His compassionate witness is born out of immersion in doggedly bittersweet particulars: the cock-eyed wisdom of 1950s science fiction movies; Do Not Disturb signs; vegetarian physics; the perils of bed-and-breakfast lodging; flying saucer disciples; what to do in case of Rapture; Debbie Fuller, reluctant childhood angel; the theory and practice of Spontaneous Human Combustion. His passionate transformation of that raw data into song - no matter how fragile or raucous - provides irrefutable testimony about the consequences of being nothing less than human, where "every day someone crawls out of his ocean of sleep / and takes those first tottering steps on the planet again / he's playing with real fire." And with Clewell's insistence on the unlikely grace in that condition, along with the generosity of his unabashed inclusiveness, his poetry is a powerful antidote to the bad medicine we're too often asked to swallow.

A dark, no-holds-barred, and often hilarious collection from a prize-winning poet, veering between the poles of self and world. Kim Addonizio’s sharp and irreverent eighth volume, Now We’re Getting Somewhere, is an essential companion to your practice of the Finnish art of kalsarikännit—drinking at home, alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out. Imbued with the poet’s characteristic precision and passion, the collection charts a hazardous course through heartache, climate change, dental work, Outlander, semiotics, and more. Combatting existential gloom with a wicked, seductive energy, Addonizio investigates desire, loss, and the madness of contemporary life. She calls out to Walt Whitman and John Keats, echoes Dorothy Parker, and finds sisterhood with Virginia Woolf. Sometimes confessional, sometimes philosophical, these poems weave from desolation to drollery and clamor with raucous imagery: an insect in high heels, a wolf at an uncomfortable party, a glowing and self-serious guitar. A poet whose “voice lifts from the page, alive and biting” (Sky Sanchez, San Francisco Book Review), Addonizio reminds her reader, "if you think nothing & / no one can / listen I love you joy is coming."

Four girls: dealer, junkie, recluse, thief Sarah, Jenna, Lauren, and Cassie may look like ordinary girls, but they're not. They're delinquents whose lives collide when they're sent to an experimental juvenile detention program on a farm in the middle of nowhere. As the girls face up to the crimes they committed, three of them will heal the wounds of their pasts and discover strengths they never dreamed they had. And one, driven by a deep secret of her own, will seek to destroy everything they've all worked so hard for. An Excerpt from Getting Somewhere: She thinks of herself as the surviving type. Able to make things work out the way she wants them to. Okay, so, yeah. This is a little glitch in her plans. But she's not going to stay. Absolutely no way. She'll just tell them she's not happy, that it isn't working out for her. The room where they put her is ridiculous. Tiny. No television, no phone. Geez, they even had those at detention. Well, not in the rooms, but still. Hell, if she has to, she'll just walk out. Nothing to stop her. It will be fine. It always is.

Jack and Ryan, two bondsmen from Indiana, are in for the adventure of their lives. Hired to track down and arrest Frank Tugle, they had no idea that Frank was a serial killer with a lust for blood. Are our heroes really tracking Frank, or is Frank tracking them? You'll have to figure that out on your own in this suspense filled book. Who will live and who will die? One thing is for sure. Not everyone will come out alive and well.

How old is too old to dream? Sixty-five year old Walter Williams always dreamed of being a hero. In Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P., follow Walt's incredible journey from retired realtor to head of the City Retiree Action Patrol. As a uniformed officer, he and his partner, Ox, find very unorthodox ways of bringing criminals to justice. But they have plenty of help from others in the senior set. Meet sixty-five year old Willie, the former con man, who has given up his shady ways to be Walt's friend and sidekick. Then there's Mary, the seventy-five year old apartment manager with a 36 inch baseball bat and an attitude to match. This merry band of seniors is kept on the straight and narrow with words of wisdom from eighty-five year old Professor Leopold Skinner. And what hero would be complete without a heroine by his side? Meet Maggie McBride, Walt's sweetheart and helpmate, and discover that intimacy doesn't disappear with the arrival of Social Security. In this action-packed hilarious adventure, Walt and his band of scrappy seniors give Lady Justice a hand by capturing the 'Realtor Rapist' and bringing down the 'Russian Mob'. Every Golden Ager knows that as we grow older, we face a whole new set of challenges in life. Walt and his friends meet these challenges head-on and you'll have a hard time not laughing out loud as they thumb their noses at the ravages of Father Time. I guarantee, after reading Lady Justice Takes a C.R.A.P., you will come away with a new light-hearted perspective and respect for the triumphs and challenges of the senior set. In fact, you may even be prompted to ask your Grandpa what he's been up to lately!

From a "maestra of invention" (The New York Times) who is at once supremely witty, ferociously smart, and emotionally raw, a new collection of poems about womanhood Amy Gerstler has won acclaim for sly, sophisticated, and subversive poems that find meaning in unexpected places. Women's voices, from childhood to old age, dominate this new collection of rants, dramatic monologues, confessions and laments. A young girl muses on virginity. An aging opera singer rages against the fact that she must quit drinking. A woman in a supermarket addresses a head of lettuce. The tooth fairy finally speaks out. Both comic and prayer-like, these poems wrestle with mortality, animality, love, gender, and what it is to be human.

Gathered, recorded, and edited by students at Balboa High School in San Francisco, this anthology of oral histories includes more than 100 stories of immigration to the United States. I Might Get Somewhere includes a foreword by best-selling author Amy Tan.