Poetry
Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and unequivocal contributions to American poetry.
This companion anthology features each poem and poet from the project--including Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, and Layli Long Soldier, among others--to offer readers a chance to hold the wealth of poems in their hands. The chosen poems reflect on the theme of place and displacement and circle the touchpoints of visibility, persistence, resistance, and acknowledgment. Each poem showcases, as Joy Harjo writes in her stirring introduction, "that heritage is a living thing, and there can be no heritage without land and the relationships that outline our kinship." In this country, poetry is rooted in the more than five hundred living indigenous nations. Living Nations, Living Words is a representative offering.
In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad--the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen--in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer's glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer's level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life.
In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad―the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen―in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer’s glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer’s level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life.
The poetry of America's first published black poet was published before the Revolutionary War and recognized throughout the English-speaking world. Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa, sold as a slave in America, and became a celebrity in Europe. This volume also contains a short memoir of her life.
Selected Poems is the classic volume by the distinguished and celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. This compelling collection showcases Brooks's technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world. This edition also includes a special PS section with insights, interviews, and more--including a short piece by Nikki Giovanni entitled "Remembering Gwen."
By 1963 the civil rights movement was in full swing across the United States, and more and more African American writers were increasingly outspoken in attacking American racism and insisting on full political, economic, and social equality for all. In that memorable year of the March on Washington, Harper & Row released Brooks's Selected Poems, which incorporated poems from her first three collections, as well as a selection of new poems.
This edition of Selected Poems includes A Street in Bronzeville, Brooks's first published volume of poetry for which she became nationally known and which led to successive Guggenheim fellowships; Annie Allen, published one year before she became the first African American author to win the Pulitzer Prize in any category; and The Bean Eaters, her fifth publication which expanded her focus from studies of the lives of mainly poor urban black Americans to the heroism of early civil rights workers and events of particular outrage--including the 1955 Emmett Till lynching and the 1957 school desegregation crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas.
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.
"It is a meditation on Chicago's old soul . . . a witty, seductive, live-wire and greatly entertaining dark comedy that you just don't want to end." -Chicago Tribune "Superior Donuts is a soulful play, full of humor and humanity... drawn with deep affection. Letts is a writer whose words are alive with poignancy and wit." - David Rooney, Variety "A source of comic bliss." - Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times Superior Donuts takes place in the historic Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, where Arthur Przybyszewski runs the donut shop that has been in his family for sixty years. Franco Wicks, a young black man and Arthur's only employee, wants to modernize the shop, while Arthur is more content to spend the day smoking weed and reminiscing about his Polish immigrant father. This provocative comedy, set in the heart of one of Chicago's most diverse communities, explores the challenges of embracing the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Tracy Letts was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County, which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007 before playing Broadway, London's National Theatre, and a forty-week US tour. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalist Man from Nebraska; Killer Joe, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed film; and Bug, which has played in New York, Chicago, and London and was adapted into a film. Letts is an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and garnered a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Superior Donuts takes place in the historic Uptown neighborhood of Chicago, where Arthur Przybyszewski runs the donut shop that has been in his family for sixty years. Franco Wicks, a young black man and Arthur's only employee, wants to modernize the shop, while Arthur is more content to spend the day smoking weed and reminiscing about his Polish immigrant father. This provocative comedy, set in the heart of one of Chicago's most diverse communities, explores the challenges of embracing the past and the redemptive power of friendship.
Tracy Letts was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play for August: Osage County, which premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007 before playing Broadway, London's National Theatre, and a forty-week US tour. Other plays include Pulitzer Prize finalist Man from Nebraska; Killer Joe, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed film; and Bug, which has played in New York, Chicago, and London and was adapted into a film. Letts is an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and garnered a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry
WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don't worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father's language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics.
WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation―and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
The Chicago
Literary Hall of Fame has partnered with Chicago publishers After Hours Press
and Third World Press to produce a definitive collection of poetry by living
Chicago poets. Wherever I'm At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry features
the work of a widely diverse list of over 160 poets and artists all with strong
ties to Chicagoland. With a Foreword by noted scholar Carlo Rotello, the
new anthology is edited by Donald G. Evans (executive director of the Chicago
Literary Hall of Fame) who completed the project begun by the late
poet-editor-teacher Robin Metz formerly of Knox College.
Literary Hall of Fame has partnered with Chicago publishers After Hours Press
and Third World Press to produce a definitive collection of poetry by living
Chicago poets. Wherever I'm At: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry features
the work of a widely diverse list of over 160 poets and artists all with strong
ties to Chicagoland. With a Foreword by noted scholar Carlo Rotello, the
new anthology is edited by Donald G. Evans (executive director of the Chicago
Literary Hall of Fame) who completed the project begun by the late
poet-editor-teacher Robin Metz formerly of Knox College.
A dazzling
array of voices representing many generations of Chicagoans grace the pages
of Wherever I'm At including essential poets such as Li-Young
Lee, Elizabeth Alexander, Stuart Dybek, Angela Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, Sandra
Cisneros, Campbell McGrath, Ana Castillo, Maxine Chernoff, Patricia Smith,
Edward Hirsch, Kathleen Rooney, Luis Alberto Urrea, Emily Jungmin Yoon, Luis J.
Rodriguez, Elise Paschen, Sterling Plumpp, Marianne Boruch, Haki Madhubuti,
Rachel DeWoskin, Ed Roberson, Tara Betts, and Reginald Gibbons, to name a
few. The list is exhaustive in its diversity and according to editor Don
Evans, deliberately so. This anthology also showcases the incredible
visuals of an equally talented group of Chicago artists whose work amplifies
the poetic musings throughout.
Winner, 2017 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award (poetry category)
Winner, 2016 BCALA Literary Award (poetry category)
Winner of the 2014 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
Finalist, 2015 NAACP Image Awards (poetry category) Wild Hundreds is a long love song to Chicago. The book celebrates the people, culture, and places often left out of the civic discourse and the travel guides. Wild Hundreds is a book that displays the beauty of black survival and mourns the tragedy of black death.
Winner, 2016 BCALA Literary Award (poetry category)
Winner of the 2014 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
Finalist, 2015 NAACP Image Awards (poetry category) Wild Hundreds is a long love song to Chicago. The book celebrates the people, culture, and places often left out of the civic discourse and the travel guides. Wild Hundreds is a book that displays the beauty of black survival and mourns the tragedy of black death.
A brave new collection of poems from Sandra Cisneros, the best-selling author of The House on Mango Street. It has been twenty-eight years since Sandra Cisneros published a book of poetry. With dozens of never-before-seen poems, Woman Without Shame is a moving collection of songs, elegies, and declarations that chronicle her pilgrimage toward rebirth and the recognition of her prerogative as a woman artist. These bluntly honest and often humorous meditations on memory, desire, and the essential nature of love blaze a path toward self-awareness. For Cisneros, Woman Without Shame is the culmination of her search for home--in the Mexico of her ancestors and in her own heart.