Poetic Possibilities

~~ January 2006 ~~ 

American Smooth
Rita Dove
Her magnificent poems pay homage to our kaleidoscopic cultural heritage -- from the glorious shimmer of an operatic soprano to Bessie Smith's mournful wail; from paradise lost to angel food cake; from hotshots at the local shooting range to the Negro jazz band in World War I whose music conquered Europe before the Allied advance. [Book jacket]
2004
811.54   D743a

Delights and Shadows
Ted Kooser

That Kooser often sees things we do not would be delight enough, but more amazing is exactly what he sees.  Nothing escapes him, everything is illuminated.  [Library Journal]
2004
811.54   K82d

In the Next Galaxy
Ruth Stone
Stone writes with a crackling intelligence, interrogating history from the vantage point of an aging and impoverished woman. Wise, sardonic, crafty, and misleadingly simple, Stone loves heavy themes but loathes heavy poems.  [Book jacket]
2002
811.54   S879i

Inner Voices
Richard Howard

His deftness, his wit, his incomparable copiousness, his vast range of subjects and his burnished intelligence … he has achieved a stature of eminence as a poet beyond challenge or dispute.  [Book jacket]
2004
811.54   H851i

Moy Sand and Gravel
Paul Muldoon

His ninth collection of poems … finds him working a rich vein that extends from the rivery, apple-heavy County Armagh of the 1950s, in which he was brought up, to suburban New Jersey, on the banks of a canal dug by Irish navvies, where he now lives.  [Book jacket]
2002
821.914   M954m

Nine Horses
Billy Collins

Collins has become the first poet since Robert Frost to combine high critical acclaim with broad popular appeal.  [Book jacket]
2002
811.54   C712n

Slouching Towards Nirvana
Charles Bukowski

Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry … and many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet.  [Book jacket]
2005
811.54   B932sl

Walking to Martha’s Vineyard
Franz Wright

In this radiant new collection, Franz Wright shares his regard for life in all its forms and his belief in the promise of blessing and renewal.  [Book jacket]
2003
811.54   W949w

Why I Wake Early
Mary Oliver

Oliver has become America’s foremost poetic voice on our experience of the physical world … each poem is imbued with the extraordinary perceptions of a poet at the height of her power.  [Book jacket]
2004
811.54   O49w

The Woman I Kept to Myself
Julia Alvarez

The works of award-winning poet and novelist Julia Alvarez are rich with the language and influences of two cultures: the Dominican Republic of her childhood and the America of her youth and adulthood.  [Book jacket]
2004
811.54   A473w