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The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 264 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

hideous piffle for dimwits 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 14 people found this review helpful.

This book is a sort of Hallmark Greeting card compilation of the type of vacuous garbage-thought that made the 1970s a cultural disaster. Are you a sentimental pacifist who thinks Gandhi was swell, but never heard of the Moriori? Do you think of love as some sort of emotional flatulence that comes and goes the way weather does? Do you think evil is only a result of people being insufficiently nice to one another? Are your views on child rearing that you should let the kids do what they want because they're individuals? Do you think business is evil and soul destroying, and hurts the world more than it helps? Do you think religion is bad, but spiiiiirituality is good? Do you think criminals shouldn't be punished, because it's not really their fault? Do you think a mindless pursuit of pleasure is necessary for a healthy life? Well, if you believe any of these things, and enjoy saccharine sweet sing-songey prose, this book is for you. It comes in an attractive hard cover, making it appear to be a very serious book, on the same level as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but with more naked lady pictures inside. It will provide you with many prim moments of doltish piety in your cloud cuckoo land. You may even be able to use this tome to pick up on people who are as morally defective as you are.

Personally, I prefer my wisdom to be, you know, at least vaguely wise. If I want florid saccharine language, I'll go read some Browning or other Victorian poetry. You can pick up antique volumes of such stuff for cheap, since books which required effort to write or read are unfashionable these days. They also look nicer on your bookshelf. As a bonus, it might actually be good for you to read Browning, whereas reading Gibran is sort of like giving yourself a mental venereal disease.

Please, humanity, restore my faith in basic human decency: stop reading this book. This book destroys souls and stunts aesthetics. If you must give copies of the book to people, give it to people you don't like. Give this book in the same spirit the British sold Opium to the Chinese. The end result will be much the same if they take the precepts of this silly book seriously.

Editorial Review:

Written in parables reminiscent of the Bible, Gibran's famous inspirational book, first published in 1923, emphasizes caring human relationships. This facsimile of the original edition features a foil-stamped, leather-like cover, colored endpapers, and a ribbon marker.

Bell Jar

Sylvia Plath

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 486 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Esther Greenwood's account of her years in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing - [this] is not a potboiler, nor a series of ungrateful caricatures; it is literature."
-The New York Times

"McDormand gives a sensitive, intimate performance. Herdry, ironic tone, covering up for an undercurrent of fear, perfectly capturesthe character of Esther."
-Billboard Magazine

The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crackup of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful -- but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. Step by careful step, Sylvia Plath takes us with Esther through a painful month in New York as a contest-winning junior editor on a magazine, her increasingly strained relationships with her mother and the boy she dated in college, and eventually, devastatingly, into the madness itself. The reader is drawn into her breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies.

Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is rare in any novel. It points to the fact that The Bell Jar is a largely autobiographical work about Plath's own summer of 1953, when she was a guest editor at Mademoiselle and went through a breakdown. It reveals so much about the sources of Sylvia Plath's own tragedy that its publication was considered a landmark in literature.

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell

Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell

Amazon Price: $29.70 List Price: $45.00 By: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $29.67

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Robert Lowell once remarked in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop that “you ha[ve] always been my favorite poet and favorite friend.” The feeling was mutual. Bishop said that conversation with Lowell left her feeling “picked up again to the proper table-land of poetry,” and she once begged him, “Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like my higher self (I’ve been re-reading Emerson) for several days.” Neither ever stopped writing letters, from their first meeting in 1947 when both were young, newly launched poets until Lowell’s death in 1977. The substantial, revealing—and often very funny—interchange that they produced stands as a remarkable collective achievement, notable for its sustained conversational brilliance of style, its wealth of literary history, its incisive snapshots and portraits of people and places, and its delicious literary gossip, as well as for the window it opens into the unfolding human and artistic drama of two of America’s most beloved and influential poets.

My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer (Wesleyan Poetry)

Jack Spicer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Murderer of Modernism 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

In the decades following WWII, a tremendous amount of complex, appealing, outward-facing, socially engaged and universally relevant poetry was written in the United States by poets who more or less all knew each other, wrote about each other, and went to the same parties. Ferlingetti published Allen Ginsberg, who staged a happening at the funeral of Frank O'Hara, who was a close friend of John Ashberry, who promoted the books of Kenneth Koch, and so on. Together, these poets' work influenced everything from political speeches to hip-hop, and perhaps more importantly, their eclectic, immediate, deeply personal, free-spirited outpourings drowned out the recondite, referential, fascist, formalist modernism exemplified by Eliot and Pound, and cured American poetry of the disease that continued to plague our architecture and our prose. (Notice there's no "postmodernism" in poetry--"Howl" made it irrelevant.)

Jack Spicer is the self-selected black sheep of the group. His poems are stubbornly self-reflexive: they are about poetry and poets, and the struggle to the death between them. He likes to quote Pound. He disses New York. He writes "A band of faggots. . .cannot be built into a log-cabin in which all Western Civilization can cower." (Take THAT Ginsberg and O'Hara.) He talks about being in hell. He sees ghosts.

In his pity, privacy, and focus on writers and death, he reminds me of Roberto Bolano and David Markson. But there is also an energy, a wealth of invention, and a darn human likeability to his work that. . . well, maybe there was something in the air in mid-twentieth century America, which we can all breathe even now by reading these poems. "Love makes the discovery wisdom abandons." Ahh--joy. "Two loves I had, one rang a bell/connected on both sides with hell." Who of us hasn't been there? And as for modernism--"Love ate the red wheelbarrow." Yes again. Thank the ghosts. Read this and breathe.

Editorial Review:

In 1965, when the poet Jack Spicer died at the age of forty, he left behind a trunkful of papers and manuscripts and a few copies of the seven small books he had seen to press. A West Coast poet, his influence spanned the national literary scene of the 1950s and '60s, though in many ways Spicer's innovative writing ran counter to that of his contemporaries in the New York School and the West Coast Beat movement. Now, more than forty years later, Spicer's voice is more compelling, insistent, and timely than ever. During his short but prolific life, Spicer troubled the concepts of translation, voice, and the act of poetic composition itself. My Vocabulary Did This to Me is a landmark publication of this essential poet's life work, and includes poems that have become increasingly hard to find and many published here for the first time.

Ballistics: Poems

Billy Collins

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Billy Collins poem is instantly recognizable. “Using simple, understandable language,” notes USA Today, the two-term U.S. Poet Laureate “captures ordinary life–its pleasure, its discontents, its moments of sadness and of joy.” His everyman approach to writing resonates with readers everywhere and generates fans who would otherwise never give a poem a second glance.

Now, in this stunning new collection, Collins touches on a greater array of subjects–love, death, solitude, youth, and aging–delving deeper than ever before. Ballistics comes at the reader full force with moving and playful takes on life. Drawing inspiration from the world around him and from such poetic forebears as Robert Frost, Paul Valéry, and eleventh-century poet Liu Yung, Collins drolly captures the essence of an ordinary afternoon:

All I do these drawn-out days
is sit in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge
where there are no pheasants to be seen
and, last time I looked, no ridge.

Collins reflects on his solitude:

If I lived across the street from myself
and I was sitting in the dark
on the edge of the bed
at five o’clock in the morning,

I might be wondering what the light
was doing on in my study at this hour.

And he meditates on the effects of love:

It turns everything into a symbol
like a storm that breaks loose
in the final chapter of a long novel.

And it may add sparkle to a morning,
or deepen a night
when the bed is ringed with fire.

As Collins strives to find truth in the smallest detail, readers are given a fascinating, intimate glimpse into the heart and soul of a brilliantly thoughtful man and exemplary poet.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Abridged Audio Edition)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 307 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Charmed but Cautious 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book provides well-written insight into growing up as a black child during the Depression. Maya Angelou is wonderful with her use of words and imagery. I was greatly reminded of my own childhood and what being a kid really meant. Written in first person, she addresses childhood fears, respect for adults and growing up with such tangible details that she could be her eight-year-old self again.

Angelou's insights into the African-American way of life and religion during a time of national change range from tender to comical. She speaks warmly of her love for her brother and her frustration with the young white girls. It is sweet to see the growing up process taking affect and the experiences of youth shaping her character.

I am somewhat relieved that we were not permitted to read this book back in my high school literature class where many parents were opposed to it. I fear it would have caught me off guard in many respects. Many of the sexual themes running throughout the book are quite heavy and discussed in detail. Both the subjects of rape and teen pregnancy are covered and sex in general is frequently alluded to.

Though I do perceive this as a lovely piece of literature, I would be cautious in offering it to teens and others who may be unprepared for its impact.

Editorial Review:

2 CDs / 3 hours
Read by the Author, Maya Angelou

Also available on cassette

Superbly told--with the poet's gift for language and observation, and charged with the unforgettable emotion of remembered anguish and love--this remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are unaware of.

The Shadow of Sirius

W.S. Merwin

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Editorial Review:

Featured on NPR's "Fresh Air" and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS.

Honored as one of the "Best Books of the Year" from Publishers Weekly.

“Merwin is one of the great poets of our age.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"[Merwin's] best book in a decade—and one of the best outright... The poems... feel fresh and awake with a simplicity that can only be called wisdom." —Publishers Weekly

"Merwin's gentle wisdom and attentiveness to the world are alive as ever. These deeply reflective meditations move through light and darkness, old love and turning seasons to probe the core of human existence." —Orion

The nuanced mysteries of light, darkness, presence, and memory are central themes in W.S. Merwin’s new book of poems. “I have only what I remember,” Merwin admits, and his memories are focused and profound—the distinct qualities of autumn light, a conversation with a boyhood teacher, well-cultivated loves, and “our long evenings and astonishment.” In “Photographer,” Merwin presents the scene where armloads of antique glass negatives are saved from a dumpcart by “someone who understood.” In “Empty Lot,” Merwin evokes a child lying in bed at night, listening to the muffled dynamite blasts of coal mining near his home, and we can’t help but ask: How shall we mine our lives?

somewhere the Perseids are falling
toward us already at a speed that would
burn us alive if we could believe it
but in the stillness after the rain ends
nothing is to be heard but the drops falling

W.S. Merwin, author of over fifty books, is America’s foremost poet. His last two books were honored with major literary awards: Migration won the National Book Award, and Present Company received the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress.

The Night before Christmas

Clement C Moore

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Night Before Christmas (Golden Storybooks) 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm now on a third edition of this poem and, to keep them straight, the ISBN of each edition is at the start of its review. The first, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Candy Cane Books) began with a sentence I'm going to copy and paste here: While there's no question that the original poem by Clement Moore is a five star piece of work, there are so many versions of this poem in print that any review has to be of the entire book, with more weight on the illustrations, the only difference between them. I suggest potential customers pay attention to which reviews apply to which book, as there's quite a difference in quality.

The classic poem, wherein the narrator hears noise on the lawn on Christmas Eve and, responding to it, sees Santa in his sleigh land on the roof, come down the chimney, etc. The narrator, the father of the family, watches Santa place gifts under the tree and, when done, hop in his sleigh and fly away.

ISBN 0307637506 - (5 stars) Illustrator Cyndy Szekeres and Golden Books measure up to the standard set by Moore. Szekeres's family is one of mice, which always makes for some fun illustrations. The "wreath" on the family's door is one leaf and one holly berry; the parents' bed is a sardine can; Santa sits on a single die to review his list and the endtable is a thread spool while a large family photo has a locket for a frame. These little touches of whimsy are fun and cute. All ages love the poem, children in particular will love the mice and their adorable adapted furnishings.

ISBN 0307119564 - (3 stars) Illustrators Greg and Tim Hildebrandt did an okay job, just nothing special. The Santa on the cover looks a little bug-eyed, which makes him seem to be leering... which, in turn, makes it an unattractive cover. The inside illustrations are on the old-fashioned side, and they complement the poem well. The detail is nice and the decorated tree is one of the best images - although the decorations on the tree change from page to page. Not bad, just not the best.

- AnnaLovesBooks

Editorial Review:

Vivid paintings bring to life this story of the change sighting of the world's best-loved gift-giver - Santa Claus. Working in the folk-art tradition, popular 20th century folk artist, Howard Finster offers an original and exciting visual approach to the well-known Yuletide treasure and creates a fascinating union between the traditional and uniquely contemporary.

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem

Maya Angelou

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is a lovely book. It is beautifully written in the Maya Angelou format. It encompasses the true spirit of Christmas through the themes of war, peace and spiritual unity.

I purchased it for my son who is almost 8 years-old, but I feel this book is best suited for an older child who has a deeper undersatnding of poetic language and can better understand these themes.

A warm read for adults- expressing an all inclusive approach toward mankind and religion.

Editorial Review:

“ANGELS AND Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward,” Maya Angelou writes, “and speak the word aloud. Peace.” Angelou’s moving poem is a radiant affirmation of the goodness of humanity. First read at the 2005 White House tree-lighting ceremony, it comes alive again as a fully illustrated children’s book, celebrating the promise of peace in the holiday season. In this simple story, a family joins with their community—rich and poor, black and white, Muslim and Jew—to celebrate the holidays.

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (Notable American Authors Series)

Emily Dickinson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Your thoughts don't have words every day... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

"Your thoughts don't have words every day..." But, oh, how skilled was Emily Dickinson at finding words to match her thoughts. And what intriguing thoughts they were - clever, insightful, playful, impassioned, meticulous... Whether describing life from the point of view of a bee or pondering the ravages of death, Dickinson was unique in her approach to her work and the world she saw around her. One of her poetic gifts was finding ways to express profound thoughts through brevity.

Most of us are exposed to Dickinson only through the most publicized and commercialized selections of her work. This complete compilation offers us a chance to see Dickinson in her entirety and find the many treasures that have not been exposed to the masses. I first really discovered Dickinson in college, and I clung to a paperback of her complete works for years and was happy to at last be able to replace it with a more durable hardback. Not only are we treated to her life's work here, but in some cases we get different drafts of a single poem - giving us a window into the development of her thoughts. Crack open the cover, and it is as if we have been allowed to wander unsupervised into Emily's room and peruse her papers. And we discover how true the poet's own words can be:

"A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.

I say it just
Begins to live
That day."

Editorial Review:

The only authoritative paperback collection of all of Emily Dickinson's poetry. The editor has assembled a reading text of the preferred forms of all 1,775 poems, and has included in his introduction an explanation of his selection of texts, plus a helpful outline of Emily Dickinson's career.