Poetry Style

In 2004, boldly original poet Lisa Robertson published a chapbook, Rousseau’s Boat, poems culled from years of notebooks that are, nevertheless, by no means autobiographical. In 2010, she expanded the work into a full-length book, R’s Boat. During the pandemic, she was drawn back into decades of journals to shape Boat. These poems bring fresh vehemence to Robertson’s ongoing examination of the changing shape of feminism, the male-dominated philosophical tradition, the daily forms of discourse, and the possibilities of language itself.

Christina Rossetti’s poetry has never disappeared from view. Critical interest in her poetry swelled in the final decades of the twentieth century, a resurgence largely impelled by the emergence of feminist criticism; much of this commentary focuses on gender issues in her poetry and on Rossetti as a woman poet. Collected here are 16 of her most beautiful, haunting, and renowned poems.

Relive one of the most iconic moments in American history with Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This stirring poem captures the urgency and heroism of Paul Revere’s legendary midnight ride, warning the colonial militia of the British advance and igniting the spirit of the American Revolution. Longfellow’s vivid imagery and masterful storytelling bring this historical event to life, making it both a timeless literary classic and a patriotic call to remembrance.

One of the most distinguished voices in American letters, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and poet N. Scott Momaday has devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially its oral tradition. In this wise and wonderous work, Momaday shares stories and memories throughout his life, stories that have been passed down through generations, stories that reveal a profound spiritual connection to the American landscape and reverence for the natural world.

This insightful look into one of mankind's favorite artists traces the magic and melancholy of Vincent Van Gogh. Out of Vincent's letters to his brother Theo, as collected by Irving Stone, we have selected an exciting and sensitive series of quotations. The quotations in My Life and Love Are One revolve around three themes - love, art, and turmoil. Centered around emotion and creation, Vincent's writing and philosophy is as expressive as his art.

The secret of their identities has fueled debate for hundreds of years: Who are the nameless nobleman and the dark-haired mistress? And what did they do to inspire the creation of more than 150 deeply intimate poems? Whether William Shakespeare's sonnets are pure fiction or the lingering echo of an autobiographical account, this exquisitely written collection defied traditional love poem conventions to explore the many layers of romance, the dangers of lust, and the nuances of beauty.

In 2013, Neil Hilborn's performance of his poem "OCD" went viral. To date, it has been watched over 100 million times. Our Numbered Days is Neil’s debut full-length poetry collection, containing 45 of Neil's poems including "OCD", "Joey", "Future Tense", "Liminality", "Moving Day", and many, many never-before-seen poems.

A singular voice in American letters, Momaday’s love of language and storytelling are on full display in this brilliant new collection comprising one hundred sketches or “dream drawings”—furnishings of the mind—as he calls them. Influenced by his Native American heritage and its oral storytelling traditions, here are prose poems about nature, animals, warriors, and hunters, as well as meditations that explore themes of love, loss, time, and memory.

I Love Hearing Your Dreams is a book of reveries, of failed elegies, of “the last time that things were real” and the moments that come afterward. These are dream songs for an age of insomnia, where the poet is always awake “at that oddest hour / that does not end, / the crooked, unnumbered one” and the future seems to be “just the past in a suit / that will never be in style.” Yet dreams in Matthew Zapruder’s poems are also a place of possibility, of reality envisioned anew—sleep shows us not merely what the world is, but what it could be.

Silence is rare in Nature. When we really listen, Nature is conducting symphonies of sound as her world goes about the day and night. Her invisible heartbeat is everywhere, for everyone. Our eyes are constantly bathed in the wonder of her ways, the soft drizzle of rain from soft grey clouds, the bleached harsh desert sand of a noon day, a wave caressing the shore, to the ravenous colours of a departing sunset. Indeed, whenever we look and listen to the vastness of our world Nature’s beauty is always there for us..

L'art d'aimer, selon Ovide, c'est d'abord l'art de séduire. Bien avant que les agences de rencontres et les entreprises de séduction modernes existent, Ovide prodiguait ses conseils. C'était au 1er siècle de notre ère, mais lorsqu'on l'entend dire : " Qui que tu sois, n'aie qu'une faible confiance dans les charmes trompeurs de la beauté ; ajoute d'autres avantages à ces mérites du corps. Ce qui gagne surtout les cœurs, c'est une adroite complaisance".

Christina Rossetti's long narrative poem about two innocent sisters, Lizzie and Laura, tempted by the delicious, magical fruit sold by goblin merchants as they walk through the glen....

Langston Hughes was only twenty-four when he published his debut collection of poetry, The Weary Blues. The poems included here blend vernacular speech and musical rhythms to offer a bracing perspective on the African American experience. Traversing a wide range of settings—including the jazz clubs of Harlem, expansive natural landscapes, and seaside taverns—Hughes’s voice as a poet ties these various places together.

Devout exploration of the farthest lyrical reaches of sensuality best describe Tyrone Love's profound poetic conjurings, as the Milwaukee, WI-based poet and performer continues his own breakthrough in artistic freedom. His debut work, Love’s Language, aims to liberate, inspire and push every boundary within the art of 'talking dirty. '

Following on his exquisite Stones, Young's new collection shapes stories of familial and familiar love, inspired in part by other lives. A central sequence, “The Two-Headed Nightingale,” is spoken by Millie-Christine McCoy, the famous conjoined African American “Carolina Twins.” Born into slavery and ill treatment as a “freak” sensation in 1851 and later free women, their alto and soprano voices harmonized, and Young's poem explores their evolving selfhood and self-understanding: “As one we sang, /we spake— / She was the body / I the soul / Without one / Perishes the whole.”

Filled with wisdom and encouragement, every moment of this audiobook is a testament to the power of words, and the impact they can have on the relationships you build with others. And most importantly, the one you have with yourself. Lang Leav captures the intricacies of emotions like few others can. It's no wonder she has been recognized as a major influencer of the modern poetry movement and her writing has inspired a whole new generation of poets to pick up a pen.

In his much-anticipated follow-up to The Crown Ain't Worth Much, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew. It's a book about a mother's death, and admitting that Michael Jordan pushed off, about forgiveness, and how none of the author's black friends wanted to listen to "Don't Stop Believin'". It's about wrestling with histories, personal and shared.

Soul Vagina is a debut collection from the fearless South African poet Nomxolisi Ndlangana who takes the reader on a woman's pilgrimage to the core of self identity. The work speaks of a love of self and the love of another as the author masterfully synthesizes the nuances and complexities of a five-year relationship into a single poem.

Library of Small Catastrophes, Alison Rollins's ambitious debut collection, interrogates the body and nation as storehouses of countless tragedies. Drawing from Jorge Luis Borges's fascination with the library, Rollins uses the concept of the archive to offer a lyric history of the ways in which we process loss. "Memory is about the future, not the past", she writes, and rather than shying away from the anger, anxiety, and mourning of her narrators, Rollins's poetry seeks to challenge the status quo.

I Had A Brother Once is a brilliant, genre-defying work - both memoir and epic poem - about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss. Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp.