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Recommended Titles
The Endarkenment by Jeffrey McDaniel
"Known for his commanding stage presence as a reader, McDaniel trades hard in his fourth book on his rough-and-tumble persona--a recovering addict from the working class streets--while also showing softer sides. McDaniel's sometimes awkward, if earnest searching might just be what allows him to find moments of great beauty, humor and stillness." --Publishers Weekly
“Even if you count yourself among the unredeemed who claim they don't like poetry, buy this book anyway. It will convert you and install a skylight in your brain. Alive and kicking in these pages is the voice of a brilliantly comic consciousness. McDaniel is a candid, frisky survivor: hyperalert, conversant with drugs and sobriety, obscene phone call addicts, 'boner etiquette,’ fatherhood, the special hell of family, being an ‘emotional warrior’ and so much more. He's an urban wordsmith of the first order. You hold in your hands his anguished autobiography, a smorgasbord of famished compassion, tenderness, luminous surprises, and armor-piercing humor.” —Amy Gerstler
"McDaniel zings metaphors across the page like he's the Robin Williams of poetry. This collection in frequently moving and inventive with enough lightheartedness and whimsy to balance the heaviness of the darker moments." --hipbooksterclub.com
Paperback, 80 pages, published by University of Pittsburgh Press, (April, 2008)
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Def Poetry - Season 6 DVD
directed by Stan Lathan
Experience the passion and fire of tomorrows hottest poets! This acclaimed series showcases practitioners of one of the countrys fastest-rising performing-art forms def poetry in an intimate uncensored format. Taped as always before a live audience at The Supper Club in NYC each installment of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry is hosted by popular rap artist/actor Mos Def and spotlights original material performed by contemporary poets and well-known music/comedy artists.
DVD, 180 Minutes, released by HBO Home Video, (April, 2008)
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A Poet's Haggadah: Passover Through the Eyes of Poets edited by Rick Lupert
36 Poets reinterpret the traditional themes and text of the Passover Haggadah through their own unique lenses. Guaranteed to add something different to your own seders and a great read! Edited by Los Angeles Poet Rick Lupert (Creator of the Poetry Super Highway) Includes work from Helen Bar-Lev, Lynne Bronstein, Salvatore Buttaci, Howard Camner, Larry Colker, devin davis, Barbara Elovic, Robert Klein Engler, David Gershator, Leslie Halpern, Claudia Handler, Daniel Y. Harris, Elizabeth Iannaci, Marc Jampole, Rachel Kann, Beth Kanter, Peggy Landsman, Michael Levy, Jake Marmer, Ellyn Maybe, Heather McNaugher, Daniel Olivas, Judith Pacht, Jaimes Palacio, Jonathan Penton, Joan Pond, Lanie Shanzyra P. Rebancos, Richard Schiffman, G. David Schwartz, Adam Shechter, Diana Sher, Scott Alixander Sonders, Julia Stein, S. Thomas Summers, Pam Ward and Misha Weidman.
Paperback, 106 Pages, published by Ain't Got No Press, (April, 2008)
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The Last American Valentine edited by Derrick Brown
This collection features 24 poets, musicians and barflys, all paired up with brilliant American illustrators for a collection of gorgeous and striking love poetry. Brendan Constantine, Bucky Sinister, Buddy Wakefield, Cristin Aptowicz, Derrick Brown, Jack Hirschman, Jeffrey Mcdaniel, John Gardiner, Lynne Procope, Michael C. Ford, Micael Cirelli, Michael Mcclure, Michael Roberts, Mindy Nettifee, Nathan Willet of Cold War Kids, Richard Swift, Rick Lupert, Roger Bonair Agard, Shappy Seasholtz, Stephen Latty, Victor Infante, Beau Sia, Amber Tamblyn, Agneta Falk, Anis Mojgani.
"Poems of romantic power and humor...A gorgeously successful union."
..........................New York Times Book Review
Paperback, 212 pages, published by Write Bloody Press, (January, 2008)
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Across My Silence by Jack Cooper
Stephen D. Chandler, author of "The Story of You," writes about "Across My Silence, "One need not be a passionate conservationist or lover of animals to be charmed by Cooper's admiration of them. The awe he feels in "The Turtles of La Escobilla" for the turtles' unstoppable life force in the face of human cruelty runs deeper than an environmentalist's tantrum. And that, in the end, is the deep place where only poetry can go. Beyond the topical and beyond the political into the eternal. Cooper's poems are all tickets to that deep place."
Paperback, 144 pages, published by World Audience, Inc., (January, 2007)
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Alarm
by Mike Daily (Book and Double CD Set)
This double CD and accompanying 212 page novel is a package, a gripping excursion of spoken word and experimental sounds that delves deeply into the broken mess of a society that is all-consuming but seems to need nothing. Told from two different but simultaneously engaged perspectives, this lyrically dense and aurally compelling collection of songs is a soundtrack abstract, a cohesive yet jagged splicing of stark voices, flits, buzzes, instruments and found sounds that evoke time and place, while instinctively reflecting the ever-changing perspective of the narrator(s). The first CD is studio recordings, offering a more controlled environment that allows the density of the words to run free on the palate, jutting in and out while matching inflexion with the various percussive background elements. The second disc is a field recording, a live semi-improvised set that adds a raw element to the songs and provides ever ascending levels of grit and intensity. Filled with humor, wit, and a frightening comfort, this multifaceted collection is a spot-on dedication to modern life and its charmingly fastidious tendencies.
Paperback/Double CD Set, 212 pages, published by Stovepiper Books Media, (June, 2007)
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The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings by Richard Brautigan
How fitting it is that the earliest writings of one of the most quirky and enduringly popular voices of the 1960s, Richard Brautigan of Trout Fishing in America fame, emerge in the year that marks the thirtieth anniversaries of Woodstock and the first moon landing. When Brautigan left Eugene, Oregon, for the artistic mecca of San Francisco at age 21 in 1955, he bequeathed to Edna Webster, the mother of both his best buddy and his first girlfriend, a set of blithely agile poems and slyly funny short stories. Webster kept her gift until 1992, when she stunned a rare-book collector by describing her treasure and expressing her interest in selling it, a boon for Brautigan fans. Every selection in this slender volume bespeaks his wry affection for life and his love of literature. Brautigan's debt to e. e. cummings and the Beats is palpable, but so are his unique sense of irony and humor, flair for surrealism, earthiness, and juggler's ease in handling words, traits brought to piquant fruition in his celebrated later works.
.........-Donna Seaman
Paperback, 160 pages, published by Mariner Books, (August 1999)
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Graffiti Verite' 6 (GV6) The Odyssey: - Poets, Passion & Poetry - DVD
An innovative, energetic approach to poetry. Suitable for students, established poets or those who are just curious, this is an inspiring documentary. It's fun enough to be entertaining and informative enough to educate. These talented poets offer excerpts of their work, and insights into their personal life, which cover a variety of topics. These include their reasons for writing, the force that drives them, their love of language and freedom of expression. As they share their artistic struggles, frustrations, the discipline required and even the stigma that comes with being a poet, this reviewer sensed their collective creativity and honesty just leap from the screen! I found this DVD akin to a feel good movie, even though it was a documentary it had a celebratory, yet down to earth feel. These multi-ethnic characters all have diverse backgrounds but share one common goal to express themselves with a passion and excitement. And it's catching. To be honest, I never thought a documentary on poetry could be so visually pleasing and stimulating. Special features include 'What is Contextual Poetry?' by Dr. Thea Iberall, Poet, 'What is a chapbook?' by Brendan Constantine, Poet and also the contact information for all 31 published and respected poets. Please take a moment to click on the link below to read about each author.
...Alternative-Read.com
DVD, 366 pages, published by Bryan World Productions, LLC., (December, 2006) |
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2008 Poetry Speaks boxed calendar
A year of poets and poetry based on the bestselling book with audio, bringing you short poetry from the greatest poets past and present, along with their thoughts and reflections on their craft and fascinating biographical information. Includes much-loved favorites and little-known works by well-known as well as new poets, and introduces the reader to many new talents working today.
Paperback, 366 pages, published by Sourcebooks, Inc., (May, 2007) |
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The Best American Poetry 2007 edited by Heather McHugh and David Lehman
The 20th volume in America's most popular annual poetry anthology series is perhaps the most esoteric. McHugh, an unusual poet herself, who says she is Fond of the textures of a text, the matter of a letter, has tried to assemble what she feels is a cohesive anthology rather than simply a gathering of favorite poems from this past year's literary magazines. As ever, some familiar names—former editors and famous poets--appear: John Ashbery, Billy Collins (Who has time for sunlight falling on the city), Robert Creeley, Louise Glück Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, Galway Kinnell. But there are also a number of representatives, such as Rae Armantrout and Christian Bök (selves we woo/ we lose// losses we levee/ we owe), from off-center traditions. A few of the newbies tend toward the experimental, such as Ben Lerner and Danielle Pafunda: Do he & he have a big muscle in the arm from the aiming? All and all, this is a riskier than usual volume, though also full of familiar pleasures. Certainly it attests to poetry's continuing vitality. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Paperback, 192 pages, published by Scribner, (September, 2007) |
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If Lovin' You Is Wrong then I Don't Want To Be Wrong by Derrick Brown
OC Weekly
"Sincere, twisted and violently romantic, one of the best poets in Southern California."
Next Magazine
"(Derrick) summons up an experience reminiscent of radio theatre at it's most engaging moments."
Book Description
A Compilation of Derrick Brown's best poetry. This book of poetry is complete with illustrations by Matthew Carver.
"In one moment (Derrick) can have his audience snorting beer through their nostrils ("I left my wallet in the afterlife",) and in the next have girls swooning ("I feel like a cloud she says/ and i know this is true/ for i know the terrible things that go on inside of clouds.")
Paperback, 125 Pages, published by Mood Organ Distributors (January, 2002)
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His Rib: Stories, Poems & Essays by Her edited by Mahogany L. Browne with a foreword by Patricia Smith
A collection of poems, stories and essays about the fallible woman, the sensitive girl-child and the fearless warrior, His Rib, offers an inside look at her story. The written works featured in this project includes women from both the literary field and the performance poetry circuit, creating a symbiotic kinship between the two art forms. After combing several continents, the women within these pages were found scribing folk tales in California, sonnets in New York, producing prose in London and breaking stereotypes with each stanza in Colorado, Texas and Canada. The result, a quilt weaved perfectly of compassion, self-respect, discipline, lust and hunger. Enjoy the crack and thunder of His Rib.
Paperback, published by Penmanship Books (June 2007) |
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10 for everything by Rachel Kann
Rachel Kann has crafted an addictive parallel universe, where funky little worlds shift and shudder, and characters are deftly etched and blessed with her gleefully skewed perspective. The sharp lyricism of these stories, which practically beg to be read aloud, unmask Ms. Kann for the poet she is, and that unpredictability of language is nothing less than a revelation. These are stories that twist with no warning, shock you with their insight, and make your head hurt--in a good way. In a very, very good way.
Paperback, 76 pages, published by Sybaratic Press (May 2007) |
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Def Poetry - Season 5 featuring Dave Chappelle, Mos Def, Russell Simmons and more.
Experience the passion and fire of the hottest musicians, comedians and contemporary poets in each installment of Russell Simmons' Presents Def Poetry Season 5. Taped in front of a live audience at The Super Club in New York City, Season 5 of the improvisational, uninhibited series features the hottest talent lineup like DAVE CHAPPELLE (The Chappelle Show), WYCLEF JEAN (Member of The Fugees, The Carnival), ALICIA KEYS (Grammy Award-winner), and KANYE WEST (Grammy Award-winner). Each episode is hosted by the highly regarded hip-hop artist and actor MOS DEF (hit album Black on Both Sides).
DVD, published by HBO Home Video (May 2007) |
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In Danger by Suzanne Lummis
"Suzanne Lummis's breathtaking new collection of poems, In Danger, unveils all of the levels of loneliness we assuage with the consolations of poetry. With candor, power and poignancy, Suzanne Lummis illuminates the glorious absurdities of our lives, especially the pride and paranoia that arise from living in an urban landscape. Nobody can ride a metaphor better than this poet, and nobody delivers her work to the page with as much sass and wry humor. If Los Angeles were to have its own poet laureate, my choice would be Suzanne Lummis."
.......................................David St. John
Paperback, 73 Pages, published by Roundhouse Press (August, 1999) |
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Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Season 4 (2002)
Def Poetry is one of the country's fastest rising performing-art forms, and recognizing the power of urban poetry on modern culture, rap impressario Russell Simmons teamed up with HBO to create Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Season four of the improvisational, uninhibited late-night series features the spoken words of the biggest and most stellar talent lineup like KANYE WEST (6 time Grammy Award-winner), TRACY MORGAN (30 Rock) and MIKE EPPS (Host of Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam). Each episode is hosted by the highly regarded hip hop artist and actor Mos Def (hit album Black on Both Sides).
DVD, published by HBO Home Video (February 2007) |
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High Desert Voices: The 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology edited by Scott Woods, Debora Marsh, Don McIver, Jeremy Richards and Jamie Kennedy
The fourth anthology in the series from The National Poetry Slam. This is the biggest and best collection yet. Poems from Christian Drake, Beverly Wilkinson, Stephen Meads, Todd Bannon, Aaron Enskat, Michael Cirelli, Ansel Appleton, Buddy Wakefield, Corbet Dean, Alvin Lau and many more. Fifty poems from 41 poets covering the widest range imaginable of performance poetry on a wide selection of topics and styles. Something for every performance poetry lover on the planet...a LOT of something!
Paperback, 137 pages, published by The Wordsmith Press, (2006) |
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Best New Poets 2006 edited by Eric Pankey and Jeb Livingood
A new annual anthology of fifty poems from emerging writers selected from nominations by literary magazines, writing programs, and an open Internet competition.
Paperback, 144 pages, published by Samovar Press and Meridian, (October, 2006) |
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2007 Poetry Speaks box calendar: A Year of Great Poems and Poets (Calendar)
A year of poets and poetry based on the bestselling book with audio, bringing you short poetry from the greatest historical and contemporary poets, along with poets' thoughts and reflections on their craft and fascinating biographical information. Includes much-loved favorites and little-known works by well-known poets, and introduces the reader to many new talents working today.
Calendar, 365 pages, published by Sourcebooks, Inc.; Page/Day edition, (July, 2006) |
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 Poetry On Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888-2006) [CD - BOX SET]
Poetry On Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888-2006) is an engrossing collection of poems read by the people who wrote them, from the dawn of sound recording to the current day. Over the course of four CDs and an info-packed book, it tells the story of the past 120 years of poetry in English, from Romanticism (Dylan Thomas) to Modernism (T.S. Eliot), from the Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes) to Black Arts (Amiri Baraka), from rhyme and meter (Alfred, Lord Tennyson) to free verse (Adrienne Rich) and beyond. Equally important, it allows listeners to understand exactly how poets intended their poems to be read aloud. With 128 poems read by 98 poets, Poetry On Record is the most comprehensive collection of its kind, covering such famous poets as Walt Whitman, William Butler Yeats, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsburg, and Sylvia Plath, as well as a plethora of lesser-known but highly regarded poets. Poetry On Record is a must-have for any fan of poetry, or for anyone who wants an expertly chosen overview as a starting point. Produced and compiled by noted poetry expert Rebekah Presson Mosby
Audio CD Boxed Sed
Published by Shout! Factory
Publication date: April, 2006
ISBN: B000EU1PGO.................... order now or more info.
 Paroles: by Jacques Prévert translated by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
A masterpiece of simplicity. Prevert's words leave you spinning as if you know where he is, what he looks at, what he's thinking. He describes his world in such a manner...that the reader has no choice. Moving vignettes of people's lives in simple French poetry. The poet Jacques Prevert is a master at describing people's emotional life in simple language. His French is easy, the vocabulary familiar, the voice compelling.
Paperback
Published by City Lights Books
Publication date: December, 1958
ISBN: 0872860426.................... order now or more info.
 The Best American Poetry 2005 edited by David Lehman and Paul Muldoon
"Each year, a vivid snapshot of what a distinguished poet finds exciting, fresh and memorable: and over the years, as good a comprehensive overview of contemporary poetry as there can be."
.........-Robert Pinsky
This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the state of the art today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year.
With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast.
Paperback, 224 pages
Published by Scribner
Publication date: September 2005
ISBN: 0743257588.................... order now or more info.
 Poetry Speaks to Children edited by Elise Paschen and Dominique Raccah
Grade 3-8–A fine, basic collection. Approximately half of the 97 selections are read or performed on the accompanying CD. The book provides a mix of adult writers (Rita Dove, Seamus Heaney, and Billy Collins, among others) and those whose work is specifically for children, such as X. J. Kennedy and Mary Ann Hoberman. Topics include childhood, animals, nonsense poems, and humor (including C. K. Williams's Gas, which dwells on the fact that FARTING IS FORBIDDEN!). The three illustrators have captured the different tones of the selections, from a comic portrait of the Jabberwock slayer wearing a colander and wielding a plunger and the wailing children in William Stafford's First Grade, to the moving paintings of a girl with flowers echoing the natural images of James Berry's Okay, Brown Girl, Okay. The CD gives children the opportunity to hear several of the poets, such as Robert Frost reading Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Langston Hughes reading The Negro Speaks of Rivers. They hear a variety of accents and dialects–an Irish lilt, New England inflections, or James Berry's lilting Jamaican-British voice. Readers of Roald Dahl's books will enjoy hearing him read The Dentist and the Crocodile, and fans of The Lord of the Rings books and movies will appreciate hearing Tolkien read Frodo's Song in Bree. Joy Harjo frames her Eagle Poem with a haunting vocalization that echoes its serious tone.–Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Hardcover Book and CD, 128 pages
Published by: Sourcebooks MediaFusion
Publication date: October 2005
ISBN: 1402203292.................... order now or more info.
 The Trouble with Poetry : And Other Poems by Billy Collins
Two years after his very visible stint as U.S. poet laureate, Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room) remains one of the nation's most popular poets. His light touch, his self-deprecating pathos and his unerring sense of his audience (nothing too difficult, but nothing too lowbrow) explain much of that popularity and remain evident in this eighth collection. "The birds are in their trees,/ the toast is in the toaster,/ and the poets are at their windows," the volume begins: the poet as sensitive everyman, moved if not baffled by literary legacies, and attracted to simple pleasures, constructs a series of similar days and scenes. "In the Moment" depicts "a day in June," "the kind that gives you no choice/ but to unbutton your shirt/ and sit outside in a rough wooden chair"; "I Ask You" opens on "an ordinary night at the kitchen table." Collins's comic gifts are also much in evidence: "Special Glasses" describes spectacles that "filter out the harmful sight of you"; "The Introduction" makes fun of footnotes and obscurities in other poets' poems. The dominant note, however, is a gentle sadness, accomplished with care and skill, sometimes (as in "The Lanyard") garnished by autobiographical wisdom.
(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Paperback, 112 pages
Published by: Random House
Publication date: October 2005
ISBN: 037550382X.................... order now or more info.
 Poetry After 9-11: An Anthology of New York Poets edited by Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians.
This collection features the work of some of New York's preeminent poets, including Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn and National Book Award finalist Alicia Ostriker, at a pivotal moment in America's history-one year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks. The poems, including many that have never been published before, cover an extraordinary variety of responses to the experience of writing and living in the aftermath of September 11. Some pieces offer eyewitness accounts of poets at the scene; others touch more indirectly upon the events and reflect the somber resonance of the tragedy's impact upon life in the city. All reflect a gravitation toward the healing powers of self-expression, which were visible everywhere in the days after the attacks: on the walls of the firehouses, in letters to the editor at local newspapers, even scrawled in the dusty ash covering lower Manhattan.
Paperback, 160 pages
Published by: Melville House Publishing
Publication date: September 2002
ISBN: 0971865914.................... order now or more info.
 You Can't Catch Death : A Daughter's Memoir: by Ianthe Brautigan
His daughter was 24 when quintessential '60s author Richard Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America) killed himself in 1984, and the obituaries were almost as painful for her as his tragic act. "I did not recognize the dignified, brilliant, hysterically funny, and sometimes difficult man who was my father in anything they wrote," says Ianthe Brautigan, who makes it her business to capture those qualities in this poignant memoir. Her recollections of an unsettled childhood bouncing between two free-spirited parents' bohemian homes (in San Francisco, Montana, Hawaii, and Japan) are remarkably free from bitterness, even when she chronicles drunken phone calls from her suicidal father. Alcohol was Richard Brautigan's fatal weakness, prompted by severe depressions rooted in an impoverished, unhappy childhood. But Ianthe also depicts his tenderness and warmth, the magical sessions of impromptu storytelling with writer buddies like Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison, the glamour of meeting movie stars Peter Fonda and Margot Kidder. She comes to terms with the past that always haunted her father when she makes a trip to Oregon to see her grandmother, estranged from Richard for 25 years. Without presuming to solve the mystery of his death, the author reclaims the values of Brautigan's life and work in her touching, sensitively written book. --Wendy Smith
Paperback, 240 pages
Published by St. Martin's Griffin
Publication date: July, 2001
ISBN: 0312264186.................... order now or more info.
 Def Poetry - Season 2 - DVD
From the makers of Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam, HBO presents the first of seven new half-hour editions of the acclaimed late-night series that showcases practitioners of one of the country's fastest-rising performing-art forms - def poetry - in an intimate, uncensored format. Taped live at The Supper Club in New York, each installment of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry is hosted by popular rap artist Mos Def, and spotlights original material performed by contemporary urban poets and well-known music/comedy artists, including Jamie Foxx, Danny Hoch, Taylor Mali, Black Ice, Erykah Badu, Malcolm Jamal Warner and others.
DVD
Published by: Warner Home Video
Publication date: April 2005
ASIN: B0007GP5WA .................... order now or more info.
 Valley by Mike Daily
"Valley" is a humorously visual story narrated by main character, writer/student, Mick O'Grady, as he ambles through his days in a sort of haze attempting to make sense of the numerous mysteries unraveling before him-from the odd-ball people he meets and associates with (a giant poet, drunken ex-linebacker, lost master journalist, wired meth-head, etc.), to the margin scribblings, receipts and photos he happens upon in used books by his favorite authors. O'Grady's literary inclinations result in curious over analyzation-a practically itemized account of everything around him, the ordinary included. At one point he notes that a vending machine in the lobby has no "Q" button on it. Not 26, but 25 letters. Lost in his wonderment after buying the drink, he forgets it on top of the machine... With "Valley," Mike Daily has created a style-crushing work of fiction, a true genre-bending boilermaker of prose and poetry.
Paperback, 222 pages
Published by: Bend Press
Publication date: December 1998
ISBN: 0964359820.................... order now or more info.
 What Use Am I a Hungry Ghost? by Marc Olmsted
Olmsted's sinuous poetry moves on the page... thoughts at the instant they become muscular movements.
.......Michael McClure
This book is a fierce and honest portrayal of the struggle toward realization...
.......Diane di Prima
Paperback, 100 pages
Published by: Valley Contemporary Press
Publication date: February, 2001
ISBN: 0967071585.................... order now or more info.
 180 More : Extraordinary Poems for Every Day edited by Billy Collins
Inspired by Billy Collins’s poem-a-day program for American high schools that he began through the Library of Congress, the original Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry was a gathering of clear, contemporary poems aimed at a wide audience. In 180 More, Collins continues his ambitious mission of exposing readers of all ages to the best of today’s poetry. Here are another 180 hospitable, engaging, reader-friendly poems, offering surprise and delight in a wide range of literary voices–comic, melancholy, reflective, irreverent. If poetry is the original travel literature, this anthology contains 180 vehicles ready to carry you away to unexpected places.
With poems by: Robert Bly, Carol Ann Duffy, Eamon Grennan, Mark Halliday, Jane Kenyon, David Kirby, Thomas Lux, Donna Masini, W. S. Merwin, Paul Muldoon, Carol Muske-Dukes, Vijay Seshadri, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gerald Stern, Ron Padgett, Linda Pastan, Victoria Redel, Franz Wright, Robert Wrigley, and many more...
Paperback, 400 pages
Published by: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Publication date: March, 2005
ISBN: 0812972961.................... order now or more info.
 The Outlaw Bible of American Literature edited by Alan Kaufman, Barney Rosset and Neil Ortenberg
The Outlaw Bible of American Literature will serve as a primer for generational revolt and an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in literature. This exuberant manifesto includes lives of the writers, on-the-scene testimony, seminal underground articles never before collected, photographs, cartoons, drawings, interviews, and, above all, the writings. Beat, Punk, Noir, Prison, Porn, Cyber, Queer, Anarchist, Blue Collar, Pulp, Sci-Fi, Utopian, Mobster, Political-all are represented. The Bible includes fiction, essays, letters, memoirs, journalism, lyrics, diaries, manifestoes, and selections from seminal film scripts, including Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Taxi Driver. The editors have brought together an extravagant, eclectic, searing, and unforgettable body of work, showcasing Hustlers, Mavericks, Contrarians, Rockers, Barbarians, Gangsters, Hedonists, Provocateurs, Hipsters, and Revolutionaries-all in one raucous cauldron of rebellion and otherness. This prose companion to the best-selling award-winning Outlaw Bible of American Poetry features selections from Hunter S. Thompson, Exene Cervenka, Patti Smith, Dennis Cooper, Malcolm X, Sonny Barger, Maggie Estep, Lenny Bruce, Henry Miller, R. Crumb, Philip K. Dick, Iceberg Slim, Gil Scott-Heron, Kathy Acker, Jim Carroll, Charles Mingus, Norman Mailer, and many others.
Paperback, 920 pages
Published by: Thunder's Mouth Press
Publication date: December, 2004
ISBN: 1560255501.................... order now or more info.
 Walking the Black Cat by Charles Simic
Simic's short, taut lines carve dark-edged images reminiscent of old folk tales. In this new collection, his 13th (The World Doesn't End earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990), he focuses on such folklore elements as chance, luck, faith and illusion at work in a quotidian world of cookouts, family life and memory. Juxtaposing disparate images, Simic jars his readers into a state of disorientation, priming them for a world where one must approach mirrors "sideways/ In rooms webbed in shadow," where "Destiny marks you early in the day/ With a knowing finger," and where a tree is "spooked/ By its own evening whispers/...Making a noise full of deep/ Misgivings,/ Like bloody razor blades/ Being shuffled." There the lucky and the nimble survive: "Death's an early riser./ You've got to be real quick/ To slip under his arm." Handling his many images like a confident juggler or a magician, in "My Magician" Simic himself is the magician's dummy: "Through a row of wooden teeth/ We spoke of God the Father./ Then we vanished in a pack of cards." Simic's poetry depicts a tricky, dangerous and unstable existence where the black cat?symbol of bad luck?is a constant, even loved, companion. "It's horror movie time,/ Says the Emperor" in "The Emperor," but with these poems Simic tames that horror some and walks it on a leash.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Paperback, 96 pages
Published by: Harvest Books
Publication date: October 1996
ISBN: 015600481X.................... order now or more info.
 Has Been by William Shatner
From pop-culture icon William Shatner comes Has Been, an album unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. Produced and arranged by Ben Folds and featuring numerous notable guest appearances, Has Been is the result of the collision of two great creative forces — a surprisingly pop-driven, lyrically potent collection of songs to enlighten and entertain. Throughout Has Been, Shatner’s own insightful lyrics are masterfully woven into perfect pop melodies written and arranged by Ben Folds. Giving Shatner and Folds a hand on the project is an incredible lineup of singers and musicians, including Jon Auer, Adrian Belew, Matt Chamberlain, Joe Jackson, Lemon Jelly, Aimee Mann, Brad Paisley, Henry Rollins and Sebastian Steinberg. Highlights include the poignant "That’s Me Trying," penned by Ben Folds with High Fidelity author Nick Hornby, a brilliant version of the Pulp Britpop classic "Common People," featuring vocals by Joe Jackson and closing track, "Real," a duet with country star Brad Paisley, written exclusively for this project.
CD, 11 tracks
Shout! Factory
Publication date: August 2004
ASIN: B0002RUPH4.................... order now or more info.
 Def Poetry - Season 1 DVD
Produced by Russell Simmons and hosted by Mos Def, this groundbreaking HBO series presents poetry for the hip-hop generation. The setting is New York's Supper Club, the performers are young men and women of every hue, and the tools are words: angry, funny--even profane--words. Taped live, each of the four 30-minute episodes from the first season features several poets and a guest or two (from the fiery Last Poets to the out-of-her-element Jewel). This isn't your grandma's traditional verse, but rather slam poetry--or spoken word--as influenced by Public Enemy as Langston Hughes and the evening news. Some are powerful (see Suheir Hammad), some clever (Sarah Jones), and some irritating (Yellow Rage), but each poem is sure to provoke some kind of reaction. Def Poetry would go on to beget a world tour, a Peabody Award and, in its Broadway incarnation, a Tony for best theatrical event. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
DVD, 120 minutes
Warner Home Video
Publication date: August 2004
ASIN: B00026L9B6.................... order now or more info.
 The Best American Poetry 2004 edited by David Lehman and Lyn Hejinian
The Best American Poetry 2004 celebrates the vitality and richness of poetry in the United States and Canada today. Guest editor Lyn Hejinian, acclaimed for her own innovative writing, has chosen seventy-five important new poems and contributed a provocative introductory essay. Through her selections, Hejinian has created an essential nexus -- a meeting place for readers to encounter an extraordinary range of poets. With illuminating comments from the writers, and series editor David Lehman's insightful foreword evaluating the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2004 is an indispensable addition to a series that has established itself as the first word on what's new and noteworthy in the poetry of our times.
Paperback, 288 pages
Published by Scribner
Publication date: September 2004
ISBN: 074325757X.................... order now or more info.
 The Book of Hope edited by Birgitta Jonsdottir
An international collection of poetry and art created in response to the tragic events of 11 September 2001. This sturdy 6.5" x 9.5" paperback includes moving and beautiful work by both celebrated and unknown artists. Poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rita Dove, Janet I. Buck, the Dalai Lama, Ram Devineni, and many others. Originally published in Iceland by Beyond Borders Press.
Paperback, 127 pages
Published by Beyond Borders Press
Publication date: January 2002
ISBN: 9979953128.................... order now or more info.
 Before, During & After: Poems by Hal Sirowitz
With Mother Said, Hal Sirowitz introduced the world to his overprotective, overwrought mother. In My Therapist Said, he showcased his neuroses. In his new book, Before, During, and After, he explores his tumultuous (and sometimes nonexistent) sex life. In a series of witty poems, he shares the ups and downs of his romantic history from tortured adolescence to not-much-better adulthood in his poetically comic stroll through life as a beleaguered mama's boy.
Sirowitz’s poems might be the channeled voice of Philip Roth in a state of catatonic dementia.
.....-Village Voice
Paperback - 120 pages
Publication date: October, 2003
Soft Skull Press
ISBN: 188712893X.................... order now or more info
 Washing a Language by Laurel Ann Bogen
Praise for Washing a Language:
"Laurel Ann Bogen is an admirable poet with a distinctive voice. In this fascinating book, again and again she transforms her moments of joy, the wounds she has suffered, into a mouth, speaking her terse and immaculate poems, and often, miraculously, breaking into song.
.......--Edward Field
In Washing a Language, Laurel Ann Bogen makes an old poetry (political poetry, love poetry) new. If her themes are from the thrift store, this reader never noticed-she adds bleach an fabric softner, and carefully folds her poems so that they're ready for sale at the fanciest boutique. Bogen unearths treasure in this book.
.......--Denise Duhamel
A sturdy clarity attends these poems by Laurel Ann Bogen, along with the bright, declarative spin of her poet's fancy-an eyeful and an earful. But in the midst of these riches, at the animating core of them one might even say, there is the deep gaze of the disinterested mind, the artist's or the scientist's mind, that counts honestly as its first principle of seeing. It is this quality, above all the others I think, that makes a poem like "Vocation of the Chair" to name only one, so moving.
.......--Aram Saroyan
Paperback, 48 pages
Published by: Red Hen Press
Publication date: April, 2004
ISBN: 1888996900 .................... order now or more info.
 Whore by Sarah Maclay
Winner of the 2003 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry, Whore is haunted by intimations of love as fleeting as it is mysterious, as the poet traces an unraveling in which the sensory world, in all its lush desolation, becomes a mirror of loss. In poems of longing, rapture, heart-wreck, and self- confrontation, when both private and public worlds seem to be on the verge of disintegration, everything is up for questioning and re-examination.
Sarah Maclay walks into the shaded areas of canvas, willing to follow the play of light and dark until that which is obscure moves into focus. Even language itself, that great interlocutor of the psyche, begins to lose its stability. In the title poem, the result of a trip to the dictionary in search of another word, its etymology that shocks us into an awareness of the potential for contradiction buried in the very roots of language.
With its symbolist undertones and surrealist echoes, this is a poetry of evocation and presence at once tactile and subliminal-a poetry of night.
Paperback
Published by: University of Tampa Press
Publication date: February, 2004
ISBN: 1879852977 .................... order now or more info.
 What Narcissism Means to Me : Poems by Tony Hoagland
An eagerly awaited new collection of poems by contemporary favorite Tony Hoagland, author of Donkey Gospel
How did I come to believe in a government called Tony Hoagland?
With an economy based on flattery and self-protection?
and a sewage system of selective forgetting?
and an extensive history of broken promises?
--from "Argentina"
In What Narcissism Means to Me, award-winning poet Tony Hoagland levels his particular brand of acute irony not only on the personal life, but also on some provinces of American culture. In playful narratives, lyrical outbursts, and overheard conversations, Hoagland cruises the milieu, exploring the spiritual vacancies of American satisfaction. With humor, rich tonal complexity, and aggressive moral intelligence, these poems bring pity to our folly and celebrate our resilience.
Paperback, 78 Pages
Published by: Graywolf Press
Publication date: November, 2003
ISBN: 1555973868 .................... order now or more info.
 The Best American Poetry 2003 edited by David Lehman and Yusef Komunyakaa
Poetry encourages us to have dialogue through the observed, the felt, and the imaginary," writes editor Yusef Komunyakaa in his thought-provoking introduction to The Best American Poetry 2003. As a black child of the American South and a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Komunyakaa brings his singular vision to this outstanding volume. Included here is a diverse mix of senior masters, crowd-pleasing bards, rising stars, and the fresh voices of an emerging generation. With comments from the poets elucidating their work and series editor David Lehman's eloquent foreword assessing the state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2003 is a must-have for readers of contemporary poetry.
Paperback, 288 Pages
Published by: Scribner
Publication date: September, 2003
ISBN: 0743203887 .................... order now or more info.
 Memoir of the Hawk : Poems
by James Tate
Memoir of the Hawk creates a world populated by hundreds of characters, believable and strange, tugged at the edges by the unexpected. In the privacy of their homes, who can save them from themselves? In the forests and hills and on the beautiful lakes, what could possibly be wrong? Even in the sweet hometown, with its kindly police, menace lurks in a thousand disguises. Mystery and magic surround this metropolis of the imagination. Once again, James Tate has given us a world of surprising pleasures.
Paperback, 192 Pages
Published by: Ecco Press
Publication date: August 2002
ISBN: 006093543X .................... order now or more info.
 Best Jewish Writing 2003 edited by Arthur Kurzweil
For its third annual anthology of the best Jewish writing, Jossey-Bass has installed a new editor, Arthur Kurzweil. He is well qualified for this task, having served as director of the Jewish Book Club and as editor-in-chief of Jason Aronson Publishers, a company that specializes in books of Jewish interest. He casts a wide net for this judicious selection of articles, short stories, poetry and book excerpts. The material is grouped thematically, covering topics such as Israel, current issues, religious education and practice, Jewish spiritual thought, Kabbalah, the Holocaust, 9/11 and anti-Semitism. There are also sections of poetry, fiction and Jewish humor. Kurzweil presents an impressive list of prominent authors and allows them to speak for themselves. Among the better-known writers are Elie Wiesel, Alan Dershowitz, Arthur Waskow, Blu Greenberg, Carol Diament, Adin Steinsaltz, Arthur Hertzberg, Cynthia Ozick, Irving Greenberg, Avi Weiss, Edward Koch, Marge Piercy and Herbert Gold. What is remarkable about the roster is its comprehensiveness-all shades of Judaism and of political opinion can be found, thus fully demonstrating the editor's objectivity in making his choices. Yoel Jakobovits contributes an excellent essay on stem cell research, in which he considers the ethical issues arising from this cutting-edge technology. In a sprightly introduction, Kurzweil denies any claim to such objectivity, asserting that decisions about what to include were highly subjective. Objective or subjective, he has done readers a fine service by bringing together a stellar, diverse collection for their enjoyment.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Paperback, 416 Pages
Published by: Jossey-Bass Press
Publication date: August 2003
ISBN: 0787967718 .................... order now or more info.
 Learning to Speak by Victor Infante
LEARNING TO SPEAK is the work of a Southern California poet who risks. He writes about tenderness, reveals a certain vulnerability, isn't obscure for obscurity's sake. He lets his tears show. And longing...so much longing, throughout these poems. A book that belongs on your shelf beside Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Joseph Brodsky.
Paperback, 50 Pages
Published by: FarStarFire Press
Publication date: November 1999
ISBN: 1929250118 .................... order now or more info.
 So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets edited by Paul Suntup with an introduction by Michael Paul
A major new collection of California Poetry featuring 187 poets, with new work from many of the contributors. Includes a previously unpublished essay by Pulitzer Award winner Philip Levine.
Paperback, 288 Pages
Published by: Tebot Bach, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit.
Publication date: April 2003
ISBN: 1893670139 .................... order now or more info.
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The Pushcart Book of Poetry edited by Joan Murray and the Pushcart Prize Poetry Editors (Editor).
What a wealth of brilliance has appeared in over a quarter-century of The Pushcart Prize, and much of that brilliance has been evident in the poetry.
From the start of the series in 1976, the editors of The Pushcart Prize have celebrated all sorts of poetry, from the traditional to the experimental, by both known and unknown poets. More than 750 poems have appeared, selected by new poetry editors for most of the twenty-five editions.
Under the general editorship of Joan Murray, herself a distinguished poet, all of the past poetry editors were asked to select their favorite poems; the result is a poetry anthology like no other. The list of editors alone reads like a Who's Who of American poetry: Billy Collins, Grace Schulman, Carolyn Forché, Gerald Stern, Stanley Plumly, Philip Levine, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, Philip Booth, William Heyen, Elizabeth Spires, Marvine Bell, Carolyn Kizer, Lynn Emanuel, David St. John, Hether McHugh, and many others.
Hardcover, 275 Pages, published by Pushcart Press (February, 2007)
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 The Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel
Whether Jeffrey McDaniel is denouncing insomnia ("4,000 A.M."), exploring family tragedy ("Ghost Townhouse"), or celebrating love and lust ("The Biology of Numbers"), his writing is original and provocative. A noted poet, McDaniel has appeared on ABC’s Nightline and NPR’s Talk of the Nation. "Wild, fierce, irreverent, full of praise and lament, and deeply, intensely human.
..............— Thomas Lux
Paperback, 128 pages
Published by: Manic D. Press
Publication date: September 2002
ISBN: 0916397793.................... order now or more info.
 The Poetry of Arab Women edited by Nathalie Handel
The anthology was prepared to eradicate invisibility," writes Nathalie Handal (The Never Field) of Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. With research help from groups like RAWI (Radius of Arab-American Writers, Inc.) and from Arab-American newspapers and journals like Al Jadid, Handal has gathered work from "most of the older and newer contemporary voices" of the Arab diaspora over 80 poets writing in Arabic, French, English and other languages, and living in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and the U.S. Handal's introduction, along with biographical notes on the poets and many translators, helps to place them. .....From Publishers Weekly
.....Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Paperback, 352 pages
Published by Interlink Pub Group
Publication date: October 2000
ISBN: 1566563747.................... order now or more info.
 The Forgiveness Parade by Jeffrey McDaniel
"In these wonderful new poems by Jeffrey McDaniel it is hard to separate the humor from the pain. Both qualities are omnipresent and are presented in fresh and original ways. This book is heartbreaking and hilarious simultaneously. And McDaniel's love of language is everywhere eveident making images you won't soon forget." - James TatePaperback, 80 pages
Published by Manic D Press
Publication date: August 1998
ISBN: 0916397556.................... order now or more info.
 Mother Said by Hal Sirowitz
Hilarious poems detailing the relationship between the author and his neurotic mother. Hal Sirowitz is a nationally known writer and performer who has been featured in the Bob Holman produced PBS series "The United States of Poetry". Hardcover, 128 pages
Published by Crown Pub
Publication date: May 1996
ISBN: 0517704978............ order now or more info.
 My Therapist Said by Hal Sirowitz
These poems have the same deadpan hysteria and ring of truth to them as Hal's Mother Said poems; and Hal's therapist does not seem much more sane than Mom. Also included are some "Mother Said," "Father Said," and "My Girlfriend Said" poems, providing plenty of material for the patient on the couch. My Therapist Said is full of advice, some of it sage, some of it absurd. Hardcover, 144 pages
Published by Crown Pub
Publication date: April 1998
ISBN: 060960130X.................... order now or more info.
Beyond the Valley of the Contemporary Poets edited by Robert Arroyo Jr., Brendan Constantin, Nicole Harvey, and Robert Wynne
An anthology of readers who participated in this San Fernando Valley based reading series featuring the work of Eloise Klein Healy, Suzanne Lummis, Laurel Ann Bogen, Ken Kuta, Jack Grapes, Pleasant Gehman, Gerald Locklin and many more. Paperback, 86 pages
Published by The Sacred Beverage Press
Publication date: April 1997
ISBN: 0965204847.................... order now or more info.
 Cowardice of Amnesia by Ellyn Maybe
Ellyn Maybe is the premiere poet of the new beat generation. Hailing from Los Angeles she has performed at Lollapalooza and the MTV Spoken Word tour. Cowardice of Amnesia is her first major publisher release and is edited by Exene Cervenkova on Henry Rollins 2:13:61 press. Paperback, 140 pages
Published by Two Thirteen Sixty-One Publications
Publication date: May 1998
ISBN: 1880985586.................... order now or more info.
The Ellyn Maybe Coloring Book by Ellyn Maybe
Poems by Ellyn Maybe would be enough for any book. Illustrations by, Randee Z., Suz Kaplan, Eric Erdman, and Amélie Frank would be enough for any book. An introduction by Scott Wannberg and SA Griffin of the Carma Bums would be enough for any book. But this book has it all, the poems, the colorable drawed delights and to boot it comes with Crayons. This is an absolute must have collectable edited and designed by Matthew Niblock and Amélie Frank of Sacred Beverage Press. Spiral-bound, 50 pages (1 Edition)
Published by The Sacred Beverage Press
Publication date: July 1997
ISBN: 0965204855.................... order now or more info
 3 Books by Richard Brautigan
Brautigan, referred to as the last of the beat writers, commited suicide leaving a legacy of absurd, hilarious, and surreal poetry and novels. This collection contains his somewhat famous novel "Trout Fishing in America", a collection of poetry "The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster", and one of his more beautiful works "In Watermelon Sugar." Paperback, 138 pages
Published by Houghton Mifflin Co
Publication date: March 1989
ISBN: 0395500761 ................... order now or more info.
 Alibi School by Jeffrey McDaniel
Los Angeles Poet Jeffrey McDaniel is one of the few performance poets who has had work appear in major literary publications such as Ploughshares, and The Best American Poetry 1994. He has performed all over the world , works at Venice High School teaching poetry, and organized the Venice Slam Team which is on it's way to this years National Slam Competition in Austin Texas. Paperback, 76 pages
Published by Manic D Press
Publication date: May 1995
ISBN: 0916397386.................... order now or more info.
 United States of Poetry: produced by Bob Holman
"A film crew of fifteen traveling over 13,000 miles to record poets in flight..." The United States of Poetry is the groundbreaking five-part PBS/Washington Square Films television series of the same featuring an unlikely but combustible mixture of Nobel Laureates, Beat godfathers, famous rockers and unknown geniuses. (Featuring Allen Ginsburg, Hal Sirowitz, Maggie Estep, Leonard Cohen, Czeslaw Milosz, and lots more.)
2 VHS Tapes (NTS US and Canada only)
ASIN: 6304827881.................... order now or more info.
 Night Without Armour II: The Revenge by Beau Sia
Beau Sia, inspired by Jewel's book of similar title and design spent an evening writing the ultimate sequel and companion to Jewel's book. Each poem in this collection is titled after each poem in Jewel's book, the difference being that turning pages is not a chore in this version. It's hilarious. It must be read. You must read it. Paperback, 128 pages - 2nd edition
Published by Mouth Almighty Press
Publication date: September 1998
ISBN: 0966204298.................... order now or more info.
Upside Brown by Derrick Brown
You need this book if you are a twisted romantic. good independent books are hard to find. when you do find them, it's far greater than buried treasure. forget the weird clip art cover of this book and the picture on the back of the author being a total goofball. the interior of this will wash you with electricity. upside brown seemed flawed to me at first. rarely do you find poets who are serious and hilarious and sexual and childlike and explosively weird. This is a ride into the mind of an author who has tapped into beauty and loss. they are more fantastical imaginary trips than autobiographical.
Paperback, 58 pages
Published by FarStarFire Press
Publication date: January 1999
ISBN: 1929250002.................... order now or more info.
 In Our Own Words: Generation X Poetry edited by Marlow Peerse WeaverA generation burdened with labels like "slackers" and "Lost Youth" speaks out - 214 poems from 145 poets from around the world, celebrating the rich diversity of their generation, "in their own words". This book, compiled from over 4500 submissions, portrays a colorful rainbow of views, joys, angst - a generational chorus of voices. A generation asking to be heard. A generation deserving much more than narrow, negating stereotypes.
Paperback, 128 pages
Published by: MW Enterprises
Publication date: February 1999
ISBN: 0965413624.................. order now or more info.
 World Without Dogs by Fuzzy DoodahFuzzy doodah is poetry blown off its pedestal. It's the shotgun marriage of music and spoken word producing a new breed of expression. But it's mostly Rich Ferguson, storyteller and lead singer who the Austin Chronicle characterized as "marked by a histrionic intensity and dangerous voice." Fuzzy doodah's "World Without Dogs," is a dark tapestry of a half-dozen monologues and rants as well as some of Ferguson's pop songs spanning a spectrum of styles. The music is enhanced by sounds from lap steel guitarist Jett Soto, bassist Chris Camacho, lead guitarist Royce Craft, and other musicians.
Audio CD
Published by: Sugar Fix Recordings
Publication date: March 1999..................... order now or more info.
 What Book: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop edited by Gary Gach with forword by Peter Coyote A major, lively anthology of modern mindful poetry featuring over 330 selections from over 125 contributors including Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Jack Kerouac, Czeslaw Milosz, Yoko Ono, Yusef Komunyaka, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and lots more. "What a book 'What Book!?' truly is! Finally the humor, the quickness, the diversity, all the insistent, mundane" humanness get a place in this terrific collection of poems.
Paperback, 248 pages Second Printing
Published by: Parallax Press
Publication date: July 1998
ISBN: 0938077929.................... order now or more info.
 She by Saul Williams
Hailed as "a dreadlocked dervish of words...the Bob Marley of American poets" (Esquire), Saul Williams is a gifted young poet who is opening up this literary art form to a new generation of readers. Like his writing -- a fearless mix of connecting rhythms and vibrant images -- Saul Williams is unstoppable. He received raves for his performance as an imprisoned street poet in the Trimark Pictures release Slam, winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. The consummate spoken-word performance artist, Williams has also been signed by producer Rick Rubin to record a CD of his poetry.
She is a fascinating and unique collection of interconnected poems by this multi-talented star -- and marks the beginning of an incredible and totally original artistic career.
Paperback, 160 pages
Published by: Houghtin Mifflin
Publication date: September 1999
ISBN: 0671035304.................... order now or more info.
 The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings by Richard Brautigan by Richard Brautigan, John Brautigan with an introduction by Keith Abbot On the eve of his departure from Eugene, Oregon, to San Francisco and worldly success, a twenty-one-year-old unpublished write named Richard Brautigan gave these funny, buoyant stories and poems as a gift to Edna Webster, the beloved mother of both his best fried and his first "real" girlfriend. "When I am rich and famous, Edna," he told her, "this will be your social security.' The stories and poems show Brautigan as hopelessly lovestruck, cheerily goofy, and at his most disarmingly innocent. We see not only a young man and young artist about to bloom, but also the whole literary sensibility of the 1960s counterculture about to spread its wings and fly. Published 15 years after his suicide, this all-new, youthful work by Brautigan, was written a decade before he found sudden fame with "Trout Fishing in America".
Paperback, 160 pages
Published by: Houghtin Mifflin
Publication date: September 1999
ISBN: 0395974690.................... order now or more info.
 Listen Up! : Spoken Word Poetry edited by Zoe Angelsey, with an introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa Spoken word poetry is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Here for the first time in one volume are poems from the nation's top spoken word artists. Listen Up! features nine brilliant award-winning scribes who have ignited audiences worldwide with their soulful verse, bold alliterations, and sultry fusion of rhythm and rhyme--electrifying audiences as they chant, sing, recite, and improvise their poetry and powerful point of view. Among these nine literary luminaries are Carl Hancock Rux, named by The New York Times as one of thirty young artists "most likely to change the culture in the next thirty years"; Jessica Care Moore, a record-breaking five-time winner of the Apollo competition; and Saul Williams, co-scriptwriter and star of the feature film Slam, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the prestigious Camera D'Or at Cannes. Packed with penetrating interviews on the craft of writing poetry, insight into the art of performance, and on-target, off-guard photos of the poets in action at history-making poetry slams, this unforgettable collection is the next best thing to being there live.
Paperback, 224 pages
Published by: One World
Publication date: April 1999
ISBN: 0345428978.................... order now or more info.
 Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs edited by Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard. Dog lovers and other discriminating readers won't be able to resist this warm and winning collection of poems, written from the dog's point of view, by the celebrated writers and poets whose love of woofs and words has inspired a wonderful book. Includes photos of dogs and their poet owners including Stephen Dobyns, John Irving, Mark Doty, Gordon Lish, Stephen Dunn, Lynda Barry, Arthur Miller, Gerald Stern, Edward Albee and lots more.
Paperback, 176 pages
Published by: Three Rovers Press
Publication date: April 1999
ISBN: 0609803794.................... order now or more info.
 In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself (Volume 2) edited by Marlow Peerse Weaver
Volume 2 of "a generation defining itself". 173 new voices from around the world, all born 1961-1982. Through verse, poetry, and lyric, this series is refuting all narrow stereotypes about this generation. A generation alive with its own wide spectrum of perspectives, insights, aspirations, and angst.
Paperback, 160 pages
Publication date: March 2000
ISBN: 0965413632 .................... order now or more info.
 An Unfortunate Woman by Richard Brautigan
In this posthumously released novel, Richard Brautigan's voice--quipping, punning, strewn with non sequiturs--comes like a rattling of chains. Brautigan took his own life in 1984; An Unfortunate Woman was written in the years immediately preceding, and the writer's imminent death haunts the book. It bears the subtitle A Journey, and Brautigan means this quite literally. We follow the first-person narrator in his peregrinations from Montana to San Francisco to New York to Alaska to Honolulu and back to San Francisco, with a detour across the bay to Berkeley--and that's leaving out Canada altogether. Pulling him like a wispy thread throughout is the hanging death of a San Francisco housemate who had cancer. We never learn her story, just that his book's "main theme is an unfortunate woman." She's a constant glancing reference.
Paperback, 110 pages
Published by St. Martin's Press
Publication date: May 2000
ISBN: 0312262434 .................... order now or more info.
 Situational Reality by Michael McNeilley
Come closer and you'll understand the insignificance of the handwringer who, bored with himself, pulls apart another's handiwork in hopes of revealing the missed stitch. Situational Reality is a book of poems to which the poet and non-poet, academic and non-academic alike can relate. Michael McNeilley writes in an incredibly intelligent yet easy to read style, and on topics of such universal experience, that he may even sway the "I don't understand poetry" protester to try, try again. This poet is one of the few who bridges the gaps between 'underground' and 'academic' poetry -- he is able to keep the interest of both types. Between the lines of these poems rest their writer's humanity and longing for a stronger sense of that humanity in connection with and between others.
Paperback, 80 pages
Published by Dancing Bear Press
Publication date: May 1999
ISBN: 096593070X .................... order now or more info.
 Cider Press Review edited by Caron Andregg and Robert Wynne Cider Press Review is an annual journal featuring the best of new poetry and translations from contemporary writers. This collection is edited by the winner of the 1999 Poetry Super Highway contest and one of the 2000 Contest Judges, Caron Andregg, and also by the winner of the 1998 PSH Contest, Robert Wynne. Contributors to Volume 1 include Naomi, Shihab Nye, W. D. Snodgrass, Robert Nazarene, Janet Holmes, Jill McDonough, Robert Arroyo, Simon Perchik, Jackson Wheeler and many more.
Paperback, 144 pages
Published by: Cider Press
Publication date: March 2000
ISBN: 0966139925.................... order now or more info.
 Cows on the Freeway: Selected Poems by G. Murray ThomasCows on the Freeway is a collection of poems inspired by the ocean and freeways of Southern California. These poems were polished in performances on stages as diverse as Lollapalooza, The Whiskey, National Poetry Slams, and coffeehouse open mikes. They combine a sharp critique of modern life with an absurd sense of humor.
Paperback, 119 pages
Published by: iUniverse.com
Publication date: July 2000
ISBN: 059509743X.................... order now or more info.
 Princess Freak by Nancy Agabian
"She pays close attention to what most of us overlook - in her hands the ordinary explodes into beauty and complexity" ~ Holly Hughes, Performance Artist
Princess Freak is a collection of poems and performance texts from L.A. based writer Nancy Agabian. It documents the coming-of-age of a shy, funny, bisexual Armenian-American woman who flees the small town of Walpole, Massachusetts to tell the stories of her family. Agabian's paternal grandmother was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey in 1915, and much of the work in Princess Freak carries the impact of this devastating event.
Paperback, 121 pages
Published by: Beyond Baroque Foundation
Publication date: February 2000
ISBN: 1892184079.................... order now or more info.
 Gypsies by Angélique Jamail
Collection of original poetry by Houston based poet Angélique Jamail. Gypsies is a loosely plot-driven collection of poems about jumping off from traditional toeholds and clinging to the air around you until you find a new niche.
Paperback, 56 pages
Published by: PHUI Productions
Publication date: December 1998
ISBN: 0967007704.................... order now or more info.
 Jew Boy by Alan Kaufman
...an abundance of suspense, curiosity, wonder and awe.... I want to congratulate and thank Alan Kaufman for enriching my life...
.....-Hubert Selby, Jr., author of Last Exit to Brooklyn Alan Kaufman grew up in the Bronx, the son of a Jewish mother who had survived the Holocaust, her mind badly scarred by her trauma. Growing up under the shadow of his mother's demons, he struggles uncomprehendingly with his Jewish identity, vowing never to become a victim like his mother. In a great bid for freedom from her legacy, he hitchhikes across the U.S. only to summon the phantoms he had sought to escape. His flight, after taking him to a kibbutz in Israel and the Israeli army, returns him to the streets of New York, homeless and an alcoholic, until at last he finds redemption in poetry, the gift that is true to his being. Hardcover, 400 pages
Publication date: September 2000
ISBN: 0880642521.................... order now or more info.
 The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins
The selected poems of Billy Collins read by the author. 33 poems, over 70 minutes, very high quality recording on cassette or CD.
"Luring his readers into the poem with humor, Mr. Collins leads them unwittingly into deeper, more serious places, a kind of journey from the familiar or quirky to unexpected territory, sometimes tender, often profound"
.....(The New York Times 11/30/97) Compact Disc
Publication date: May, 1997
Published by Cielo Publishing;
ISBN: 0965887308.................... order now or more info.
 The Best American Poetry 2000 edited by Rita Dove and David Lehman.
A mid an "explosion in the interest of poetry nationwide" (The New York Times), The Best American Poetry 2000 delivers one of the finest volumes yet in this renowned series. Guest editor Rita Dove, a distinguished figure in the poetry world and the second African-American poet ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, brings all of her dynamism and well-honed acumen to bear on this project. Dove used a simple yet exacting method to make her selections: "The final criterion," she writes in her introduction, "was Emily Dickinson's famed description -- if I felt that the top of my head had been taken off, the poem was in." The result is a marvelous collection of consistently high-quality poems diverse in form, tone, style, stance, and subject matter. With comments from the poets themselves illuminating their poems and a foreword by series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2000 is this year's must-have book for all poetry lovers. Paperback, 320 pages
Publication date: September 2000
ISBN: 0743200330.................... order now or more info.
 In Our Own Words: A Generation Defining Itself - volume 3 edited by
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