Straight from the heart and imagination of Mel Finefrock, blind writer and musician, emerges a delicately bold collection of exploratory free verse poems chronicling various aspects of her personal journey. Believing that there is beauty to behold in almost any situation, Finefrock quilts precious and ordinary moments alike into patchwork poetry that embodies themes of love, friendship, pain, and growth. While unique to her experiences, Finefrock's soul-baring reflections are also applicable on a universal level and will inspire readers to look inward.

Pieces of the seasons appear and disappear in a patchwork pattern making up a year.

Winner of the Griffin International Poetry Prize A collection in five parts, Susan Howe’s electrifying new book opens with a preface by the poet that lays out some of Debths’ inspirations: the art of Paul Thek, the Isabella Stewart Gardner collection, and early American writings; and in it she also addresses memory’s threads and galaxies, “the rule of remoteness,” and “the luminous story surrounding all things noumenal.” Following the preface are four sections of poetry: “Titian Air Vent,” “Tom Tit Tot” (her newest collage poems), “Periscope,” and “Debths.” As always with Howe, Debths brings “a not-being-in-the-no.”

THE TITLE: At the age of seventeen I discovered T.S. Eliot's poem “The Wasteland.” The only part of the poem I could relate to was about “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante.” Four of the tarot cards are invented by Eliot (Drowned Phoenician Sailor, Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks and the Lady of Situations). Having invented my own Drom Ek Romani cards as part of my heritage, I could appreciate his imaginary cards with their mystical names. My first poem explains each tarot card and the second one details the Drom Romani although I make no claim to be a “famous clairvoyante.” The other poems are a patchwork of subjects including tributes to Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and other writers of music and poetry.THE POEMS: With the exception of several free verse poems, the others are a mixture of Shakespearean Sonnets, Terza Rima, Rima Royale, and, well, more sonnets. The poetry forms are very confining yet I attempted to make them all-encompassing in their little world. When writing the 22 sonnets for the Drom Romani I began speaking in rhyming iambic pentameter in my dreams. Does that make me a poet? I hope so. Failing that, a sonnet a day keeps senility away. I am hoping that whatever your age, you find enjoyment in my poetry.

This bestselling "lyrical, moving book: part essay, part memoir, part surprising cultural study" is an examination of why we cry, how we cry, and what it means to cry from a woman on the cusp of motherhood confronting her own depression (The New York Times Book Review). Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and now must reckon with her own depression and the birth of her first child. As she faces her grief and impending parenthood, she decides to research the act of crying: what it is and why people do it, even if they rarely talk about it. Along the way, she discovers an artist who designed a frozen–tear–shooting gun and a moth that feeds on the tears of other animals. She researches tear–collecting devices (lachrymatories) and explores the role white women’s tears play in racist violence. Honest, intelligent, rapturous, and surprising, Christle’s investigations look through a mosaic of science, history, and her own lived experience to find new ways of understanding life, loss, and mental illness. The Crying Book is a deeply personal tribute to the fascinating strangeness of tears and the unexpected resilience of joy.

Mirroring the structure of a quilt, this volume of poems are built in three layers, representing biblical/spiritual reference, musical reference, and references to sewing/quilting itself. These are the poems of American slavery."--

The debut collection by the Poet Laureate of the United States * Winner of the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize * You are pure appetite. I am pure Appetite. You are a phantom In that far-off city where daylight Climbs cathedral walls, stone by stolen stone. --from "Self-Portrait as the Letter Y" The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith received the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African-American poet, selected by Kevin Young. Confronting loss, historical intersections with race and family, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood, Smith gathers courage and direction from the many disparate selves encountered in these poems, until, as she writes, "I was anyone I wanted to be."