Memoir Poetry

New York Times best-selling author J. A. Jance's heartrending collection of poetry and essays recounts a dark chapter of her own life, her first marriage to an alcoholic - a powerful look at the emotional cost of addiction and an inspiring story of courage and triumph in the wake of crushing defeat.

The Weight of Whiteness is a memoir in poetry form of the author's awareness of her whiteness during the integration of Boston's public schools in the 1950s and during visits with her family in the segregated South. Deeply personal, the poems examine the author's thoughts and feelings as family and others react to her interracial marriage in 1966, the year before the US Supreme Court overturned as unconstitutional 16 states' laws prohibiting miscegenation.

In a series of fascinating conversations with eighteen American poets, and in dozens of poems, The Language of Life celebrates language in its "most exalted, wrenching, delighted, and concentrated form," and its unique power to recreate the human experience: falling in love, facing death, leaving home, losing faith, finding God.

Poetry. Literary nonfiction. Fiction. Drama. LGBTQIA studies. Women's studies. Compiled in one book for the first time, featuring both new and out-of-print pieces, the contents of The Judy Grahn Reader span four decades of work by the prominent writer and activist. This volume contains writing from every phase of Judy Grahn's career, including poems from all of her major poetry collections, a number of her groundbreaking essays, as well as selected fiction and the full-length play The Queen of Swords.

Acclaimed Cave Canem poet and essayist Remica Bingham-Risher interweaves personal essays and interviews she conducted over a decade with 10 distinguished Black poets, such as Lucille Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, and Patricia Smith, to explore the impact of identity, joy, love, and history on the artistic process. Each essay is thematically inspired, centered on one of her interviews, and uses quotes drawn from her talks to showcase their philosophies. Each essay also delves into how her own life and work are influenced by these elders.

A collection of poems written by someone who is no stranger to everyday struggles of love and mayhem. These poems vary in topics and length. Judith understands struggles and that with hope a little faith that strengthen our beliefs, there is always a brighter day tomorrow. With faith and understanding, the bitter realities of human relations makes us stronger today.

The book chronicles, in poetic form, the life of a woman who, in three distinct and significant life events, feels she is “the other woman” to her husband, to her child, and even to herself, rather than the woman who is “good enough” just as she is. Not until she loses her eyesight does she finally allow herself to stop putting herself aside and be who she always has been—a strong, insightful, creative, resilient, faith driven, funny, and fun-loving woman. A resurrected woman!

Jonathan Cruz invites you into the raw, unflinching paradoxes of his own life in 36 Chambers of My Mentality. Marked by a past including gang banging and the path to prison, this visceral collection of poetry and prose transcends mere memoir to become a profound exploration of the human spirit tested by extreme circumstances.

Poet, educator, and social activist Gwendolyn Brooks was a singular force in American culture. The first Black woman to be named United States poet laureate, Brook’s poetry, fiction, and social commentary shed light on the beauty of humanity, the distinct qualities of Black life and community, and the destructive effects of racism, sexism, and class inequality. A collection of 30 essays combining critical analysis and personal reflection, The Whiskey of Our Discontent presents essential elements of Brooks' oeuvre - on race, gender, class, community, and poetic craft.

Abandoned by her hustling father, raised by her devoted mother, then battered by the winds of loss, heartbreak, and sexual assault, awarded diversity and inclusion leader and author Nikki Murphy exposes the undercurrents of resilience and faith that undergird her success in this riveting memoir-in-verse. Home for Hurricanes provides a sobering portrayal of both the jubilance and hardening of Black girls emanating from the ghettos, and Murphy celebrates their resolve to build free and whole lives.

Into the Goddesslands (1993-1995) is the first book of the Goddesslands Trilogy, a composite of vignettes, journal entries, poems, and dialogues with inner voices - the personal myth of Pamé La Calmette.

With the publication of her first book of poems in her sixty-third year, Amy Clampitt rose meteorically to fame, launching herself from obscurity to the upper ranks of American poetry all but overnight, and living a whirlwind eleven years, until her death in 1994. Years later, as renowned poetry scholar Willard Spiegelman wades into her papers and poems, he discovers a woman of dazzling intellect, staunch progressive politics, and an inexhaustible sense of wonder for the world and the words we’ve invented to describe it.

Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty - a poet, a New Yorker, and an American - keeps company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work.

In Life Without a Net, author Don Severance has drawn upon interest in music and sports to present seven stories of challenge and compassion. The adventures are realistic and entertaining. Dr. Severance begins each story based on his life experiences, then enlarges the themes into dramatic works of fiction.

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

Gay icon, great poet, leather daddy, eccentric professor, English, American, biker, non-driver, drug addict, hedonist, intellectual, enigmatic, friendly, Everyman, one-of-a-kind, brother, roommate, HIV-negative, paradigmatic AIDS writer, Nazi belt wearer, Jeff Dahmer scholar, Guggenheim Genius, secret philanthropist, Formalist, Existentialist, prolific letter writer, some-sort-of-an-angel...Thom Gunn was all of these and more... But hovering above these figures lay the memory of his mother.

Juan Luis Guerra y 4-40. "Merengue y Bachata a ritmo de poesía y compromiso." Es un orgullo presentar el primer audiolibro dominicano conteniendo la historia del más trascendente artista dominicano de todos los tiempos: Juan Luis Guerra. Conozca en la voz del autor de la investigación, el comunicador y economista Euri Cabral , todos los momentos importantes que ha vivido Juan Luis y 4-40 en su gran historia de éxito y peregrinaje por el mundo.

Plunging into darkness, you look for a lifeline. I came forth from the mental hospitals fighting; drugged and almost committed for life. Flashbacks and putting the pieces together, memories unearthed. Unwanted are the memories, yet they come, crying out to God to not be forgotten. The mental system is designed to lock one in without recourse. And then comes the realization that to be alive is to breathe the air without restraint. To know that after the journey of waiting, my truth has set me free. I am Hilary Nili, and I survived.

Focused on faith and woven with Christian, ecumenical, and patriotic themes, Our Immigrants’ Son is an exploration and celebration of family. The genres of prose poetry and historical fiction very cleverly takes you through the author’s rich Irish American history. It begins in misty Ireland and takes you through generations of the Murphy clan while also teaching you how to write your family story.

From life in a suburban Western Pennsylvania steel town in the middle of the post-World War II baby boom, to contemplation in retirement, Though Oftentimes Better than Master of One is a collection of brief memoirs, recollections, and prose that is meant to be listened to in small portions, much like slowly sipping a cup of warm tea during a cold winter’s evening while relaxing in a reclining chair. These brief narratives describe events from the author’s youth, college years, career, and current day life in retirement.