The Quatrains and Selected Poetry of V. Paul Hall is a volume of poetry dedicated to those people who enjoy reading poetry. Those people who enjoy the beautiful poetry of the old masters are more likely to enjoy this volume. It consists of some of the best of the works of the poet, though it is by no means a complete collection of his works. For those who desire a better understanding of the rhythms employed by the old masters of poetry, the forward is a tutorial on that subject. It also grapples with the subject of just what it is that makes poetry, a question, which has not yet been definitively answered. The poems are not obscure and hard to understand. It is the belief of the poet that, if the reader cannot understand the meaning of the poem, the poem probably has no meaning worthy of being sought. It has often been said that poetry should communicate emotion. In order to do this, it is essential to communicate as clearly, concisely, and beautifully as the poet's ability will permit. However, that communication needs to be conformed to the rhythmic rules of poetry. We may alter the rules by introducing new rhythms, but they must be rhythmic, not arhythmic.

“Dark, playful, incisive and heartbreaking.” —San Diego Union-Tribune Spanning thirty years of dazzling work—from luminous early love lyrics to often-anthologized Asian American identity anthems, from political and subversive hybrid forms to feminist manifestos—A Portrait of the Self as Nation is a selection from one of America’s most original and vital voices. Marilyn Chin’s passionate, polyphonic poetry is deeply engaged with the complexities of cultural assimilation, feminism, and the Asian American experience; she spins precise, beautiful metaphors as she illuminates hard-hitting truths.

The classic volume by the distinguished modern poet, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, showcases an esteemed artist's technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.

Sailing Alone Around the Room, by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, contains both new poems and a generous gathering from his earlier collections The Apple That Astonished Paris, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. These poems show Collins at his best, performing the kinds of distinctive poetic maneuvers that have delighted and fascinated so many readers. They may begin in curiosity and end in grief; they may start with irony and end with lyric transformation; they may, and often do, begin with the everyday and end in the infinite. Possessed of a unique voice that is at once plain and melodic, Billy Collins has managed to enrich American poetry while greatly widening the circle of its audience.

Thom Gunn was an Elizabethan poet in modern guise, though there's nothing archaic, quaint, or sepia-toned about his poetry. His method was dispassionate and rigorous, uniquely well suited for making a poetic record of the tumultuous time in which he lived. Gunn's dozens of brilliantly realized poems about nature, friendship, literature, sexual love, and death are set against the ever-changing backdrop of San Francisco—the druggy, politically charged sixties and the plague years of AIDS in the eighties. Perhaps no contemporary poet was better equipped—by temperament, circumstance, or poetic gift—to engage the subjects of eros and thanatos than Thom Gunn. This new Selected Poems, edited and with an introduction by the poet August Kleinzahler, supplants the 1979 Selected, presenting more of the later work and providing a fuller retrospective account of the breadth and magnitude of Gunn's extraordinary achievement.

Yuan Mei, a poet of the Ch'ing Dynasty (18th century), was the most popular poet in the 2,500-year-history of classical Chinese poetry. An iconoclast who dared promote poetry by women at a time when it was suppressed, and who wrote on forbidden subjects, he was deeply influenced by ch'an (Zen) Buddhist and Taoist philosophy.

Po Chu-i (772-846 C.E.) is the quintessential Chinese poet. For although clear thought and depth of wisdom inform the work of all major Chinese poets (as opposed to the complexity and virtuosity often valued in the West), Po makes clarity itself his particular vision.