in its artistic standards. When you read this poetry, you will feel as empowered as a prince. The user-friendly edition also comes with poem-by-poem explanatory notes by the author himself, an essay which defines traditional rhyming poetry in ...

In this stunning collection of new poems, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has defined her life’s work, describing with wonder both the everyday and the unaffected beauty of nature. Herons, sparrows, owls, and kingfishers flit across the page in meditations on love, artistry, and...

Enter the dark and twisted world of G.R. Tomaini, a contemporary Poet, Philosopher, Systematic Theologian, and author of nine books who explores the depths of human depravity, despair, and decadence. In The Psalms of Babylon, you will find 112 Flowers of Malaise that will shock, disturb, and fascinate you. You will encounter seductive sirens, hungry hogs, unholy grins, and laughing gas. You will visit opium dens, woodchippers, bathtubs, and tombs. You will witness sin, surf, seance, and soliloquy. You will experience asphyxiation, jouissance, Ragnarok, and metanoia. The Psalms of Babylon ...

In a world that demands silence, one voice rises to turn scars into scripture. "What Don’t Kill Me, I Write About" is a raw, unflinching poetic journey through urban adversity. Ross navigates a landscape where survival demands an armor sewn from silence, dissecting inherited trauma and quiet battles within. Witness a childhood stripped bare become the crucible for unparalleled resilience. Here, pain isn't just poetic—it's practical, shaping identity and redefining hope. Ross masterfully transforms gunshots into a hymn and heartbreak into commas, making harsh realities resonate with ...

In his collection of poems, Musings of a Hermit, Charles (Chuck) Kausalik-Boe explores seeking the divine through the natural world, cats and chance encounters with others. From the solitude of his tiny inner city home, he watches and reflects on what passes by his porch windows. He also goes within to experience the magic that dwells in his heart and soul. From Chuck’s pen flows poetry that is both prayerful and filled with whimsy. Musings of a Hermit is a love song to the divine, the world around us, and to the magic that is possible.

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR POETRY “An undisputed literary event.” —NPR “History—with its construction and its destruction—is at the heart of In the Lateness of the World. . . . In [it] one feels the poet cresting a wave—a new wave that will crash onto new lands and...

Since 1998, the Alfred A. Knopf Publishing Group has celebrated National Poetry Month by emailing a poem-a-day throughout the month of April to over 25,000 devoted poetry fans. In April 2006, Knopf introduced the Poem-a-Day podcast, which featured poets including Kevin Young and James Merrill...

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare...

Published nine years after her 1933 novelization of the trial and death of Socrates, Rogue’s Legacy is Babette Deutsch imagining François Villon, the notorious French poet known as much for his verse as for his criminality. As Herbert Gorman wrote in the New York Times: “The extant documentation concerning Villon in Rogue’s Legacy is brought to such a sharp and living fictional focus that the result for the reader is very much like draining a huge beaker of ruddy Beaune that the poet loved so well. . . . She has created a character who lives and who might very well be the François ...

A rousing, beautifully observed, and tender-hearted debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging—for fans of Jasmine Mans and Fatimah Asghar “We, children of plátanos, always gotta learn to play in everyone else’s backyard and somehow feel at home.” Poet...

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Dennis explores the expansiveness and complexity of universal virtues within the realm of the everyday in this thought-provoking new collection Though most of the virtues that interest Carl Dennis in Earthly Virtues have traditional names, they are provided with...

If you want blessings as you live, In goodly measure, learn to give; A kindly life of selflessness Will boomerang to blessedness. Fluent and expressing a keen insight into the complexities of modern-day life, such is the quality and content of Anna Daisy Siemens’ Poetry and Prose. Never trite and overdone, however, the verse possesses a freshness coupled with a candidness that renders it unique. And moreover the underlying theme of the collection as a whole is quite clearly drawn. And that is, beyond the superficial materialism that too many of us pursue as being the ultimate in happiness...

Finalist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation A vivid, "mesmerizing" (New York Times Magazine) portrait of life in the shadow of violence and loss, for readers of both English and Persian The first selection of poems by renowned Iranian poet Garous Abdolmalekian to appear in English...

Bitter Sweet Love is the much-anticipated second collection of internationally best-selling poet Michael Faudet, author of Dirty Pretty Things, a finalist in the 2015 Goodreads Readers Choice Awards. Michael Faudet's whimsical and often erotic writing has captured the hearts and minds of...