Goner follows the lives of four sisters from a progressive household in the Deep South. The narrative begins with their northern mother's arrival in a Louisiana army town as a young newspaper reporter in 1943 and her hasty, unconsidered, marriage to a genteel older man. It follows the naive couple from their disastrous wedding night, to the birth of their first daughter on the same day their house is reclaimed by a returning G.I. The Sobrals migrate from Baton Rouge, to an isolated bayou plantation, and then on to a cotton town caught in the post war boom. Just before their fourth daughter is born, the Sobrals settle in BelleBend, a sleepy little town on the Mississippi River The Sobral sisters grow up listening to the haunting calls of riverboats and the rumbling of sugar cane trucks down the River Road; they attend BelleBend's black church, and endlessly speculate about the relationship between their beautiful, remote mother and kindly absent-minded father. The story follows the girls' childhood adventures--some hilarious and some breathtakingly dangerous--in a time and a place where adults pay little attention to the wanderings of children. Together, the Sobral daughters find Elvis, teen love, and come of age during the early civil rights movement. In their jasmine-scented isolation, the four sisters form a profound and enduring bond. Kennedy's assassination transforms their family in unforeseen ways. In 1980 the four sisters return to their River Road house for their heartbroken father¿s deathwatch. Their beloved and enigmatic mother has recently died. On their last night together, one of the sisters uncovers a devastating secret. Goner examines the ties between real and imagined lives, between character and narrator, and the entwined ways that a family survives by creating its own myth.

An anthology of brand-new poems inspired by Taylor Swift songs, from a powerhouse group of contemporary poets, including Kate Baer, Maggie Smith, and Joy Harjo. Let the decoding begin! With a record-breaking four Grammy awards for Album of the Year, Taylor Swift stands alone in the world of pop music. One of the most talented lyricists of all time, her music captivates millions of fans throughout the globe with the narrative depth and emotional resonance of her songwriting. In Invisible Strings, poet, professor, and dedicated Swiftie Kristie Frederick Daugherty has brought together 113 contemporary poets, each contributing an original poem that responds to a specific Taylor Swift song. In a spirit of celebration and collaboration, poets have taken a cue from Swift’s love of dropping clues and puzzles for her fandom to decode, as each poem alludes to a song without using direct lyrics. Swifties will enjoy closely reading each of the poems to discover which song each poet responded to; each poem responds to only one song. The collection showcases a diverse and accomplished array of writers including the 23rd US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Pulitzer Prize winners Diane Seuss, Yusef Komunyakaa, Carl Phillips, Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, and Gregory Pardlo, National Book Critics Circle Award winners Mary Jo Bang and Laura Kasischke, and bestselling poets Maggie Smith, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kate Baer, amanda lovelace, Tyler Knott Gregson, and Jane Hirshfield. Swifties will experience the profundity and nuance of Swift’s lyrics through these poems, while having fun matching the poems to songs from all of her eras—vault tracks included! For poetry lovers, this one-of-a-kind anthology is an unparalleled collection of new work from today’s most lauded and revered poets.

Salms navigates the ancient, vexed lyric landscape of the biblical psalm, where gratitude is arrived at through complaint and yearning is smuggled in alongside tribute. Formally restless and diverse, Aaron McCollough’s style moves from flinty Anglo-Norman terseness through folktale to long-lined, journal-like confessional. The poems’ sounds and forms bind to the divine histories of the Western lyric tradition at points of fragility and potential disintegration.

As we cross the threshold of a new century, which approaches are likely to improve public education? In this book, distinguished scholars discuss recent innovations--charter schools, contracting arrangements, and choice--designed to liberate educators from burdensome bureaucratic controls and improve the level of opportunity for all children. Focusing on the problems in cities, where far too many children have been denied access to quality institutions, the authors examine the lessons to be learned from Catholic schools, site-based management, private entrepreneurs, and specific developments in three cities--New York, Milwaukee, and Chicago. The authors, though realistic about the political and institutional obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful change, foresee the demise of the "one size fits all" approach to schooling. They envision a system of schools that is dynamic, diverse, performance based, and accountable; one that is supportive of professionals, responsive to creativity, intolerant of failure, and committed to high educational standards for all children. Contributors: Louann Bierlein Anthony Bryk John Chubb Chester Finn Paul Hill Valerie Lee Paul Peterson Diane Ravitch Joseph P. Viteritti Priscilla Wohlstetter