With the perfect blend of wit, eloquence, and honesty, Taylor Mali's poems delight, haunt, and illuminate with equal measure every subject they celebrate. Bouquet of Red Flags is laced with more than the typical LSD (love, sex, divorce) of modern poetry. Here lie poems that elevate the overlooked daily miracles of coincidence ("The Luck I Crave") as well as the blessings of loss and longing ("Love as a Form of Diving"). Whether employing form or rhyme or merely crafting the artful prose he is known for, Taylor Mali delivers entertaining epiphanies spiced with the "Deepest Condiments."
Sure, he's gorgeous, funny, and charming—but early in any doomed relationship there are warning signals foretelling the bad news to come. Studies show that most women will try to justify these signs, excusing them so they don't interfere with their fantasy of having met the perfect man. Unfortunately, such signs are usually all too prophetic—they are the essence of what Gary Aumiller and Daniel Goldfarb call "Red Flags." The question then becomes how to detect and respond to a Red Flag before it's too late. This first-of-its-kind book will help readers determine a man's all-important "loser potential" within the first three dates. Each chapter includes a profile of a different loser, a post-date quiz to help you determine if Mr. Right is Mr. Wrong, and important information about the best way to break up with him. Red Flags has all the fun of a magazine quiz combined with the expertise of psychologists who specialize in the techniques used by the police to profile criminals. They know how to spot the rejects—and now you will, too!
Brown is our modern-day Neruda, hailed as the king of the fast gut punch and champion of the unforgettable line. Here is a brilliant imagination working at its highest level of creative force and naked, cinematic intimacy. Winner of the 2013 Texas Book of The Year for Poetry and owner of Write Bloody Publishing, Derrick C. Brown, author of UH-OH (“...a rekindling of faith in the weird, hilarious, shocking, beautiful power of words.” Joel Lovell, The New York Times) and Born in The Year of the Butterfly Knife, elevates his newest collection of writing in Hello. It Doesn’t Matter. with short burst of dazzling light, dark humor and longer bouts of sorrow and rise. This road-traveling bard fearlessly delivers on laughter and unashamed romance.
A Constellation of Half-Lives is a collection of poems that attempt to reconcile the crisis of living on a collapsing planet with the unreasonable joy of loving and the pleasure of being alive. With careful precision and an exquisite eye for detail, poet Seema Reza examines what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and an American in a time of war. Through second-person poems she questions whether the beauty of this world outweighs its fragility and risk.
This is an account of an ethnically and racially diverse classroom of funny, endearing, and often poignant six-year-olds in a Seattle inner-city elementary school. The author, their volunteer literary coach, describes the classroom, their heroic teacher, a number of clever teaching modules, and the evolution of this school toward excellence. The children’s confidences, essays, and poetry sparkle with humor, and the unexpected viewpoints of childhood. Eight captivating students are profiled and featured for us in line drawing illustrations. In the final chapters some startling school district data is introduced as well as three common-sense recommendations to give all kids a fair chance in school. Having learned so much about the realities of public elementary education in her five years in the classroom, the author wanted to share the good news of what is possible with others who might otherwise view this as a grim subject.
Lyrical and dark, Lauren Sanderson’s Some of the Children Were Listening begins with witness. With a voice uncommonly young and impossibly certain, these poems climb out of bed and sit on the stairs, eavesdropping on a world that wasn’t meant for them. In quick turns and tight threads comes the violence of nature, the nature of violence. Sanderson moves fluidly across the personal and the universal, venturing into a world beyond witness; where the trees fall when the girls scream and everyone’s daughter is a king.
In Janae Johnson's debut poetry collection, the concept of being tenderheaded is less about Black hair; more how we are taught to disguise pain through suppression of macro and micro traumas. What began as a book of poetry about women's basketball transformed into a coming-of-age story centering Black queer masculinity, emotional restoration and belonging. From lyrically experimental to personified prose, each poem encourages humor to rise after an eight hour hair appointment and the ultimate decision to wear a ponytail.
Powerhouse Business Mentorship is the Definitive Business/Entrepreneurial Mentoring Handbook Mentoring embraces vision-building, handholding, numbers-crunching, and encouragement. It’s a two-way street consisting of the mentor (advisor/coach) and the mentee (the committed participant). For the mentor, Powerhouse Business Mentorship offers powerful, success-oriented techniques and proven strategies that can assure a mutually effective mentorship experience. For the mentee, this book counsels on how to choose a mentor, how to control the process and how to get the most out of the relationship. Mentoring is not all about ‘You need to do it this way, my way’, but more so ‘Tell me what you are trying to do and where you want this opportunity to take you’. Powerhouse Business Mentorship also recounts Jay’s mentoring journeys. Some were great and delivered memorable outcomes, some merely good, and others best described as...‘colorful’. Everything Jay has learned from his mentoring encounters has found its way into Powerhouse Business Mentorship. Anyone leading or participating in mentorship needs to have Powerhouse Business Mentorship as their indispensable handbook.
Bundled together for the first time as a complete series, enjoy The Boyfriend Effect, My Brother's Roommate and The Stud Next Door for one low price! THE BOYFRIEND EFFECT I’m not boyfriend material. If a trail of broken hearts and a piss-poor record of failed relationships have taught me anything, it’s this. My buddies are happy to give me shit about my latest breakup from here to next Sunday. Thanks, but I’d rather have a root canal. And a vasectomy. At the same time. Relief comes in an unlikely package—the gorgeous and feisty Maren. She just so happens to be my best friend’s sister, so that’s not awkward at all. But I’m a man on a mission, and Maren is down to teach me all the ways I’ve been failing as a boyfriend. Apparently, there are many. And it’s all very informative—until I start to catch feelings. Now it’s not just my reputation on the line, but my heart too. MY BROTHER'S ROOMMATE There are a few things you should know about my brother’s roommate. Wolfie Cox is . . . complicated. And incredibly sexy. Unfortunately, he has an impressive stick lodged so far up his ass, he’s about as emotionally available as a chinchilla. Actually, that might be an insult to the chinchilla community. So, naturally, I want to ride him like a bicycle. He thinks I hate him. Mostly because I’ve led him to believe this. It’s easier than admitting the truth. And while Wolfie is about as soft and cuddly as a fork, I’m the opposite. A good girl. Reliable. Conscientious. Oh, and completely panicked about an upcoming work conference. Wolfie’s usually allergic to altruism, so when my brother convinces him to help me out by escorting me to said conference where everyone else will have a plus-one . . . I say thanks, but no thanks. Surprisingly, Wolfie is unflinching about this. And that’s the story about how I got stuck in a hotel room with my brother’s hot (grouchy) roommate. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. In all seriousness, this isn’t a game to me, and hormones aside, I need to impress my boss this week so the promotion I’ve worked hard for doesn’t get handed to his worthless nephew. But with Wolfie and me sharing a hotel bed, things get confusing quickly. THE STUD NEXT DOOR Life threw me a curveball. An adorable eight-pound, four-ounce curveball with her mother’s eyes and my dark hair. I’d like to think my single-dad game is strong, but honestly? I’ve been struggling a little. When a beautiful young woman moves in next door and offers to give me a hand, I jump at the chance to hire her as a nanny. Jessa is amazing with my daughter. She’s also patient, kind, and way too pretty. The number one rule of hiring a nanny? Don’t bed the nanny. It’s a rule I intend to keep. But as the days pass, I begin to realize how much my life is missing. Companionship. Romance. Intimacy. When I discover my heart has space for one more female, it’s a lost cause, another curveball. The hot-as-hell nanny is leaving soon for a mission trip to Central America. No sense in letting myself fantasize about Jessa being a permanent part of my life. The closer we get, the more difficult it becomes to keep my feelings in check, because my heart won’t listen. And neither will my libido. Well, you know what they say. Rules are meant to be broken . . .
MultiVerse does for superheroes what Rob Sturma's first anthology Aim For The Head did for zombies: It tackles what could be dismissed as a genre novelty and through the words of page and stage poets, finds the heart, pathos, and humor involved in the otherworld of those with superhuman abilities. Welcome to an examination of the many facets of what it means to be a hero.
