As energetic and diverse as the American life it describes, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass has been loved by generations for its celebration of a brash young nation and one man's exuberant spirit.

"Poetry is one of those subjects almost impossible to define as it can be so many things at once. It can be: kids whispering limericks on the playground; secret languages used by revolutionaries and spies; or the written strength of oppressed people. Poetry is how millions of people across time have used language to try to better understand love, hate, war, religion, oppression, joy, sorrow, sex, and death. Poetry is one of the oldest forms of writing...

"Joyce Kilmer (born as Alfred Joyce Kilmer; December 6, 1886 - July 30, 1918) was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled "Trees" (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Roman Catholic religious faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. While most of...

"Thirst-quenching," "luminous," "enchanting": Here are poems to ravish old souls, feed hungry minds, and seduce the pickiest fan of fine writing. Award-winning journalist and author Diana McLellan and New Yorker artist Peter Steiner merge wits and wisdom to create a unique book of her verse, his illustration - poems of love, of wonder, of loss, of growing old. Raves one critic, "Essential! As in, gets to the essence of things."--

Looking at a wide swath of Chinese history and literature, this collection examines various issues stemming from immigration to America. Wang Ping conveys the voices of centuries of farmers and factory laborers, revolutionaries, writers, artists, and craftsmen. She has a unique gift for telling small stories with powerful emotional effects. The titular poem, "Ten Thousand Waves," was inspired by a tragedy that occurred on February 5, 2004. More than...

A poetry collection about connectivity, this book suggests that humankind is linked by its concerns for global human rights and a sustainable global climate. Named for a root system that connects seemingly separate plants, like a stand of aspen trees, this compilation seeks to celebrate common human roots.--Provided by the publisher.

"Nietzsche's Horse is a collection of prose poems that concentrates on longing and loss and their interactions."--

"The works of this award-winning poet and novelist are rich with the language and influences of two cultures: those of the Dominican Republic of her childhood and the America of her youth and adulthood. They have shaped her writing just as they have shaped her life. In these seventy-five autobiographical poems, Alvarez's clear voice sings out in every line. Here, in the middle of her life, she looks back as a way of understanding and celebrating the...

"Drawing on sources as diverse as Charles Bukowski, Raymond Carver, Sharon Olds, WC Williams and Frank O'Hara, "Dead Birds Fall from the Sky" weaves together the lyrical, the confessional, and the universal."--

The thematic motif found within these poems is one of "knowing": the desire to know the mystery of love in its many forms and depths. Examining daily living, this book's four-section poem sequence is one of immersion into the paradoxical life; familiar yet filled with inexplicable beauty. As it investigates displacement from family, from love, and from self, this compilation discovers that the mundane transpires in an austere and holy place peopled...