“In this latest compilation of poetry from Saenz, fifty poems about love, hope, peace, nature and meditation are collected for the reader’s enjoyment. Each of these poems is printed in a side-byside nature, with the original English on the left and a Spanish version translated by both the author and his brother (who holds a doctorate in foreign language education) to ensure that the meaning and detail intended is not lost in translation. The overall themes of this collection are tranquil and reflective, even with titles like “Vagabonds” and “Human Struggles.” Finding beauty in every moment and circumstance, Saenz captures these moments of peace and frames them in contemplative thought to share with the reader.” — US Review of Books “As a whole, this poetic collection comprises a vast variety of inner reflections, both lucid in expression and stimulating in depiction. Stocked with one hundred poems, what is especially engaging about this work is that it is presented in a bilingual format, which smartly allows it to reach and entertain a far vaster readership. Each poetic composition appears firstly as the English version and then the Spanish version follows consecutively, however, no matter which language the poems appear in, they still resonate artfully with a soulful authenticity.” — Pacific Book Review Edge of a Fantasy and Other Poems is a book of approximately fifty poems written in English and Spanish side by side in a bilingual format.

Mosaic of JoyPiecing togethera mosaic of joyfrom shattered tilesscattered around her,she picks uptheir first kissand declaration of loveand snugs them betweenthe light in his eyes at long ago reunionsand furious lovemaking on an ugly orange rug.There are slabsfor the lives they created together,the children who once quickened inside her,who even grown have the ability to move her.She fills in the crackswith happy surprisesand hands held under pre-dawn stars,certain that grout made from lovewill last forever.

“At the edge of the world, you’ll want to have this book. The final lines of Adam Clay’s poem, ‘Scientific Method,’ have been haunting me for weeks.” —Iowa Press-Citizen The distilled, haunting, and subtly complex poems in Adam Clay’s A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World often arrive at that moment when solitude slips into separation, when a person suddenly realizes he can barely see the place he set out from however long ago. He now sees he must find his connection back to the present, socially entangled world in which he lives. For Clay, reverie can be a siren’s song, luring him to that space in which prisoners will begin “to interrogate themselves.” Clay pays attention to the poet’s return to the world of his daily life, tracking the subtly shifting tenors of thought that occur as the landscape around him changes. Clay is fully aware of the difficulties of Thoreau’s “border life,” and his poems live somewhere between those of James Wright and John Ashbery: They seek wholeness, all the while acknowledging that “a fragment is as complete as thought can be.” In the end, what we encounter most in these poems is a generous gentleness—an attention to the world so careful it’s as if the mind is “washing each grain of sand.” “Poems that are in turn clear and strange, and always warmly memorable.” —Bob Hicok “These poems engage fully the natural world . . . even as they understand the individual’s exclusion from it.” —Publishers Weekly

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings...the only boy Ember has ever loved. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A chronicle of the struggle between the opposing worlds of the material and the unseen

Poetry. "I love this book so much. A work of meticulous craft and profound originality, Mary Biddinger's newest collection of prose poems is one of the best books I've read on our historical moment and the decades that led to it. PARTIAL GENIUS reads like a dossier of the psychological landscape of late capitalist America and the end of empire. In the tradition of John Ashbery, but wholly original in her own vision and voice, Biddinger draws from a deep well of poetic intellect and wit to illuminate the existential threats and imaginative possibilities of our collective self-destruction. In 'The Subject Pool' the speaker watches a man tattoo AU COURANT around her thigh. The tattoo artist has no idea. Every poem is chock-full of revelations in every detail. Reading this book felt like sitting by the fire in some secret location with a double agent, smoking her pipe telling tales of all that went down right in front of our faces, while we were all driven to distraction by outrage. To paraphrase Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, She's got it all in this book."--Heather Derr-Smith "'How many days since you began your last panic...?' Mary Biddinger asks in her latest collection. Quirky, imaginative, and wry in tone, PARTIAL GENIUS is a book that thwarts expectation, turns convention on its head, surprises and delights. Within a narrative scaffolded like a twisting stairway or maze-like hall, these fascinating poems feature high school reunions, job interviews, broken dioramas, and birth control pills; they showcase apologies, parlor games, and consolation prizes, intricacies, illusions, and tricks. Comfort is found in a bar of bathroom soap. An assistant manager wonders why a blazer is named for fire. A radio is implanted in the chest as a companion to the heart. Spheres of uncertainty juxtaposed against landscapes of failure create the book's complex beauty and dangerous edge, as Biddinger claims, 'The best part of figure skating was getting cut.' PARTIAL GENIUS comes to us as both a study of despair and a gleaming beacon of hope."--Jennifer Militello

Poetry. Beth Gylys is a poet that people will remember and BODIES THAT HUM is going to be an auspicious debut collection. Her subject is an ordinary one, love and its discontents, but her music is extraordinary with the toughness of Carolyn Kizer and Dorothy Parker mixed into a loneliness that feels -- it sounds very different! -- like Emily Dickinson. Hers is an improvisatory, jazzy art that takes villanelles and sestinas back to the public urgency -- Dave Smith. BODIES THAT HUM is the winner of the 1997 Gerald Cable Book Award.