This collaboration between Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney is "Just more entertaining than poems are supposed to be. And I'm not using the word "entertaining" as some kind of sly putdown either. These poems have more human interaction going on in a couple of lines than many writers manage in a couple of books. The linguistic energy and, really, virtuosity, can be stunning. These are poems that know what people are like when they're around people." -Mark Wallace
"Both heartbreaking and sharply funny...Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is brilliant and surprising at every turn."--Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers A heart-tugging and gorgeously written novel based on the incredible true story of a WWI messenger pigeon and the soldiers whose lives she forever altered, from the author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. From the green countryside of England and the gray canyons of Wall Street come two unlikely heroes: one a pigeon and the other a soldier. Answering the call to serve in the war to end all wars, neither Cher Ami, the messenger bird, nor Charles Whittlesey, the Army officer, can anticipate how their lives will briefly intersect in a chaotic battle in the forests of France, where their wills will be tested, their fates will be shaped, and their lives will emerge forever altered. A saga of hope and duty, love and endurance, as well as the claustrophobia of fame, Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey is a tragic yet life-affirming war story that the world has never heard. Inspired by true events of World War I, Kathleen Rooney resurrects two long-forgotten yet unforgettable figures, recounting their tale in a pair of voices that will change the way that readers look at animals, freedom, and even history itself.
Although much attention has been paid to the adults who led, participated in, or witnessed the civil rights movement, much less attention has been given to those who were children during that era. Especially in the South, these children of the 1950s and afterward came of age in the midst of major societal shifts regarding race, gender, social class, and industry as the South re-branded itself the "Sun Belt." In this collection of memoirs, writers, teachers, scholars and historians recall growing up in the South from the late 1950s to the early 1990s, revealing how the region changed over time, as well as how a Southern childhood varied across time, race, gender, socio-economic status, and geography. By viewing these remembrances through the lens of multiculturalism, this collection offers anuanced understanding of how the pre-civil rights movement South evolved into the South of the 21st century.
Adored by its fans, deplored by its critics, Oprah's Book Club has been at the center of arguments about cultural authority and literary taste since it began in 1996. Reading with Oprah explores the club's revolutionary fusion of books, television, and commerce and tells the engaging and in-depth story of the OBC phenomenon. Kathleen Rooney combines extensive research with a dynamic voice to reveal the club's far-reaching cultural impact and its role as crucible for the clash between "high" and "low" literary taste. Comprehensive and up-to-date, the book covers the club from its inception in 1996, through the Jonathan Franzen contretemps, the surprising suspension in 2002, and, after the club's return in 2003, the progression from "great books" to memoir. New material includes an extensive look at the James Frey scandal and Oprah's turn to contemporary fiction, including The Road and Middlesex. Through close examination of Winfrey's picks and personal interviews with book club authors and readers, Rooney demonstrates how the club that Barbara Kingsolver calls "one of the best possible uses of a television set" has, according to Wally Lamb, "gotten people of all ages to read, to read more, and to read widely."
Edited by Reb Livingston and Molly Arden, the second volume of No Tell Motel's Bedside Guide explores the multi-faceted aspects of desire and appeal. Including poems by Kristi Maxwell, Bruce Covey, Alison Stine, Evie Shockley, Jennifer L. Knox, Rebecca Loudon, Robyn Art, David Lehman, Didi Menendez, Charles Jensen, Jen Tynes, Clay Matthews, Kate Greenstreet, Aaron Belz, Carly Sachs, Margot Schilpp, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, kari edwards, Michael Quattrone, Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Simon Perchik, Ron Klassnik, Peter Jay Shippy and many others.
In gathering four decades of work, Hugo Williams's Collected Poems brings back into print a vast body of material long since unavailable - from his 1965 debut Symptoms of Loss to Self-Portrait with a Slide (1990) and including Writing Home (1985), described by Mick Imlah in the Independent on Sunday as 'a classic of creative autobiography'. The edition is brought up to date with his most recent work: Dock Leaves, a PBS Choice of 1994, and Billy's Rain, winner of the 1999 T. S. Eliot Award. 'This year's best collection of works by a single poet. Intimate, charming and often funny, sometimes wistful, slightly sceptical, full of insight, the poems are a monument to 40 years of talent.' Times 'In their seemingly artless way, these poems look with candour at feebleness, messy love affairs, squirming memories, and emerge triumphantly, often with a rueful grin.' Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph 'Not since Thom Gunn's Collected Poems has there been a Collected as startling and poignant as Hugo Williams's Collected Poems. Williams shows us, like no other contemporary poet, what is so strangely undramatic about our personal dramas.' Adam Phillips, Observer Books of the Year 'William's is a poet of such intimate charm, such grace and cunning, and such ordinary comical sadness, that he wins your affection and admiration.' Hermoine Lee, Guardian
How to begin a poem, use word combinations and new forms, apply the lessons from master poets to individual poems, choose and use images and words carefully, and much more.
