There are three different categories of work contained herein: Poetry, Prose and Art. Some people have work in only one category, others in two or even three of these. Our editors have done their best to include the finest examples of all three. Many of these poets and artists have also performed at our monthly Broadway Bards Performance Nights; for others our first acquaintance is contained herein. Although Bards is based in Northwest Ohio and many of the artists represented here live in the area, we have included work from poets and artists ranging from as far away as Columbus, Cincinnati and Akron in Ohio, one currently lost in the inner spaces of New Jersey and another that loses time in Jamaica.

There comes a point in our lives where we need to sit back and take time to reflect on all the things that led us to where we are standing in this exact moment. Most commonly, we will not take that moment to reflect until we are knee deep in the quicksand of our hardest times. When we are at this point, we tend to feel as if there is no way out of the current situation. To us, it is as if the lights at the end of the tunnel were only a myth used to convince us to continue further into the darkness until we become forever lost. For those of us that never give up, we have experienced the proof that every rocky road eventually smooths out and no storm lasts forever. For those of us that are currently standing in the quicksand, the poetry within the pages of this book will provide a brief synopsis of hard times, good times, difficult realizations, the enjoyment, and indulgence of natureÕs incredible beauty, and a coming to faith that there is something greater, not only than us, but also within us.

The alumni of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) have made remarkable strides in medicine, academia, public health, and industry. In this they follow in the footsteps of Samuel Bard (1742–1821), a prominent early American physician and a founder of what would become VP&S. In The Caring Heirs of Doctor Samuel Bard, Peter Wortsman offers a selection of profiles of Columbia-educated doctors who have made a fundamental difference in the lives of others. The physicians profiled in this book represent the complete spectrum of MDs. They have charted new fields of medicine, resolved long-standing biochemical mysteries, discovered the causes and cures of diseases, developed vaccines, pioneered surgical procedures, helped halt epidemics, and cared for imperiled populations. Some have run hospitals, medical schools, universities, the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, city health departments, and major pharmaceutical concerns. Others practiced at the White House, climbed mountains, or flew to outer space. Still others wrote pioneering papers, edited prestigious medical journals, and authored prize-winning books and best-selling novels. In each case, the clinical training, scientific thoroughness, and humanistic values inculcated at Columbia had a formative influence on their thinking and practice. In telling their stories, The Caring Heirs of Doctor Samuel Bard illustrates the importance of clinical rigor and humanistic caring in the practice of medicine and offers readers a rare insight into the heart and soul of American medicine at its best.

This book traces the transformation of traditional Chinese theatre’s (xiqu) aesthetics during its encounters with Western drama and theatrical forms in both mainland China and Taiwan since 1978. Through analyzing both the text and performances of eight adapted plays from William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, this book elaborates on significant changes taking place in playwriting, acting, scenography, and stage-audience relations stemming from intercultural appropriation. As exemplified by each chapter, during the intercultural dialogue of Chinese and foreign elements there exists one-sided dominance by either culture, fusion, and hybridity, which corresponds to the various facets of China’s pursuit of modernity between its traditional and Western influences.

Is Shakespeare English, British, neither or both? Addressing from various angles the relation of the figure of the national poet/dramatist to constructions of England and Englishness this collection of essays probes the complex issues raised by this question, first through explorations of his plays, principally though not exclusively the histories (Part One), then through discussion of a range of subsequent appropriations and reorientations of Shakespeare and 'his' England (Part Two). If Shakespeare has been taken to stand for Britain as well as England, as if the two were interchangeable, this double identity has come under increasing strain with the break-up - or shake-up - of Britain through devolution and the end of Empire. Essays in Part One examine how the fissure between English and British identities is probed in Shakespeare's own work, which straddles a vital juncture when an England newly independent from Rome was negotiating its place as part of an emerging British state and empire. Essays in Part Two then explore the vexed relations of 'Shakespeare' to constructions of authorial identity as well as national, class, gender and ethnic identities. At this crucial historical moment, between the restless interrogations of the tercentenary celebrations of the Union of Scotland and England in 2007 and the quatercentenary celebrations of the death of the bard in 2016, amid an increasing clamour for a separate English parliament, when the end of Britain is being foretold and when flags and feelings are running high, this collection has a topicality that makes it of interest not only to students and scholars of Shakespeare studies and Renaissance literature, but to readers inside and outside the academy interested in the drama of national identities in a time of transition.

In this first-ever landmark study of New Mexico's wild carnivores, Jean-Luc E. Cartron and Jennifer K. Frey have assembled a team of leading southwestern biologists to explore the animals and the major issues that shape their continued presence in the state and region. The book includes discussions on habitat, evolving or altered ecosystems, and new discoveries about animal behavior and range, and it also provides details on the distribution, habitat associations, life history, population status, management, and conservation needs of individual carnivore species in New Mexico. Like Cartron's award-winning Raptors of New Mexico, Wild Carnivores of New Mexico shares the same emphasis on scientific rigor and thoroughness, high readability, and visual appeal. Each chapter is illustrated with numerous color photographs to help readers visualize unique morphological or life-history traits, habitat, research techniques, and management and conservation issues.

A concise guide to global performances of Shakespeare, this volume combines methodologies of dramaturgy, film and performance studies, critical race and gender studies and anthropological thick description. This companion guides students from critical methodologies through big pictures of global Shakespeare to case studies that employ these methodologies. It uses a site-specific lens to examine global performances of Shakespeare on stage, on radio and on screen. As well as featuring methodological chapters on modernist adaptations, global cinema, multilingual productions and Shakespeare in translation, the volume includes short histories of adaptations of Shakespeare in Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Arab world, India, the Slavic world, Iran, Afghanistan and the Farsi-speaking diaspora. It uses these micro-historical narratives to demonstrate the value of local knowledge by analysing the relationships between Shakespeare and his modern interlocutors. Finally, thematically organized case studies apply the methodologies to analyse key productions in Brazil, Korea, Yemen, Kuwait, China and elsewhere. The final chapter considers pedagogical strategies in a global setting. These chapters showcase the how of global Shakespeare studies: how do minoritized artists and audiences engage with Shakespeare? And how do we analyse the diverse and polyphonic performances with an eye towards equity and social justice?