Poetry. Still writing well beyond his 96th year, Duane Locke's most recent collection, THE STELLA POEMS, invites the reader to accompany him through a thoughtful though sad journey across the landscape of our current trends and the reactions these trends have on our relationships not only with other human beings but with the wide-open natural world as well. As always, there is an impeccable imagery when our poet guides us through this natural world and we see for the first time what was right in front of us had we only opened our eyes. Which is also why we can always expect to be amazed. Though a twist on Sir Philip Sydney's Astrophel & Stella, Locke's ability to make contemporary the kind of love it takes to exist in this world is, as usual, exceptional.

"Meet Stella! Poet extraordinare. In Ms. Merkley's class, every year starts with a poetry walk. But that's just the beginning--poetry is part of every day. It's in kids journals and in their voices, on the wall and in the hall. Poetry tumbles in an avalanche from Tineka's desk, roars out of a tornado-cancelled field trip, and even keeps Filipe up at night. Warning: poetry can really hook you. Take a poetry walk with Stella, and you'll be hooked, too!"--Back cover

Sidney's sonnet cycle, consisting of 100 sonnets, followed by 11 Songs, is, after Shakespeare's, the finest sonnet cycle in the English language. Sidney explores all the aspects of what it means to be in love and does so in language that is memorable and striking. All lovers of poetry will enjoy exploring this classic work from the Elizabethan era. Check out our other books at www.dogstailbooks.co.uk

Metaphor alert! An ode to a certain pig kicks off one wild school day in Kate DiCamillo’s latest stop on Deckawoo Drive. Stella Endicott loves her teacher, Miss Liliana, and she is thrilled when the class is assigned to write a poem. Stella crafts a beautiful poem about Mercy Watson, the pig who lives next door — a poem complete with a metaphor and full of curiosity and courage. But Horace Broom, Stella's irritating classmate, insists that Stella’s poem is full of lies and that pigs do not live in houses. And when Stella and Horace get into a shouting match in the classroom, Miss Liliana banishes them to the principal’s office. Will the two of them find a way to turn this opposite-of-a-poem day around? In the newest spirited outing in the Deckawoo Drive series by Kate DiCamillo, anything is possible — even a friendship with a boy deemed to be (metaphorically speaking) an overblown balloon.

The third collection of poetry from the author of Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award Watch for the new collection of poetry from Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, coming in June of 2018 Terrance Hayes is an elegant and adventurous writer with disarming humor, grace, tenderness, and brilliant turns of phrase. He is very much interested in what it means to be an artist and a black man. In his first collection, Muscular Music, he took the reader through a living library of cultural icons, from Shaft and Fat Albert to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. His second collection, Hip Logic, continued these explorations of popular culture, fatherhood, cultural heritage, and loss. Wind in a Box, Hayes’s resonant new collection, continues his interest in how traditions (of poetry and culture alike) can be simultaneously upended and embraced. The struggle for freedom (the wind) within containment (the box) is the unifying motif as Hayes explores how identity is shaped by race, heritage, and spirituality. This new book displays not only what the Los Angeles Times calls the range of a "bold virtuoso," but also the imaginative fervor of a poet in love with poetry.

The family dog describes her life in a series of rhymes.