From the renowned Chinese poet in exile comes a gorgeous and shocking account of his years in prison following the Tiananmen Square protests.

Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry, the winner of the National Book Award, presents the life work of a giant of American letters, tracks a forty-year career of honest, tough artistry, and shows a man at nearly 80 years of age and still at the height of his poetic power. Dugan’s new poems continue his career-long concerns with renewed vigor: the poet’s insistence that art is a grounded practice threatened by pretension, the wry wit, the jibes at the academic and sententious, and the arresting observations on the quotidian battles of life. All the while he peppers his poems with humorous images of the grim and daunting topics of existential emptiness.

Excerpt from Songs From the Silence: A Book of Prison Verse Met him and he put his poems into my hands. Read ing them, I had a poignant sense of beauty and pathos; the beauty that is song, the pathos of human Fate. I felt like one who finds a flower, dewy and fragrant, beside a dusty road. The wind bloweth where it list eth. There are lyrics in this book, so truly lovely, so unfeignedly simple and sincere, with such an infectious lilt and shine of color, that one's heart melts before them. I mean such things as Unfettered, Rose Petals, Song, Rube Robin, Dust Sanctuary, and others yet, bits of entrancing melody, thrusts into the deeps of living. They constitute the testament of a very gen uiuc poet. They have the unmistakable ring, the lyric cry that makes music in the ear, and goes to the uni ersal heart of man. The voice is so authentic, the vision often so spiritual in its homely, disarming way, that it matters little if there be an occasional stammer in the utterance; I almost think it adds to the charm. And so I wish the book the good luck it deserves, and predict that many will be grateful for this gift. That it comes out of a prison cell, lends a wistful qual ity to its note. But that appeal, save as it begets a sympathetic mood to receive the message, is not to be overstressed. Mr. Glynn's work can stand on its own. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Etheridge Knight's first book of poetry, Poems from Prison, was acclaimed by poet Gwendolyn Brooks with the words "This poetry is a major announcement." Since its publication in 1968, Knight's reputation has grown steadily, and he has read his poetry throughout the nation. He has edited a collection of prison writings, Black Voices from Prison. Belly Song has as introduction a moving lettter written just before Knight's release from prison. Some of the poems were written in prison, others after his release, but they all show the increasing power and sensitiveness of his often anquished poetry.