Winner of the 2010 Bakeless Prize for Poetry, the debut collection by Dilruba Ahmed Can't occupy the same space at the same time unless, of course, you land in Dhaka —from "Dhaka Dust" Ranging across Europe and America to the streets of Bangladesh, the sharp-edged poems in Dhaka Dust are culled from a rich mélange of languages, people, and poetic attitudes. Through lyric and narrative poems, Dilruba Ahmed's keen observations on birth, motherhood, and death offer a unique way into the beckoning world. Voices of villagers resonate alongside those of global travelers, each searching for an elusive homeland in small towns and cities alike. Vendors hawk their wares at a bazaar in Dhaka. Gyms in Ohio double as mosques for uprooted immigrants. In Ahmed's skillful hands, these disparate subjects adroitly capture the textures of life in this new century.

In 2002, Frank Bidart published a sequence of poems, Music Like Dirt, the first chapbook ever to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. From the beginning, he had conceived this sequence as the opening movement in a larger structure--now, with Star Dust, finally complete. In this profound and unforgettable new book, the dream beyond desire (which now seems to represent human destiny) is rooted in the drive to create, a drive tormented at every stage by failure, as the temporal being fights for its survival by making an eternal life. Bidart is a poet of passionate originality, and Star Dust shows that the forms of this originality continue to deepen and change as he constantly renews his contract with the idea of truth. Star Dust is a 2005 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry.

Acclaimed author Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal-winning novel-in-verse explores the life of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo growing up in the dust bowls of Oklahoma. Out of the Dust joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!"Dust piles up like snow across the prairie. . . ."A terrible accident has transformed Billie Jo's life, scarring her inside and out. Her mother is gone. Her father can't talk about it. And the one thing that might make her feel better -- playing the piano -- is impossible with her wounded hands.To make matters worse, dust storms are devastating the family farm and all the farms nearby. While others flee from the dust bowl, Billie Jo is left to find peace in the bleak landscape of Oklahoma -- and in the surprising landscape of her own heart.

In the sixty poems that comprise The Freeing of the Dust, Denise Levertov continued to explore the personal and public themes that threaded through her work during the disastrous American involvement in Indochina. Relations with family and close friends are depicted with unique poignancy as she pits the at times terrifying concrete image against her vision of the ideal. Here we have poems that speak out of the direct tragedy of war, the result of Ms. Levertov's visit to North Vietnam in the fall of 1972, while others reflect the anguish and the exultation of what she has called the 'inner/outer experience in America during the '60's and the beginning of the '70's.

Out of the Dust is a collection of new poems by activist, leader, poet, and editor Janice Mirikitani. After being named San Francisco’s second Poet Laureate in 2000, this fifth book of poems from Mirikitani was written in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Drawing from her own background as a Sansei (third generation) Japanese American, Mirikitani reflects on the many ways we connect through the dust and our ability to rise and renew ourselves from this place. From the dust of the World Trade Center in New York to the retaliatory ashes of the dead in America’s war in Afghanistan, the poems in this volume seek to explicate the connections of our humanity to the reactionary profiling of people of Middle Eastern descent and different ethnicities, comparing these choices to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Mirikitani’s poems cover topics about rape, incest, the continued struggle for justice and economic equality, and the poet’s experiences throughout her 50-year career at Glide Foundation and Church in San Francisco, where she has helped to create groundbreaking programs for the poor, women and children, and those who are healing from sexual assault, violence and abuse. Though constructed from a depth of experiences with struggle, these poems also erupt in celebration of marriage, daughters, and the discovery of self through diversity.

A classic poem with a timeless message, presented in a small and beautiful gift book. Rose Milligan never intended to publicly share her poem 'Dust If You Must', but a series of events led her to publish it in The Lady magazine in 1998. Her charming message about what we value in life resonated with audiences, and it has since been read on BBC radio, posted on Instagram, printed on tea towels, read at funerals and put to music. Now appearing as a book for the first time, beautifully illustrated throughout by illustrator Hayley Wells, Dust If You Must is a timeless reminder to focus on the things we can enjoy in the world, rather than the things we think we need to do.

Richard Schiffman's first full length collection of poetry, What the Dust Doesn't Know, examines our human place in a natural world, which is at once earthily familiar and stranger than we can possibly know. The author takes the reader on a provocative romp through a universe in which dogs preach theology, dragonflies are crucified, and birds offer critiques of modern life. Underlying the playful humor is a spiritual seriousness which perceives mystery and meaning lurking in experiences that are routinely undervalued. Through Schiffman's unconventional lens, pain becomes a gateway to illumination, imperfection is "heaven's backdoor," a grey day tells human beings to shine, and hope is "the present-- unlearning the past, agnostic of the future - breathing, in its chains, like the sea." This is a book for those who believe that poetry should both delight and inspire its readers with a larger sense of life's meaning and possibilities. Schiffman lives in New York City.