Product Description
This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the state of the art today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year.

With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

assigning imprimaturs in your sleep, muldoon
it is hard to imagine a poet wordier than muldoon, "guest editor," but evidently there are, alphabetically ordered, a platoon of them.importantly though, paul muldoon is surely gifted, or has been in some previous life, some life here shed in evident order to stand naked and distressingly unashamed in the heated gaze of the passle of muldoon-ettes that he ostensibly (it is hard to imagine but is evidently so) has selected as representatives of a year's worth of american poetic effort. Surprise: most of them sound rather like Muldoon. Though it is a Muldoon non compos mentis and otherwise compromised by the blind staggers. Perhaps he was sidelined in recovery somewhere and assigned the rounding up of poets to a sightless underling. With few exceptions the poems aboard this sinking ship specialize in congealed imagery; that is, great slovenly gobbets of verbiage fast frozenat sea in the hope they would "pass." Poems impossible to decipher (by dint of having been composed with clarity farthest from anyone's mind), and unlikely to inspire a reader to try. although i am uncomfortable being so sweepingly condemnatory, i would despise myself the more deeply for scrounging after worth in bedlam...that is, in an atmosphere evidently intolerant of pride while unshrinkingly supportive of an over-riding disdain for communication. My apologies to Mr. Muldoon if it is a case of his name being used without permission.

Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections
"Your burglaries leave no thumbprint
Mine, too, are silent
I do my best imagining at night,
And you do yours with the help of shadows.

Like actors rehearsing a play,
The dark ones withdrew
Into remote corners of the room
The rest of us sat in expectation
Of your burning oratory."

~from Sunlight by Charles Simic

The maturity of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2005 is instantly apparent the moment you read "In View of the Fact" by A.R. Ammons. This is a deeply thoughtful collection of poems best addressed when you are in a contemplative mood. Within the pages there are many surprises, lovely conclusions and especially creative thought patterns. Sexuality and death seem to be themes throughout, but there is also humor and cleverly designed rhymes the wittiest poets must long to master.

"Ants" by Vicki Hudspith is especially comical while Mary Karr's poem about her son is especially heart-warming and leans more towards a serious realization of life's complexity within expectation. Richard Garcia's "Adam and Eve's Dog" lightens a topic most would find quite serious and Edward Field's poem of praise has a beautiful freeing conclusion with metaphorical appeal.

"If I were Japanese I'd write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I'd end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy's castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers."
~ Beth Ann Fennelly, pg. 46

What I am most impressed by in this collection of poems, is the truthfulness and the straightforward invitation into this sincerity. There is a cleverness in the crafting of each idea (I Want to be Your Shoebox) and at times profound lessons can appear through the viewpoint of a poet who sees the world a little more intensely (The Poets March on Washington). Jane Hirshfield's "Burlap Sack" paints an image of bondage and freedom, while Linda Pastan reveals a different type of cultural freedom.

Paul Muldoon's selections also provide a consistent mood and his love for rhyme and complex sentence structures invites you into a world of poems that reveal intricate details of your own life. At times his selections are realistic and edgy with mature considerations and at other times he has selected profound moments to inspire a more heartfelt appreciation for beauty. Both ideas seem to weave together to form a painting of how life is really lived in a realistic setting, as opposed to a more romantic rendering of ideas within a dreamscape of fantasy poems. Now and then, a line in a poem is so highly significant you can read the entire poem and then suddenly awaken upon a stunning moment.

"Wanting the tight buds of my loneliness
to swell and split, not die in wanting.
It was why I rushed through everything,
why I tore away at the perpetual gauze
between me and the stinging world"
~ pg. 133, Chase Twichell

I can also highly recommend the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is enhanced with pop culture references and a distinctly contemporary mood. As with all the books edited by David Lehman, the "Foreword" is well worth reading. David Lehman's experience in the world of poetry reveals ideas that will be of great interest to anyone interested in poetry culture.

~The Rebecca Review

Best of the Best
BAP2005 surely is a high point for the quality of the volume's poetry and the number of internet offerings included.

the best american poetry 2005
first class condition and prompt delivery Thank you ... Read more

Product Description
"Few anthologies for this age group include such a fi ne selection of works, introduce the poets so vividly, or provide such a rich collection of haunting illustrations." — Booklist

Poetry provides the best introduction to the marvels of the English language. This volume, collected by award-winning author Michael Rosen, presents a glorious selection of classic poetry, chronologically arranged from the seventeenth century to modern day—poems by such celebrated poets as William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, and Langston Hughes— complete with biographical sketches of the poets, information on individual poems, and notes on poetic forms. Paul Howard's full-color illustrations illuminate some of the most brilliant poems of the English-speaking world with stunning breadth and beauty. A book to be treasured, Classic Poetry belongs on every shelf—every child should know these poems and keep this book with them as they grow.Amazon.com Review
In so many classic poetry selections, you'll find old favorites, but noinformation on the creators themselves. In Michael Rosen's hearty,well-designed, 160-page anthology--with strikingly diverse illustrations bythe talented and chameleonic artist Paul Howard--readers will find aportrait and short biography of each poet accompanying his or her work. Notonly that but the selections are arranged chronologically, from the 17thcentury to the modern day. William Shakespeare's "All the World's a Stage" fromAs You Like It begins the classic collection, then readers areintroduced to William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edward Lear, EmilyDickinson, Lewis Carroll, Langston Hughes, and many, many more. Poet,storyteller, broadcaster, and children's book author Rosen says of histreasury, "There are so many ways to enjoy poems. This book is a way ofoffering new insights into poems, poets, and the relationships betweenthem. It also offers a springboard to children and adults wanting to findout more and explore the world of poetry." And illustrator Howard shouldtake a bow for his successful efforts to explore different techniques andartwork styles that complement the moods and historical context of eachpoem so perfectly. We welcome the chance to revisit Lear's "The Jumblies,"Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," and other well-loved poems in such abeautiful package. (Ages 9 and older) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Poetry Anthology for Thoughtful Children
This book is a children's collection of poetry. However, it appears that Michael Rosen has attempted to balance the chipper, happy poems of many children's anthologies with more intense, darker ones. The overall tone is fairly serious, though beautifully so. He combines such sweet verse as Skating by William Wordsworth, with more wistful or even death-filled ones, such as La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats.

The book is written chronologically, from Shakespeare and William Blake to Langston Hughes and Judith Wright. He includes from one to five poems from each of his 40 or so collected poets, with a short, thoughtful biography of each.

The book is strikingly illustrated by Paul Howard, who alters his style and technique for each poem, aptly evoking the feeling and time period of each poem.

I would consider this as a readaloud for children ages 8+; younger children are likely to be disturbed by some of the darker selections.

This book is more newly published in paperback as The Walker Book of Classic Poetry and Poets .

brilliant selection
Wisely chosen and beautifully illustrated,this book shows how entertaining and exciting poetry can be. It instantly held the attention of my six year old.He wanted to write a thank you note to Lord Byron! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Scent of Oranges Mingling with Kisses
There are moments in your life when poetry is the only way you can feel safe in a world that hurries past all you want to enjoy and observe. Long for This World by Ronald Wallace allowed me to slow down, access a wide range of subjects and enjoy some stunning moments that are reflections of his appreciation for beauty. I found his memories of women to be especially stunning.

Not only does Ronald Wallace display a keen sense of observation, he weaves a subtle thread of memory through some poems and then presents a surprise ending. I loved "Oranges" because in this story he tells of how he eats an orange, how it tastes, what he thinks about in regards to how the world appears and then ends the poem with an exotic image of sensory bliss. I was so delighted with this poem I had to read it to a friend, who appreciates poetry. I think I've peeled the zest from so many oranges, that the poem was filled with the scent of orange oil in my own memory. While I thought this might be the most interesting poem in the book, I was to be surprised again and again.

The Nude Gardener will be an absolutely amusing poem to anyone with a good sense of humor and a bit of insight into the world of men's minds. The ending is again almost an abandonment of all the former observations. Some of the last few lines of his poems change the entire tone and awaken a deep appreciation for life itself. They are almost a submission to the inevitability of feelings.

I was not prepared for Fresh Oysters & Beer and it struck me as being especially humorous. There is a line in this poem that is silly, but quite amusing. Ronald Wallace breaks free from melancholy mediocrity during a situation that might be trying to some parents and sees the humor and there is so much love in this poem for his daughter who is at this time still trying to find herself in a world of conflict about survival.

While I will never rummage through an attic, because I've moved too many times, I thourally enjoy reading about people who have attics filled with memories. Here, Ronald Wallace finds notes his father wrote in college and has his own contemplations about imagination.

Maybe imagination is just
a form of memory after all, locked
deep in the double helix of eternity.

Ronald Wallace once said that he wanted to make something beautiful that didn't exist before and in this book, he creates worlds I didn't know men experienced. I will never think of oranges in the same way again.

This book is a collection of poems from a career spanning two decades and it took three years to complete the selection process. Wallace is the Felix Pollak Professor of Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and codirects the creative writing program. He also spends time at his forty-acre farm in Bear Valley, Wisconsin. You may also enjoy additional collections of poetry, including: The Makings of Happiness, Time's Fancy and The Uses of Adversity.

~The Rebecca Review

... Read more

Product Description
Language writing, the most controversial avant-garde movement in contemporary American poetry, appeals strongly to writers and readers interested in the politics of postmodernism and in iconoclastic poetic form. Drawing on materials from popular culture, avoiding the standard stylistic indications of poetic lyricism, and using nonsequential sentences are some of the ways in which language writers make poetry a more open and participatory process for the readers. Reading this kind of writing, however, may not come easily in a culture where poetry is treated as property of a special class. It is this barrier that Bob Perelman seeks to break down in this fascinating and comprehensive account of the language writing movement. A leading language writer himself, Perelman offers insights into the history of the movement and discusses the political and theoretical implications of the writing. He provides detailed readings of work by Lyn Hejinian, Ron Silliman, and Charles Bernstein, among many others, and compares it to a wide range of other contemporary and modern American poetry.

A variety of issues are addressed in the following chapters: "The Marginalization of Poetry," "Language Writing and Literary History," "Here and Now on Paper," "Parataxis and Narrative: The New Sentence in Theory and Practice," "Write the Power," "Building a More Powerful Vocabulary: Bruce Andrews and the World (Trade Center)," "This Page Is My Page, This Page Is Your Page: Gender and Mapping," "An Alphabet of Literary Criticism," and "A False Account of Talking with Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes in Philadelphia." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

perelman's lang po shuffle
charactezirin lingo writin is difficult. indeed, as perelman's lengthy discussion suggests, evun decidin wot to call it presents challenges. it seems appropriate thun dat dis relatively recent, igh profile discussion of lingo writin (perelman's preferred phrase) and poetics assumes a jagged, irresolute, and cukabillyntinuous form. openin wiv a poem dat challenges its own generic status, and closin wiv a relatively lighthearted dream-sequence imaginin a conversation in cartoon eavun betweun frank o'hara and roland barthes, dis self-consciously sui generis critical text declines attempts at authoritative definition or unified ruk, but nevertheless presents a relatively coherent set of critical gestures revolvin around a consistent group of concerns and practices. afta a survey of bof sympathetic and antipathetic efforts to characterize lingo writin and its adherents, perelman opts fa da least contestable of assertions: dat da movement began in san francisco and new york in da early seventies in response to da political climate followin da vietnam war (and da literary climate of poetry workshops and so-called confessional poetry); dat while "the initial phase of lingo writin is ova; da careers of da participants continue"; dat there is "widespread interest and controversy" ova da issues dat were and continue to be raised. lata, perelman risks more specific contentions, many ousein around da ruk dat "language writin is wickedest understood as a group phenomenon" wiv a tendency to "do away wiv da reada as a separable category" and dat dis critique of subjectivity involves important political implications. fusin readin and writin, poetry and criticism, perelman's movement unsurprisingly emerges as late twentief-century america's wicked levela of wot is regarded as arbitrary distinctions. much in da house is introductory and general, straightenin out misunderstandings, reformutalin conventional polemics, and renderin da movement's political and theoretic dimensions in more usa-friendly formulations. balancin da attention givun to ejinian, owe, and palma, perelman's readings oftun focus on less-discussed lingo writers, includin rae armantrout, carla arryman, and ron silliman. da mostest instructive surprise fa readers already familiar wiv lingo writin may be perelman's politically critical, though surprisingly non-partisan-and at times sympathetic readings-of unrelated writers includin frost, bishop, william stafford. ... Read more

Product Description
Understanding the current moment in poetry can be a difficult task, as the reader must sort among the avant-garde and mainstream, the traditional and the experimental. A welcome introduction to contemporary poetics, this collection represents one of the first attempts to chart the progress of a new generation of poets. Each chapter focuses on one poet, and includes a selection of poems, a brief statement of purpose by the poet, and a critical essay by a notable scholar. Working in forms ranging from the post-confessional lyric to documentary poetics, from the prose poem and the sonnet to sound poetry, these thirteen poets rank among the most notable and distinct of recent years. American Poets in the 21st Century will serve as a useful and enlightening guide for any reader interested in how new American poetry can look, feel, and sound. The enclosed CD includes each of the thirteen poets reading their work.

Poets include: Joshua Clover, Stacy Doris, Peter Gizzi, Kenneth Goldsmith, Myung Mi Kim, Mark Levine, Tracie Morris, Mark Nowak, D.A. Powell, Juliana Spahr, Karen Volkman, Susan Wheeler, and Kevin Young. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Insanely Academic
I doubt that the casual poetry lover will enjoy this book. I just don't find the poetry to be all that compelling - much of it having the same tone and aesthetics, to me, as poetry written 40 years ago. I seriously doubt that the average American has read any of these poets or would be able to tell their poems apart from those written in the 50's or 60's. Perhaps just a handful, literally. But apparently the publisher and essayists feel these poems are representative of the 21rst Century - new in style, form and content.

My main beef is the over-the-top academese in which these essays are written. This is poetry expounded by academics for the sake of poets and academics. I can turn to any page at random (and am right now) and come up with chestnuts like these:

"Central to Spahr's work of moving the poem away from poetry's implicit emphasis on individuals and toward collectivities is the understanding that collectivities are often composed against a constitutive outside." P. 144

"Morris effectively valorizes somatic experience to dispossess and repossess the language of identity. This is no hairsplitting intellectual argument..." p. 226

"As the remainder of this essay will demonstrate, the "cobbled solutions" Wheeler devised in her own attempts to invigorate poetry's radical cultural force involve foregrounding, both formally and in her poems' content, the contemporary "problems" of "steamroller" consumerism/commodification and of artistic assimilation so as ultimately to recast them as opportunities and resources." p. 306

"In other poems, performivity asserts the constructed identity over the essential self when poems speak from the male voices of Casanova..." p. 58

"She tests the potentials of the work she samples in relation to their points of contact and fracture -- where the palindrome meets the merry-go-round. What happens to both structures upon contact and what futurities are proposed at the point of contact?" p. 284

I could do this all day. The various essayists veer in and out of this near-incomprehensible acadamese, (some more so, some less). It is not a virtue to write like this, but a failing.

An accompanying audio CD of readings from each poet rounds out this superb text
Poets and English professors Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell have meticulously assembled an ideal introduction to contemporary American poets and poetry in American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics. The heart of American Poets in the 21st Century is comprised of the voices of thirteen notable contributing poets: Joshua Clover, Stacy Doris, Peter Gizzi, Kenneth Goldsmith, Myung Mi Kim, Mark Levine, Tracie Morris, Mark Nowak, D.A. Powell, Juliana Spahr, Karen Volkman, Susan Wheeler, and Kevin Young. Rounding out the poems themselves are a brief statement from each poet, and thirteen critical essays offering historic context and close analysis of how individual works of poetry can transform American cultural understanding of the art form's look, feel, and sound. An accompanying audio CD of readings from each poet rounds out this superb text, ideal for self-study or college classrooms and poetry libraries.

The audio CD is a great companion
I snapped up a copy of this book as soon as I heard about it. The audio CD would be useful on my Wordsalad radio program, and the text would bring me up to date on a number of poets doing exciting work. The sounds of these authors' voices are a welcome addition to the book and to my program.

This collection focuses on 13 poets, each of whom revises the traditions of the previous century. Each chapter includes a selection of one writer's poems, a brief artist's statement, and a critical essay that provides a historical context as well as an analysis of the ways the specific work alters and extends the understanding of what the new American poetries can look, feel, and sound like. In addition to the recordings of each poet reading some of his or her work, additional audio files are available online for listening and download.

... Read more

Product Description
He was the greatest poet and playwright who ever lived, the dramatist who penned lines that we quote without even realising their origin. Shakespeare's glorious works have even inspired animated films - like Disney's "The Lion King". Introduce children to the Bard with this wonderful, fully annotated collection of sonnets and soliloquies, enhanced with beautiful, highly realistic colour paintings that bring each excerpt to vivid life. Here are Shakespeare's most famous speeches: including everything from "Hamlets" - 'To be or not to be' - and "Macbeth's" witches cackling 'Double, double, toil and trouble' to the sonnets, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and humourous songs sung in comedies such as "Twelfth Night". Every entry is a revelation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

WE COULD CERTAINLY USE MORE LIKE THIS ONE!
I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Shakespeare than this small volume.The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader.The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it.I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of Shakespeare,much less read their poetry.This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on.I do not feel I am any worse for the wear.I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot.This book helps.This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library.Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them.Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student.It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with.I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school.For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it.Recommend this one highly.

Perfect for those seeking intro to Shakespeare for kids
Joy!Shakespeare--undiluted--for everybody, either kids or adults!The layout of this book couldn't be more helpful.After a brief introduction, the compiler gets down to business.Each speech or poem is preceeded by a brief explaination, and after the selection, a small word-list to aid understanding.All are swathed in beautiful, dramatic paintings that are truly helpful for comprehension.All the famous lines are here, from Henry V's Agincourt "St. Crispin" speech, his inly-ruminating soliloquey about the nature of power, scenes from Macbeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet, and a couple of sonnets, and much more.

There are two things that are very impressive about this book.First, the compiler manages to introduce very adult themes about power,loyalty, etc., as well as the vocabulary of 400 years ago,even a brief explaination of iambic pentameter in a tone so chatty that you hardly realize you are learning.Second, the rich pictures impart a thirst for MORE Shakespeare.You'll hear, "Can we hear more?What's the rest of this story?" often!

Any publication that presents the Bard as accessable and enjoyable deserves a place in every school or public library, and certainly every home.Add this to Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales of Shakespeare" as a new classic.

Fabulous!!!!!
A perfect selection from Shakespeare's greatest plays with gorgeous artwork. An ideal introduction to Shakespeare for young people. With a smart and easy to read preamble describing Shakespeare's life and work and wonderful introductions to each poem, the book does a fantastic job of explaining how Shakespeare's work is both drama and poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
Bringing together fifty years of exciting modernisms, The New Anthology of American Poetry includes over 600 poems by sixty-five American poets writing in the period between 1900 and 1950. The most recognized poets of the era, such as William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, H. D., Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, Hart Crane, and Langston Hughes are represented, along with many other Harlem Renaissance poets, women poets, immigrant and working-class poets, imagists, and objectivists. It is also the first modernist anthology to include poems and songs from popular culture.

The issues addressed in the selections are as varied as the styles and groups. Some poems emphasize formal matters, while others highlight psychological or linguistic concerns. Yet others focus on social issues, such as race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and economic disparity.

Complementing the rich diversity of poetry, poets, and styles, the editors provide helpful introductions, bibliographies, biographies, up-to-date footnotes and endnotes, and critical selections on the art of writing. This anthology not only provides a unique window into the breadth and diversity of modern poetry, it also offers a fresh and informative vehicle for teaching this rich, confusing, and stimulating period.

The New Anthology of American Poetry
*Demonstrates how a succession of canons of American poetry has evolved.
*Gives more attention to women poets and to artists from African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American cultures than in any previous anthology.
*Offers concise introductions to periods and styles, highly informative endnotes to poems, brief bibliographies of key primary and secondary texts, and critical selections on the art of poetry by the poets themselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950
The collaborative editorial effort of Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano, The New Anthology Of American Poetry: Volume Two, Modernisms 1900-1950 compiles over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950, including T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and many more. Offering a diversity of styles, and themes, this second volume of The New Anthology Of American Poetry also presents introductions, bibliographies, biographies, up-to-date footnotes and endnotes, and more to assist the reader in both understanding poetry and find more works by a given author. Very highly recommended both as an introduction to early twentieth-century American poetry and as a broad smorgasbord to experience and learn from a panoply of magnificent classic works.

Over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950
The collaborative editorial effort of Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano, The New Anthology Of American Poetry: Volume Two, Modernisms 1900-1950 compiles over 600 poems by sixty- five American poets from the era of 1900 to 1950, including T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and many more. Offering a diversity of styles, and themes, this second volume of The New Anthology Of American Poetry also presents introductions, bibliographies, biographies, up-to-date footnotes and endnotes, and more to assist the reader in both understanding poetry and find more works by a given author. Very highly recommended both as an introduction to early twentieth-century American poetry and as a broad smorgasbord to experience and learn from a panoply of magnificent classic works.

The New Anthlogy of American Poetry
Edited by Steven Gould Axelrod, Thomas Travisano, and Camille Roman, this anthology is a joy. It will make you want to read--and re-read.The editors, not limited by any one canon, worked together to present the range of American poetry of the period. The anthology lays out the richness of the "modernist" American literaryheritage with care and love. There are generous selections froma rangeof the "modernist" writers in addition to surprising selections from immigrant and native american poetry andfrom popular song. The introductions and notes arethoughtful anddeeply intelligent. This anthologypromises to be a classic.

A Broader Perspective, Calmer Knees
The previous review by Mr. Freedman is misleading, I believe.I myself am quite a conservative scholar and have little time for what some call "political correctness."(I would note in passing that I never heard anyone on the Left use this silly phrase seriously until a number of useful idiots from the Reagan era took up the mantra in an effort to let bigots feel comfortable fighting back.)

Regardless, I adopted this text for my Modern American Poetry course this fall not because it features the sorts of poetry Mr. Freedman describes.(I have no intention of assigning any of it.)Rather, I adopted it because it gives a much fuller representation of modern American poetry than most of the Norton knockoffs now on the market.For instance, *The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry* doesn't offer a single line by Trumbull Stickney, one of the "Harvard poets" of the genteel tradition, who was greatly admired by the likes of Conrad Aiken.This anthology prints five poems.Moreover, several other "white penis people," in Robert Hughes's phrase, appear here after having been summarily banished from ostensibly conservative anthologies.(Here, "conservative" appears to mean "too damned lazy to read much.")

Yes, this anthology has a political agenda.However, to pretend that others don't is to insult the intelligence of readers.From my perspective (a good liberal who believes, nevertheless, in Milton, Dryden, Pope), this is a genuinely democratic anthology.True, it includes poems by Native Americans, immigrants, and migrant workers.However, it also includes "The Old Rugged Cross," "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", "You're A Grand Old Flag," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "I'm Just Wild About Harry,"and "Goodnight, Irene."The anthologists' agenda, simply put, is to open the canon back up and paint a more genuinely representative portrait of American verse in the modernist era.

In sum, if Mr. Freedman fears the "The Idea of Order at Key West" can't stand the competition, all I can say is that his faith in Wallace Stevens is far weaker than mine.

The expanded politically correct anthology
This is not an anthology which aims to select and represent the finest examples of American poetry. It is an anthology which aims to ' represent' various groups, including the recognized schools of poetry, but also including ethnic and minority groups. Thus it opens with Native American verse, and closes with verse written from Japanese interred in America during the Second World War. I may be mistaken but it seems to me that it does not represent in a great way the American experience in the Second World War.
This does not mean it does not have generous selections from all the major poets. It does.
It does not mean that it does not contain tens of little known poets whose work may be interesting in one way or another. It does.
It does mean that it mixes up a vast amount of material of different levels. And that it does have a certain political agenda.
What is moving and meaningful as poetry, I would suggest, is some part of this. But the reader should certainly be able to find work here which is moving, inspiring and meaningful poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
This upbeat, one-of-a-kind collection brings the Def poets -- as featured in the Tony Award-winning Broadway show and popular HBO television program -- to life on the page. Among them: Suheir Hammad, Beau Sia, Steve Colman, Stacyann Chin, Mayda del Valle, Georgia Me, Poetri, and other well-established and up-and-coming Slam artists who have forever changed the face of poetry and offer a fresh, exuberant, insightful, and comedic look at who we are as Americans today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Loved It
I really loved this book. It had great poem some that are not shown on t.v. I really liked reading myself to get the full dept of each poem...

What I've Been Waiting For!!!
I saw the group of eight in concert about a month ago and I was so disappointed to see the performance end.I REALLY enjoyed their poetry and this book just gave me another dose of it.Sometimes you need another dose to fully get into poets, because when Beau Sia came to Northern Michigan University, I didn't care for him.I didn't think he was funny. But when I saw him in Chicago, I cracked up.Poets are funny people.Sometimes they just take some getting used to and some grow on you before they can open their mouth (i.e. Lemon).I'm curious why the ninth poet wasn't on the tour, but atleast I got to read his poetry in this book, which was excellent from beginning to end. My favorite poem is "Love Poem" by Lemon, but the rest are all good in separate styles.All the different techniques and language are what make this group so entertaining. Keep up the great work!I was advertising for them coming to Chicago like I would get commission for it and I'm going to do the book the same way!

Poetry for the Mind
This book manages to capture the whole Broadway show and then some in 209 pages. I find the poetry in this book phenomenal and very truthful. I recommend this book to anybody who loves poetry and has and has an open mind. The actual Broadway show was magnificent, the TV show is wonderful?and if you haven?t read the book, it is excellent!

Poetry for the Mind
This book manages to capture the whole Broadway show and then some in 209 pages. I find the poetry in this book phenomenal and very truthful. I recommend this book to anybody who loves poetry and has and has an open mind. The actual Broadway show was magnificent, the TV show is wonderful?and if you haven?t read the book, it is excellent!

Insightful, provactive, and honest
The Def Poets words lose none of their punch or power on the page.Although I wish there was a cd as well, to fully convey the voice of the poets, the book is a good substitute.As a teacher, I find it great resource for my poetry unit.Unlike the same old Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, etc...they get to read the relevant and well spoken poets of their generation.

The tv show is amazing on HBO, and if you get a chance to see it, the live show is also incredible!

An advisory...if you're right wing, intolerant, or closeminded, this isn't for you. ... Read more

Product Description
Imaginative and practical, this guide by a master poetry teacher and mentor to young teachers presents innovative methods of bringing poetry to life through class exercises. With a wide variety of exercises—all tested in Professor Gedalof's classroom—centered on performance and question and discussion, Teaching Poetry is a handy resource for ideas for structuring a poetry class. ... Read more

Product Description
Named U.S. Poet Laureate for 2004-2005, Ted Kooser is one of America's masters of the short metaphorical poem. Dana Gioia has remarked that Kooser has written more perfect poems than any poet of his generation.

In Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, Kooser has selected poems from two of his earlier works, Sure Signs (1980) and One World at a Time (1985). Taken together or read one at a time, these poems clearly show why William Cole, writing in the Saturday Review, called Ted Kooser "a wonderful poet," and why Peter Stitt, writing in the Georgia Review, proclaimed him "a skilled and cunning writer. . . . An authentic 'poet of the American people.'" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good-- But not Koopsers best!
As a Ted Kooser fan, I found this volume worth my time but not his best.

Simple Metaphors
Wonderful! Kooser connects with people through "real life" experiences that are relative to real life. From the abandoned farm littered with past possessions and the stories they tell to watching parents grow older and begin to whither, to everyday happenings, letters, and conversations, Mr. Kooser is able to tell each story with a simple metaphor its own. "Flying at Night" would be a great introduction to poetry, but it is also a collection to be enjoyed and remembered by those who indulge in poetry regularly.

Good stuff.
Ted Kooser, Flying at Night (University of Pittsburgh, 2005)

For the first quarter of this book, it seemed to me something was missing. I'm still not entirely sure what it was, but then things smoothed out a bit, presumably as Kooser got older (I'm assuming rough chronological order here). From that point on, it's the same sort of stuff Ted Kooser has written for the past thirty-odd years, and it's all quite good:

"Behind each garage a ladder
sleeps in the leaves, its hands
folded across its lean belly.
There are hundreds of them
in each town, and more
sleeping by the haystacks and barns
out in the country-- tough old
day laborers, seasoned and wheezy,
drunk on the weather,
sleeping outside with the crickets."
("Late September")

Kooser has a sense of the simple in language matched by very few living American poets-- Simic, Sadoff, Allbery, a few others. He's pretty much the embodiment of Williams' "no ideas but in things" charge here. An excellent book (for most of its length), and highly recommended. ****

You'll go back to it from time to time...or at least you should.
As I have read poetry in the last six years I have gotten in the habit (not always the best) of either marking the corner of or 'dog-earing' a page with a poem that I like.I've found that I've marked alot of corners in Mr. Kooser's book.I have especially liked his poems that contemplate the somber side of life.I've gone back to "After My Grandmother's Funeral" multiple times to wrestle again, as Kooser does, with the tension between youth and aging...and the realities of death.You'll find yourself doing the same when you read these poems.

Plain language, striking metaphors
My daughter's high school has an acronym for certain literature assignments: DHM, deep hidden meaning. If you are weary of DHM, then read Mr. Kooser. DM, no H. He uses Saxon-rooted vocabulary for metaphors so apt, yet stunning, that they stop you short. I will give this book as presents to my best friends. ... Read more

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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.

Customer Reviews (1)

What a Feast
What a feast. I've been hooked on anthologies since I discovered my father's '30s era hundred greatest poems of the English language. Powerful additions since then have included anthologies of world poetry in translation, war poetry, women's poetry, the Beats, slam poetry, urban animals and cars, children's poetry, high school readers from different eras... You get the point. To me, the most valuable thing about translations is that they get me out of the western and/or contemporary American mindset. The passions seem more intense and they're not shy about being political in their passion, which avoiding most of the shrillness or pathos that I think characterizes most American political poetry. I'm the first to admit that translation is impossible but also absolutely essential, so thereare many caution signs that are givens whenever I might say "I love Rumi" or "I love Akhmatova." I don't read the language, I didn't live in that culture, I don't know what words are 'loaded' and which are merely brilliant poetic imagery, I don't know their contemporaries and what conversation is going on among them through their poetry... That being said, Kamisky and Harris's international anthology is a stimulating addition to my library. It starts with a poem by Tagore, first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and goes through poets born in the 1980's and before. I am especially grateful for the latter--it's really discouraging to pick up a "modern" anthology and discover that the youngest poets were born in the first third of the 20th century. Not so here. We live in a vital poetic culture, as respectful of its past as it is eager to stare into the future and report back to us what it sees. These voices are well represented and stand proudly beside those of all the grey elders we grew up with. Thank you Ilya, thank you Susan, and thank you Ecco. This couldn't have been easy and I am deeply grateful for your efforts. ... Read more

Product Description
WESTERN WIND is an introduction to the elements of craft that make poetry sing, a superior anthology of classic and contemporary poetry, and a guide for students to poetics, writing about poetry, and critical theory. In this text, two well respected poets bring their love of the craft of poetry into a book that teaches as well as inspires. The text also includes exercises, chapter summaries, games, diagrams, illustrations, and 4-color reproductions of great works of art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Inspiring and thought provoking
I recently picked up a dog-eared copy of an earlier edition of this book at a book exchange in Honduras. The book appears to have been loved by its previous owners as there are notes on almost every page. I too am falling in love with this book, and find thought provoking ideas on almost every page. Although I did the obligatory poetry analysis at school, I consider myself a new student to poetry and this book is not just inspiring, it is a revelation. The authors immediately hand me the tools to appreciate and understand the genius of poetry and I am in awe. Unexpectedly, the book is also helping me put words to abstract ideas and feelings that I previously could not express. I will savour this book for a long time to come, and should it fall apart, then I will buy a new copy.

Not what I thought I was getting
Shipping was prompt and the product was in good condition, but I had searched for a FIFTH edition of Western Wind, and this came up, listed as a fifth edition. When it came, it was a FOURTH edition, pretty much useless to me. Totally false product description.

Western Wind
Great quality. Got the book cheaper than I could have at my school. Shipping took a little long but I got it.

Great job!
I was very pleased with my purchase.The book arrived very quickly and was in even better condition than I had expected!Great job.I would do businees with them again!

Right on time
My son needed this book for his community college class.Great savings and came 1 day before his second class.

Teresa
Phoenix, AZ ... Read more

Product Description
"[When we read and write poetry,] it is as if a long-settled cloud in our mind suddenly dissipates, and we are divine once again." -- from the Introduction

Poetry is the language of devotion in prayer, chant, and song. Reading and writing poetry creates clarity, deepens and expands spiritual inquiry, and cultivates wisdom, compassion, self-confidence, patience, and love. In author Robert McDowell's words, poetry makes you into a tuning fork of the Divine.

But poetry has disappeared over the centuries from religious ceremonies, academic curricula, and public discourse. In Poetry as Spiritual Practice, the first inspirational and instructional guide to combine poetry and spirituality, McDowell restores poetry as the natural language of spiritual practice and invites you to recognize poetry as "the pure sound and shape of your spirit."

Vividly illustrated with a wide range of poems from all historical eras and poetic traditions, numerous religions and faiths, and McDowell's own and his students' work, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will reintroduce you to the unique pleasure of verse. And meditations throughout will allow you to integrate reading and writing poetry into your spiritual journeys and daily life.

Since many of us have long forgotten, or never learned, the mechanics and terminology of poetry -- trochaic feet and tropes trip us up; we can't tell a villanelle from its shorter cousin, rondeau; and a terza rima may as well be a tanka -- this is also an instructional handbook on reading and writing poetry. An engaging guide through the landscape of world poetry, McDowell argues along the way for the many practical benefits of poetic literacy.

Making poetry an essential part of daily rituals, aspirations, and intentions will put you on the path to greater meaning, growth, and peace in your life. At once an engaging technical primer, a profound meditation on the relationship between poetry and the Divine, and an inspirational guide for integrating poetry into spiritual practice, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will become a cherished companion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

We're all Invited!
If you've always wanted to write poetry, but haven't been sure how to start, this book will rock your world. Robert McDowell removes the intimidation factor from reading and writing verse, he invites you to the party! Not only will you get comfortable writing poems, but you'll learn how to use the tools, from metaphor to rhyme to iambic pentameter, so that you can write actually good poems--as long as you bring your true spirit into the process, of course, which McDowell will coach and coax you to do! You'll also learn how to choose, according to your mood, when to pen a sestina or a sonnet, a haiku or a prose poem. Homer and Shakespeare both created for the common folk, but somehow in our modern age, poetry got put on a pedestal that seems intellectually out of reach for many people. Rather than tearing it down, McDowell lifts us all up in his joyful and loving embrace, so that everyone can enjoy the spiritual practice of poetry. Bravo!

Disappointing
I'm delighted that others have had a good experience with this book. Mine was not as positive. As an experienced poet, writing teacher and facilitator, I felt the text's exercises were not as engaging or as varied as I would have hoped. Many of them simply provided end words for each line and asked readers to "fill in the blank." This repeated technique certainly will short-change readers of different learning styles, and it struck me as sheer laziness on the part of the author. Likewise, I felt he could have found better and more varied poems from which to draw the book's many citations. I had hoped the book would give more guidance about (or at least examples of) how the author and others have created a spiritual practice around poetry. Instead, it seemed like an introduction to poetry writing with a misleading title. For those who share my interests and point of view, I would suggest they consider Wooldridge's "Poemcrazy" or Koch's "Making Your Own Days" instead.

new poetry writer
I've been a journal writer and spiritual practitioner for years. Many of my spiritual teachers read poetry at retreats and workshops, but I've always felt too intimidated to write poems myself. Recently a friend urged me to turn one of my journal entries into a poem. I wanted some help and found this book. It was exactly what I was looking for. It's not just a "how to," but an interesting read. The author gives plenty of stories and exercises that make poetry fun and less intimidating. My husband and I tried a few of the exercises together and it got him interested too. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wanted to write their own poetry and wake up their spiritual practice.

The Language of Love
This is the book I've been waiting for!It offers clear, inspiring instruction on writing classical forms of poetry, forms that provide a welcome wardrobe in which I can dress my wild muse and display her secret beauty at last.And it makes the connection my friends and I have been trying to make for years: all poetry is sacred poetry.The written word, carefully crafted and lovingly shared, has the potential to transform consciousness and lift us to the realms of the sacred, which, as it turnds out, dwells within the ordinary.Robert McDowell reminds me that poetry is the language of love, love for the divine, love for one another, love for our truest selves.

Poetry as prayer
Reading "poetry as Spiritual Practice" was like quenching a deep thirst I didn't know I had. Robert McDowell explains with simple clarity how important prayer is to our lives, and how to create our own prayers -- as poetry. He explores the great poems of literature not as museum pieces, but as the brilliant soulful voices of our fellow human beings. He invites us to share their company, and to open our hearts as they have.There are lots of poems in the book, lots of technical explanations and lots of exercises. But McDowell seems to have that rare gift of being quite detailed and yet simple at the same time. A warm and welcoming book from a great teacher. ... Read more

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Product Description
presents translations of more than 420 poems by 96 poets drawn from the great ages of Chinese poetry. It begins with selections from the , the oldest anthology of Chinese poetry compiled around the seventh century B.C., and covers the succeeding generations down to the end of the Sung dynasty in A.D. 1279.Important poets such as T´ao Yüan-ming, LiPo, Tu Fu, Su Tung-p´o, and Lu Yu are treated in separate sections with generous samplings from their works, while lesser poets are represented in chapters devoted to the particular era in which they lived. A general introduction discusses the major characteristics and forms of traditional Chinese poetry, while introductory essays to the individual chapters outline the history of poetic development in China over the centuries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fine anthology from an outstanding scholar-translator.
THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY : From Early Times to theThirteenth Century.Translated and Edited by BURTON WATSON. 385 pp.(Translations from the Oriental Classics).New York :Columbia University Press, 1984.ISBN 0-231-05682-6 (hbk.)

Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. Unlike certain others, he wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden the text with extraneous matter. Hismany translations from Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformlyhigh quality, and are well worth having as they are books one oftenwants to returns to.

The present anthology has always been one of my favorite books. In contrast to the more recent mammoth anthologies of Victor Mair (1335 pages) and John Minford (1176 pages), Watson's, at a mere 385 pages,is a far more modest and manageable proposition.

Unlike the Mair and Minford, it can be held easily in the hand while reading, and it is printed in a large clear font on spacious pages in which the lines have room to breathe.Modest in size it is also modestin presentation.Selections are preceded by only the briefest of introductions, and footnotes have been kept to an absolute minimum.

In his brief but extremely well-written and informative Introduction, Watson tells us that : "The present anthology is intended to give a representative selection of Chinese poetry in the 'shih' form from the first two thousand years of China's long literary history ... as well as outstanding works in the 'fu' and 'tz'u' forms and a few other works such as the 'Li Sao' or 'Encountering Sorrow' that are unique in form" (p.13).

His book includes selections from 'The Book of Odes,' 'The Ch'u Tzu,' Early Songs, Poems in Rhyme-Prose Form, Poems of the Han and Wei,T'ao Yuan-ming, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Han Yu, Po Chu-i, Han Shan, Su T'ung-po, Lu Yu, and much else besides.

Here, as an example of his superb style, is his translation of Liu Tsung-yuan's 'River Snow' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

"From a thousand hills, bird flights have vanished; / on ten thousand paths, human traces wiped out : / lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat, / fishing alone in the cold river snow"(p.282).

The truth of Burton Watson's statement that the "Chinese poetic world is one that is remarkably easy to enter.... Even works that are many centuries removed from us in time come across with a freshness and immediacy that is often quite miraculous" (p.3) is very much in evidence here.

Anyone who would like to get a good idea of what Chinese poetry is all about, and to actually enjoy the experience of finding out, should certainly consider the present anthology.Anthologies such as those of Mair and Minford are all very well in their way and can serve as useful references, but they are hardly books that one can sit down and read with pleasure from beginning to end.

Watson's, however, is just such a book, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who would like to begin exploring some of the richest and most interesting poetry in the world. ... Read more

Product Description
Imagism was a brief, complex yet influential poetic movement of the early 1900s, a time of reaction against late nineteenth-century poetry which Ezra Pound, one of the key imagist poets, described as 'a doughy mess of third-hand Keats, Wordsworth ...half-melted, lumpy'. In contrast, imagist poetry, although riddled with conflicting definitions, was broadly characterized by brevity, precision, purity of texture and concentration of meaning: as Pound stated, it should 'use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something...it does not use images as ornaments. The image itself is the speech'. It was this freshness and directness of approach which means that, as Peter Jones says in his invaluable Introduction, 'imagistic ideas still lie at the centre of our poetic practice'. ... Read more

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Selected by Afaa Weaver as the third annual winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, Signals is the first book-length collection from Ed Madden. Deeply rooted in the recognizable landscapes and legacies of the American South, these lyric poems couple daring engagements in topics of race and sexuality with tender reflections on personal and cultural histories. Madden's adopted home of South Carolina rises to the surface in poems set at Folly Beach, Fort Moultrie, Lake Keowee, and Middleton Place. His interrogations of social oppression conjure the ubiquitous iconography of the bygone Confederacy, a first encounter with the miniseries Roots, and a cameo appearance by Strom Thurmond. In the collection's central section, Madden turns to issues of sexual difference, community formation, and the place of gay men in contemporary Southern culture. Throughout Madden repeatedly turns to the artifacts that demarcate his memories of youth in the rural South to ask how we define home, how we form meaning out of the silences and losses of the past, and what rituals and relationships might sustain us as we inch forward across a rough terrain of shifting emotional and moral challenges. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Charm with depths
In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I'm a former colleague of Dr. Madden's. However I didn't read this book at his behest; in fact, I doubt it would have occurred to him to ask me or anyone else to read / review it here.

This book has rather the same attitude as its author toward the work: modest, unassuming, andbreathtakingly honest. The imagery brings forward allof the natural American South, wherever that beauty is found (and that can be as far as France or as close as the Lake at Keowee). The book moves into the more personal as you move through the sections; you're getting to know the author, and his South, as you read along with it.

Vivid images -the wearing away of the markings on an olive shell - appear once in the book, but then reappear in the mind's eye, evoked by later imagery. The collection is knit together by the threads of feelings that twist and grow together towards the final poem (the whole book is, in a way, a set up for that final poem, and it's really worth it to slow down so you see how it all fits together).

If you like Ted Kooser's work, particularly if you appreciate his ability to bring the plains midwest to life, you'll appreciate Madden's new work.

Brilliant.
One of the most beautiful and important books of poetry I've read in years. Madden's poems are both nature poems and political poems, poems of both personal confession and cultural confession. They are histories of many people and of one. His use of form is clean and flawless--his use of the couplet and dangling line is masterful. And his line breaks could be a source for an entire essay, for he gets as much from the directness of an end stopped line as he gets from a cleverly broken/enjambed line's integrity: "The way it is with stories: the locked gate. / the way it is with history: the dark tunnel." and "for sexual perversion. J. Edgar slipped / Thurmond the dirt--in Hoover's house" You must buy this book.

Lyrical Social Realism
Madden, Ed. "Signals", University of South Carolina Press, 2008.

Lyrical Social Realism

Amos Lassen

I first met Ed Madden several years ago at the Arkansas Literary Festival and was lucky enough to renew our friendship at the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans this past weekend.
Ed is a poet and a really fine one, at that. He takes a hard look at society and then lyrically tells us about it. I had the feeling that he was searching for something through the poems in "Signals" and as he seeks, we feel that he cares about his readers.
The book, like the author, is Southern to the core and Madden looks at race and sexuality in the South and he does so through his own and history and the cultural history of the South. As he probes the historical South and his love for his new home state of South Carolina, he also looks at the issues of sexual differences and the place of gay men in the overall fabric that is America. He looks from his youth forward and shows how we lose what is past and how we can be taken care of with the time that is yet to come.
Ed Madden seems infused with energy and his poems reflect that clearly. The book is a skinny one but that does not mean that there are no meat on the bones. Believe me, there is plenty to chew on here. Madden manages to bring flowers into his poetry and while his poems tend to be quite short, they are filled with beauty. He looks at memory and how it influences how we see the world. Madden's world is the South but he also has several poems about other places. However, there is no question that rural Arkansas is a place that brought him to be where he is today. Some say these are nature poems and I say that they defy classification. Classification or not, these are beautiful poems that will make you want to read them again and again.

Love Ed Madden, Love His Books!
I'm grateful to be both a fan and a friend of Ed Madden. SIGNALS is wonderful. I hope, someday, you have the opportunity to hear him read his work.

I hope, someday, you'll be as lucky as I am to be a friend of both him and Bert.

I pray, someday, Ed's family will learn to appreciate both his talent and his all-the-way-around wonderfulness!

BUY THIS BOOK!

Signals Poetry Book is a must have
reviews:
Between Home and History

BY CRAIG BRANDHORST
Free Times Issue #21.16 :: 04/16/2008

Ed Madden got home last Thursday at 3 a.m.

The USC English professor, activist and poet had a perfectly legitimate reason to be out so late, of course -- namely the mini-tour he had been on to promote his debut poetry collection, Signals, published last month by USC Press. In less than a week, Madden gave readings in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma before wrapping up in Newport, Ark., where he conducted a writers' workshop for high school students at his alma mater.

According to emails from the road and subsequent comments made during a conversation at Flinn Hall, where Madden serves as associate director of Women's Studies, it was a gratifying trip. And tired as he claimed to be as he unlocked his third-floor office, fresh from a lengthy meeting across campus and toting a 3 p.m. bag lunch, he appeared no worse for the wear -- even as he mentioned another workshop he was scheduled to lead that evening.

"It's not typical," he assures me regarding his recently hectic schedule.

Maybe not, but there's no denying Madden's energy, which will have to sustain him through an upcoming home stand highlighted by events at Hunter-Gatherer (book launch party, 6-8 p.m. on Sunday), ifART (art show and reading on April 23 from 7 to 9 p.m.) and the S.C. Center for the Book (reading on April 29 at noon).

Winner of the third annual South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, sponsored by the South Carolina Poetry Initiative and judged this year by poet-playwright Afaa Weaver, Signals is a deceptively slim collection of deceptively spare poems, most written in couplets and tercets. And while certain motifs lend the collection an undeniable arc, and Madden's fascination with regional flora positions many of the poems within an obvious literary tradition, the poet himself defies quick categorization.

"I know one reviewer has already called me a nature poet," Madden says, "and I suppose there's some accuracy in that. But I'm more interested in how we remember, how our personal and cultural histories are part of how we see the world around us."
In Madden's case, these "personal and cultural histories" owe largely to the contemporary gay experience, though he also refers to the neglected histories of civil rights activists and long-dead slaves. Meanwhile, "the world around us" is essentially the American South. Signals does include poems set elsewhere (in "Flaneur," for example, two lovers hunt pottery and cuff links in a Paris flea market), but it is the rural Arkansas of Madden's childhood that lends the book its heart, and the political history of his adopted South Carolina that provides its retractable edge.

While local readers may be interested in Madden's swipes at Strom Thurmond ("Here, or the White Boy on the Bus") and the Confederate flag ("Confederates"), however, the poet is at his best in smaller moments.
"As an openly gay man, I know all too well that the personal is political," Madden explains. "Intimate relationships, friendships, domestic ritual, any of these may be political when who you are and how you love is a concern of the state."


This is nowhere more apparent than in the poem "Signals," in which the speaker and an unnamed companion stand outside Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, contemplating not the battlements, or even the loaded historical significance of Fort Sumter -- the "distant ruin" across the water -- but everything else that informs the moment. The poem's final three stanzas:

In the parking lot, we smell the marsh beyond us,
And the sweetness of the tea olive nearby.

A bare tree suddenly blossoms in blackbird --
Strange fruit shining in the morning sun.

A sulfur butterfly blows across the lawn.

The poem still addresses history, and its images are rich with political possibility, especially in context, but the immediate effect is a subtle one. Madden wants us to imagine the metaphorical possibilities of place, it seems, and from these to glimpse something otherwise unimaginable.

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Madden's work reveals Southern roots
Marjory Wentworth
Charleston :: Post and Courier :: Sunday, March 23, 2008

For the past three springs, the University of South Carolina Press has published a book of poems by the winner of the S.C. Poetry Book Prize. Previous winners are Ray McManus for "Driving Through the Country Before You Are Born" and Susan Meyers' award-winning book "Keep and Give Away." This year's winner is USC associate professor of English Ed Madden. "Signals" is Ed's first book-length collection.
Madden is a Southerner by birth, and he also was educated in the region. Like all of our great Southern writers, his poems are rooted in history, culture and landscape. A handful of the poems are set in Europe, but they still fit well into the overall structure. Almost every poem in the collection has a place name in the title. The imagery is so accomplished that the poems are like vivid snapshots in a photo album. Most of the poems are written in couplets, and this pattern creates a lyric unity that is enormously satisfying.
Objects are described in an almost sacred manner with an attention to detail that heightens our focus. It feels as though you are looking through a zoom lens, but everything is examined through this poet's eyes. Man-made objects literally take on the attributes of natural objects. In a poem called "Flaneur," which describes walking through a Paris flea market with his lover, Madden describes "a pearlescent jar in the afternoon sun,/the base blue, the crystalline glaze like ice,/like prisms in the hot August light."
"Signals" is essentially a beautiful collection of nature poems. Whether the poem is set in his native Arkansas, the South Carolina Lowcountry, or somewhere between, there is a reverence for place and the plants and animals that inhabit there. The book's title poem is about Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, where Ed had a poetry residency a few years ago. Written much like a haiku, it is filled with immediate images and all the sights and sounds filling the air. It is fascinating to note that in this poem set at a fort, there are birds, trees, butterflies, the omnipresent sea, but only a brief mention of the smallest actual element of the fort: its flags. Its history is subtly buried in the description of what is found there, but nature transcends the passage of time and dominates.
Marjory Wentworth is South Carolina's poet laureate. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of poems will make you feel, laugh, cry, and think. You will share a peek into the authors' thoughts and mind about many of her personal issues and feelings from 1970 to the present.

This collection will remain on your mind and cherished in your library for years to come.

Anne Lebrecht is a gifted writer, provocative and original. Visit her web site at.http://www.annelebrecht.com

Her published novels include, Memories of a Forgotten Past, Discoveries of a Hidden Past, The Daughters of Nora Crawford. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Simply flawless reading

This book was made for long summer days or cold winter nights where you snuggle up in front of the sofa with a good book and some awesome and quite moving poems. There are different types and sections of poems all represented and the writer really pulls a tug at your emotions and heart strings. I really enjoyed reading it and would highly recommend it whether you love poetry or not.

Simply Poetry
Books of poetry is not something I buy much of.I have read this writers three novels and enjoyed them, so I decided to give this a look.Much to my surprise it was a delightful book and a collection well worth owning. Some of the poems made me laugh, some cry, and all were moving. Written with a simpleand clear style, all of the poems brought out some feelings within me, the reader. This isobviously a collection of thoughts very personal to this author. I can definitely recommend this to any poetry lover and to anyone who wishes an attempt to read and understand poetry. ... Read more

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"The book is a credit to the press, a boon to everyone interested in Russian culture, and an important resource for teachers and students of Russian literature." -- Library Journal

"... a solid and conscientious piece of work, informed by discerning taste and learning." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Smith's collection of contemporary Russian poetry should be useful to anyone with a serious interest in work produced during recent years both by poets living in the U.S.S.R. and by prominent Third Wave emigrés.... The introductory and biographical materials are excellent."  -- Publishers Weekly

The work of twenty-three poets, living in Russia and abroad and writing during the period since 1975, is highlighted in this dual-language anthology. The book features an extraordinary cohort of talented poets, including Joseph Brodsky, Evgenii Rein, and Bella Akhmadulina. Notes, biographical sketches, a detailed bibliography, and an informative introduction make this an indispensable resource for teachers, students, and readers of modern Russian literature.

Customer Reviews (3)

Unique opportunity to understand both Russian forms and translation issues
By making this bilingual, the poetic forms used in the Russian language can be demonstrated, as well as the beauty of the sounds of the language. The choices (and difficulties) of translation also apparent. The author has frequently chosen direct translation, so the forms and sounds are less apparent, so be sure to look at both versions carefully, even if you do not read Russian. This book is insightful in ways that other texts simply cannot be.

Fantastic poety...
I enjoy reading poetry in the original & this is a great way for linguists to practice their language skills. I'm happy to have found this book. If you already speak a foreign language or are just learning, dual language books such as this are worth their weight in gold. I also recommend DoverPublications.com for a list of dual language books (short stories, poetry, even some w/ CDs!). they have Italian, French, German, and a few Russian books. Great for a fun way to study & practice!

Excellent bilingual compilation
Professor Gerald Smith has done an excellent job in compiling some of the best new voices in contemporary Russian poetry by poets living in Russia and abroad.I would highly recommend this book for anyone who's seriously interested in the study of contemporary Russian poetry.

--Alexander Shaumyan, Russian born poet, author of Spirit of Rebellion ... Read more

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