From North Dakota, where "emptiness / takes up a lot / of space," to Alabama, where a mother offers "nothing / Less than plenty," David Starkey's poems mark him as nothing less than a "fool / For life." His book gives us a fireworks display of creativity as varied and strange as the states it conjures. We scoot along here in a word-RV bound for just about everywhere, from North Carolina, which possesses, so Starkey claims, an atomic peanut (while Texas doesn't, but provides blowing sage) to D. C., memorable for kids in the backseat who won't shut up, to Connecticut centered on "publish or perish" at Yale. The wonders here depend on constant shifts of focus: sometimes the poems inhabit personae-Thoreau, Sojourner Truth, Elvis (not in Tennessee but in Wisconsin)-sometimes they speak for the poet as memoir; always they surprise and thrill with their oddity of attack, their tart-voiced fearlessness, their range of subject as vast as the great country they so fully evoke. -Barry Spacks, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate The book is illustrated by Rafael Perea de la Cabada

'A soaring account of the months that transformed a messy feudal squabble into Magna Carta...his crisp storytelling, based around short chapters and rolling rhetoric, is extremely entertaining.' Dan Jones, Mail on Sunday 'I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Good history is descriptive, narrative and analytical. This is good history.' Gerard DeGroot, The Times At Runnymede, on the banks of the River Thames, on 15 June 1215, the seal of King John was attached to the Magna Carta, and peace descended upon the land. Or that's what successive generations have believed. But is it true? And have we been persuaded (or persuaded ourselves) that the events of 15 June 1215 not only ended a civil war between the king and the barons but - as if by magic - established a British constitution beloved and copied throughout the world? Often viewed as a victory for the people over the monarchy and a cornerstone of democracy, the true significance of Magna Carta is misunderstood and misrepresented. In Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter, David Starkey paints a vivid portrait of the years 1215-1225, ten revolutionary years of huge significance that produced not one but four charters. Peopled by colourful historical figures - John, the boy-king Henry, Pope Innocent III, Archbishop Stephen Langton, William Marshal - Starkey tells a story of treachery and idealism, politics and peace-making that is surprising and enthralling. Informative, entertaining and controversial, Magna Carta: The True Story Behind the Charter challenges centuries of myth-making to demonstrate how important it is we understand the true significance of that day beside the Thames, over eight hundred years ago.

In the wake of George W. Bush's reelection, a provocative study looks at the goals, values, and attitudes of politically progressive writers living in so-called conservative "red" states, featuring contributions by Jonis Agee, Stephen Corey, Robin Hemley, Lee Martin, David Morrell, and David Romtvedt, who offer an insightful look at American politics and issues. Original.

In What Just Happened: 210 Haiku Against the Trump Presidency (a Satire), David Starkey memorializes each week of Donald Trump's four years in office with a single haiku. While the poems sizzle with dismay and disbelief, they are often tempered by dark comedy as Starkey catalogues Trump's outrages in lines you won't soon forget. "Here's a book of high-speed history for you, friends. It's easy to forget the Trump years, probably because we want to. But if we are to remember the past so as not to repeat it, David Starkey makes it easy and even pleasant to do so by wrapping each of the president's gaffes in that most durable of poetical forms, the haiku. "Literature is news that stays news," says Pound, and Starkey proves his point with poems that are funny, maddening, and razor-sharp." David Kirby

Hello, Writer: An Academic Writing Guide, developed for the first-year composition course with corequisite support, combines familiar academic writing and reading topics with a fresh and flexible approach that works in multiple teaching and learning contexts and with a range of college writers. Support for common first-year writing assignments—such as analyzing a text, arguing a position, and presenting research—sits side by side with support for first-year writers. Drawing heavily on principles of learning science and psychology and facilitating engagement through practice and reflection, this purposes-driven rhetoric offers a foundation for today’s high-challenge, high-support corequisite learning models. Reading strategies, noncognitive learning, and plenty of scaffolding pair easily with David Starkey’s easy-going conversational style. It’s an upbeat composition text that takes college success very seriously. Hello, Writer looks squarely at first-year students and says: You can do it. You belong here. You are a writer. What’s more, Achieve with Hello, Writer offers guided practice and facilitates writing, revision, reflection, and peer review—all in a powerful online platform designed to build skills, spark engagement, and boost confidence.