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<title><![CDATA[The Indie Poetry Bestseller List]]></title>

<description><![CDATA[For the eight-week period ending May 18, 2010, and based on sales at independent bookstores nationwide.]]></description>

<link><![CDATA[http://www.indiebound.org/indie-bestsellers]]></link>

<language><![CDATA[en-us]]></language>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Ballistics]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780812975611</link>
<description><![CDATA["I love the self-consciousness and humor Billy Collins brings to poetry. His poems are alive with friendly, kind regard for what-it-means-to-be-human. He's got great talent to craft lines and he does that thing that great poets do, tugging on us, reminding us to appreciate the moment we're in right now. This book was a delight to read and read again." -- Drea Firth, Maria's Bookshop, Durango, CO]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Ballistics]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[1]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Billy Collins]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Random House]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780812975611]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[I love the self-consciousness and humor Billy Collins brings to poetry. His poems are alive with friendly, kind regard for what-it-means-to-be-human. He's got great talent to craft lines and he does that thing that great poets do, tugging on us, reminding us to appreciate the moment we're in right now. This book was a delight to read and read again.]]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[Drea Firth, Maria's Bookshop, Durango, CO]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-02-16T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Best of It: New and Selected Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780802119148</link>
<description><![CDATA["What a gift is Kay Ryan's new collection of poetry!  This U.S. Poet Laureate writes poems that are pure pleasure to the tongue.  They almost sing themselves, and they are a balm to the body with that sudden ache that is the surprise result of encountering truth.  Some, as she says, 'ease the knot of memory, unname the site of harm,' and some provide sheer delight.  Here is a poet at the height of her powers." -- Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Best of It: New and Selected Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[2]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kay Ryan]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Grove Press]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780802119148]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[What a gift is Kay Ryan's new collection of poetry!  This U.S. Poet Laureate writes poems that are pure pleasure to the tongue.  They almost sing themselves, and they are a balm to the body with that sudden ache that is the surprise result of encountering truth.  Some, as she says, 'ease the knot of memory, unname the site of harm,' and some provide sheer delight.  Here is a poet at the height of her powers.]]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[Sheryl Cotleur, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-03-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Prophet]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780394404288</link>
<description><![CDATA[Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.Each essay reveals deep insights into the impulses of the human heart and mind. The Chicago Post said of The Prophet: “Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one’s ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes . . . If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man’s philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth.”With twelve full-page drawings by Gibran, this beautiful work makes an incredible gift for anyone seeking enlightenment and inspiration.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Prophet]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[3]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kahlil Gibran]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Knopf]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780394404288]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays that are philosophical, spiritual, and, above all, inspirational. Gibran’s musings are divided into twenty-eight chapters covering such sprawling topics as love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.Each essay reveals deep insights into the impulses of the human heart and mind. The Chicago Post said of The Prophet: “Cadenced and vibrant with feeling, the words of Kahlil Gibran bring to one’s ears the majestic rhythm of Ecclesiastes . . . If there is a man or woman who can read this book without a quiet acceptance of a great man’s philosophy and a singing in the heart as of music born within, that man or woman is indeed dead to life and truth.”With twelve full-page drawings by Gibran, this beautiful work makes an incredible gift for anyone seeking enlightenment and inspiration.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>1923-09-12T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Nox]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811218702</link>
<description><![CDATA[Created after the death of her brother, Carson's haunting and beautiful "Nox" is her first book of poetry in five years--a unique, illustrated, accordion-fold-out "book in a box." Illustrations.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Nox]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[4]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Anne Carson]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[New Directions]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780811218702]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Created after the death of her brother, Carson's haunting and beautiful "Nox" is her first book of poetry in five years--a unique, illustrated, accordion-fold-out "book in a box." Illustrations.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[New and Selected Poems: Volume One]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068779</link>
<description><![CDATA[Strikingly redesigned to accompany the publication of New and Selected Poems, Volume TwoPraise for the poetry of Mary Oliver:One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver’s work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver’s poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward.”  Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book ReviewMary Oliver’s poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations.” Stanley KunitzOne would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or [Christopher] Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver’s lyricism or radical purification and her unappeasable mania for signs and wonders.” David Barber, PoetryI have always thought of poems as my companionsand like companions, they accompany you wherever the journey (or the afternoon) might lead . . . My most recent companion has been Mary Oliver’s The Leaf and the Cloud . . . It’s a brilliant meditation, a walk through the natural world with one of our preeminent contemporary poets.” Rita Dove, Washington Post]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[New and Selected Poems: Volume One]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[5]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068779]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Strikingly redesigned to accompany the publication of New and Selected Poems, Volume TwoPraise for the poetry of Mary Oliver:One of the astonishing aspects of Oliver’s work is the consistency of tone over this long period. What changes is an increased focus on nature and an increased precision with language that has made her one of our very best poets . . . There is no complaint in Ms. Oliver’s poetry, no whining, but neither is there the sense that life is in any way easy . . . These poems sustain us rather than divert us. Although few poets have fewer human beings in their poems than Mary Oliver, it is ironic that few poets also go so far to help us forward.”  Stephen Dobyns, New York Times Book ReviewMary Oliver’s poetry is fine and deep; it reads like a blessing. Her special gift is to connect us with our sources in the natural world, its beauties and terrors and mysteries and consolations.” Stanley KunitzOne would have to reach back perhaps to [John] Clare or [Christopher] Smart to safely cite a parallel to Oliver’s lyricism or radical purification and her unappeasable mania for signs and wonders.” David Barber, PoetryI have always thought of poems as my companionsand like companions, they accompany you wherever the journey (or the afternoon) might lead . . . My most recent companion has been Mary Oliver’s The Leaf and the Cloud . . . It’s a brilliant meditation, a walk through the natural world with one of our preeminent contemporary poets.” Rita Dove, Washington Post]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2004-04-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781608190331</link>
<description><![CDATA["In this outstanding collection, poet Kevin Young has gathered some wonderful examples that reflect the need for poetry in our lives--the 'need to speak.'  These poems are mostly from the 20th-century musings of many poets, with additions from more recent writings.  Young has truly fulfilled his hope that 'these poems--may help us on our journey--not just in contemplating death, but in living our lives.'" -- Kathleen Dixon, Islandtime Books & More, Washington Island, WI]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[6]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Kevin Young (Ed.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Bloomsbury]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9781608190331]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[In this outstanding collection, poet Kevin Young has gathered some wonderful examples that reflect the need for poetry in our lives--the 'need to speak.'  These poems are mostly from the 20th-century musings of many poets, with additions from more recent writings.  Young has truly fulfilled his hope that 'these poems--may help us on our journey--not just in contemplating death, but in living our lives.']]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[Kathleen Dixon, Islandtime Books & More, Washington Island, WI]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-03-16T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068854</link>
<description><![CDATA[The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, a companion volume to Owls and Other Fantasies and Blue Iris, brings together ten new poems, thirty-five of Oliver’s classic poems, and two essays all about mammals, insects, and reptiles. The award-winning poet considers beasts of all kinds: bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, hermit crabs, and, of course, her beloved but disobedient little dog, Percy.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[7]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068854]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[The Truro Bear and Other Adventures, a companion volume to Owls and Other Fantasies and Blue Iris, brings together ten new poems, thirty-five of Oliver’s classic poems, and two essays all about mammals, insects, and reptiles. The award-winning poet considers beasts of all kinds: bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, hermit crabs, and, of course, her beloved but disobedient little dog, Percy.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780061923821</link>
<description><![CDATA[ The Apple Trees at Olema includes work from Robert Hass's first five booksField Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood, and Time and Materialsas well as a substantial gathering of new poems, including a suite of elegies, a series of poems in the form of notebook musings on the nature of storytelling, a suite of summer lyrics, and two experiments in pure narrative that meditate on personal relations in a violent world and read like small, luminous novellas.   From the beginning, his poems have seemed entirely his own: a complex hybrid of the lyric line, with an unwavering fidelity to human and nonhuman nature, and formal variety and surprise, and a syntax capable of thinking through difficult things in ways that are both perfectly ordinary and really unusual. Over the years, he has added to these qualities a range and a formal restlessness that seem to come from a skeptical turn of mind, an acute sense of the artifice of the poem and of the complexity of the world of lived experience that a poem tries to apprehend.   Hass's work is grounded in the beauty of the physical world. His familiar landscapesSan Francisco, the northern California coast, the Sierra high countryare vividly alive in his work. His themes include art, the natural world, desire, family life, the life between lovers, the violence of history, and the power and inherent limitations of language. He is a poet who is trying to say, as fully as he can, what it is like to be alive in his place and time. His styleformed in part by American modernism, in part by his long apprenticeship as a translator of the Japanese haiku masters and Czeslaw Miloszcombines intimacy of address, a quick intelligence, a virtuosic skill with long sentences, intense sensual vividness, and a light touch. It has made him immensely readable and his work widely admired. ]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[8]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Hass]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Ecco]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780061923821]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[ The Apple Trees at Olema includes work from Robert Hass's first five booksField Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under Wood, and Time and Materialsas well as a substantial gathering of new poems, including a suite of elegies, a series of poems in the form of notebook musings on the nature of storytelling, a suite of summer lyrics, and two experiments in pure narrative that meditate on personal relations in a violent world and read like small, luminous novellas.   From the beginning, his poems have seemed entirely his own: a complex hybrid of the lyric line, with an unwavering fidelity to human and nonhuman nature, and formal variety and surprise, and a syntax capable of thinking through difficult things in ways that are both perfectly ordinary and really unusual. Over the years, he has added to these qualities a range and a formal restlessness that seem to come from a skeptical turn of mind, an acute sense of the artifice of the poem and of the complexity of the world of lived experience that a poem tries to apprehend.   Hass's work is grounded in the beauty of the physical world. His familiar landscapesSan Francisco, the northern California coast, the Sierra high countryare vividly alive in his work. His themes include art, the natural world, desire, family life, the life between lovers, the violence of history, and the power and inherent limitations of language. He is a poet who is trying to say, as fully as he can, what it is like to be alive in his place and time. His styleformed in part by American modernism, in part by his long apprenticeship as a translator of the Japanese haiku masters and Czeslaw Miloszcombines intimacy of address, a quick intelligence, a virtuosic skill with long sentences, intense sensual vividness, and a light touch. It has made him immensely readable and his work widely admired. ]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Leavings]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781582435343</link>
<description><![CDATA["In turns quiet, exuberant, heartbreaking, and always reflective, Wendell Berry strikes the soul again.  Berry is a master of the craft, and this new collection of poetry is no exception.  While some poems wander through Port William, the fictional town around which his novels revolve, others directly confront current issues surrounding politics, war, automobiles, mountaintop removal, and society's separation from the landscape.  Endorsed by both our customers and my mule, who listened quietly as I read to her." -- April, Grass Roots Books & Music, Corvallis, OR]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Leavings]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[9]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Wendell Berry]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Counterpoint]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9781582435343]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[In turns quiet, exuberant, heartbreaking, and always reflective, Wendell Berry strikes the soul again.  Berry is a master of the craft, and this new collection of poetry is no exception.  While some poems wander through Port William, the fictional town around which his novels revolve, others directly confront current issues surrounding politics, war, automobiles, mountaintop removal, and society's separation from the landscape.  Endorsed by both our customers and my mule, who listened quietly as I read to her.]]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[April, Grass Roots Books & Music, Corvallis, OR]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-11-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780231150842</link>
<description><![CDATA[In this beautiful collection of poems and paintings, Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, joins with David Allen Sibley, America's foremost bird illustrator, to celebrate the winged creatures that have inspired so many poets to sing for centuries. From Catullus and Chaucer to Robert Browning and James Wright, poets have long treated birds as powerful metaphors for beauty, escape, transcendence, and divine expression. Here, in this substantial anthology, more than one hundred contemporary and classic poems are paired with close to sixty original, ornithologically precise illustrations. Part poetry collection, part field guide, part art book, "Bright Wings" presents verbal and visual interpretations of the natural world and reminds us of our intimate connection to the "bright wings" around us. Each in their own way, these poems and pictures honor the enchanting creatures that have been, and continue to be, longtime collaborators with the poet's and painter's art.Poet and bird pairings include: Wallace Stevens and the Blackbird; Emily Dickinson and the Robin; Marianne Moore and the Frigate Pelican; Thomas Hardy and the Goldfinch; Sylvia Plath and the Pheasant; John Updike and the Seagull; Walt Whitman and the Eagle; Billy Collins and the Sparrow.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[10]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Billy Collins (Ed.), David Allen Sibley (Illus.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Columbia Univ. Press]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780231150842]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[In this beautiful collection of poems and paintings, Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, joins with David Allen Sibley, America's foremost bird illustrator, to celebrate the winged creatures that have inspired so many poets to sing for centuries. From Catullus and Chaucer to Robert Browning and James Wright, poets have long treated birds as powerful metaphors for beauty, escape, transcendence, and divine expression. Here, in this substantial anthology, more than one hundred contemporary and classic poems are paired with close to sixty original, ornithologically precise illustrations. Part poetry collection, part field guide, part art book, "Bright Wings" presents verbal and visual interpretations of the natural world and reminds us of our intimate connection to the "bright wings" around us. Each in their own way, these poems and pictures honor the enchanting creatures that have been, and continue to be, longtime collaborators with the poet's and painter's art.Poet and bird pairings include: Wallace Stevens and the Blackbird; Emily Dickinson and the Robin; Marianne Moore and the Frigate Pelican; Thomas Hardy and the Goldfinch; Sylvia Plath and the Pheasant; John Updike and the Seagull; Walt Whitman and the Eagle; Billy Collins and the Sparrow.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-12-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Gift]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780140195811</link>
<description><![CDATA[With this stunning gift edition of 250 of Hafiz's most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in translating the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and religious voices.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Gift]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[11]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky (Trans.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Compass]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780140195811]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[With this stunning gift edition of 250 of Hafiz's most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in translating the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and religious voices.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>1999-08-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Red Bird]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068939</link>
<description><![CDATA[This latest book by the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winner is distinctive among her 17 volumes for . . . the hard lesson that this earth is fallen and fragile . . . and unless we learn to cherish [it], we will destroy it--"America" magazine.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Red Bird]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[12]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068939]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[This latest book by the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winner is distinctive among her 17 volumes for . . . the hard lesson that this earth is fallen and fragile . . . and unless we learn to cherish [it], we will destroy it--"America" magazine.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Sailing Alone Around the Room]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780375755194</link>
<description><![CDATA[Sailing Alone Around the Room, by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, contains both new poems and a generous gathering from his earlier collections The Apple That Astonished Paris, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. These poems show Collins at his best, performing the kinds of distinctive poetic maneuvers that have delighted and fascinated so many readers. They may begin in curiosity and end in grief; they may start with irony and end with lyric transformation; they may, and often do, begin with the everyday and end in the infinite. Possessed of a unique voice that is at once plain and melodic, Billy Collins has managed to enrich American poetry while greatly widening the circle of its audience.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Sailing Alone Around the Room]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[13]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Billy Collins]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Random House]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780375755194]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Sailing Alone Around the Room, by America’s Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, contains both new poems and a generous gathering from his earlier collections The Apple That Astonished Paris, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. These poems show Collins at his best, performing the kinds of distinctive poetic maneuvers that have delighted and fascinated so many readers. They may begin in curiosity and end in grief; they may start with irony and end with lyric transformation; they may, and often do, begin with the everyday and end in the infinite. Possessed of a unique voice that is at once plain and melodic, Billy Collins has managed to enrich American poetry while greatly widening the circle of its audience.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2002-09-17T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Evidence]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068984</link>
<description><![CDATA["Simple and unadorned, Evidence, invites the reader to pass through the transcendent beauty of the natural world and the mysteries of life, love and death.  Oliver lightly places uncomplicated images, unfastening a complex world, inviting imagery that falls quietly onto the heart like the music of a summer rain." -- Dianne Bruhin, Colorado State Univ. Bookstore, Fort Collins, CO]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Evidence]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[14]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068984]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Simple and unadorned, Evidence, invites the reader to pass through the transcendent beauty of the natural world and the mysteries of life, love and death.  Oliver lightly places uncomplicated images, unfastening a complex world, inviting imagery that falls quietly onto the heart like the music of a summer rain.]]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[Dianne Bruhin, Colorado State Univ. Bookstore, Fort Collins, CO]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Essential Rumi]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780062509598</link>
<description><![CDATA[The best-selling Rumi book ever is now better than ever! This revised and expanded edition of the comprehensive one-volume edition of America′s most popular poet includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks, and 57 new poems never published before.   The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of Rumi is more popular than ever, and The Essential Rumi continues to be far and away the top-selling title of all Rumi books. With the addition of many new poems and a new introduction, The Essential Rumi is now clearly the definitive, and most delightful selection of Rumi′s poetry.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Essential Rumi]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[15]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jalal al-Din Rumi, Coleman Barks (Trans.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Harper]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780062509598]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[The best-selling Rumi book ever is now better than ever! This revised and expanded edition of the comprehensive one-volume edition of America′s most popular poet includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks, and 57 new poems never published before.   The ecstatic, spiritual poetry of Rumi is more popular than ever, and The Essential Rumi continues to be far and away the top-selling title of all Rumi books. With the addition of many new poems and a new introduction, The Essential Rumi is now clearly the definitive, and most delightful selection of Rumi′s poetry.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>1997-02-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Good Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780142003442</link>
<description><![CDATA[Every day people tune in to The Writer's Almanac on public radio and  hear Garrison Keillor read them a poem. And here, for the first time, is an anthology of poems from the show, chosen by Keillor for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m."  Good Poems includes verse about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendance. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It's a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Good Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[16]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Garrison Keillor (Ed.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Penguin]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780142003442]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Every day people tune in to The Writer's Almanac on public radio and  hear Garrison Keillor read them a poem. And here, for the first time, is an anthology of poems from the show, chosen by Keillor for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m."  Good Poems includes verse about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendance. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It's a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2003-08-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Good Poems for Hard Times]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780143037675</link>
<description><![CDATA[Chosen by Garison Keillor for his readings on public radio's The Writer's Almanac, the 185 poems in this follow-up to his acclaimed anthology Good Poems are perfect for our troubled times. Here, readers will find solace in works that are bracing and courageous, organized into such resonant headings as "Such As It Is More or Less" and "Let It Spill." From William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman to R. S. Gwynn and Jennifer Michael Hecht, the voices gathered in this collection will be more than welcome to those who've been struck by bad news, who are burdened by stress, or who simply appreciate the power of good poetry.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Good Poems for Hard Times]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[17]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Garrison Keillor (Ed.)]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Penguin]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780143037675]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Chosen by Garison Keillor for his readings on public radio's The Writer's Almanac, the 185 poems in this follow-up to his acclaimed anthology Good Poems are perfect for our troubled times. Here, readers will find solace in works that are bracing and courageous, organized into such resonant headings as "Such As It Is More or Less" and "Let It Spill." From William Shakespeare and Walt Whitman to R. S. Gwynn and Jennifer Michael Hecht, the voices gathered in this collection will be more than welcome to those who've been struck by bad news, who are burdened by stress, or who simply appreciate the power of good poetry.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2006-09-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Shadow of Sirius]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781556593109</link>
<description><![CDATA["The breath is what I keep coming back to in the poetry of Merwin; his pacing is impeccable. If you didn't get out of the city this summer, this is a perfect trip to take into the landscape. If you still can, take this with you; it will deepen your valleys and soften your light." -- Rebecca Armstrong, McNally Jackson Books, New York, NY]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Shadow of Sirius]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[18]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[W.S. Merwin]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Copper Canyon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9781556593109]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[The breath is what I keep coming back to in the poetry of Merwin; his pacing is impeccable. If you didn't get out of the city this summer, this is a perfect trip to take into the landscape. If you still can, take this with you; it will deepen your valleys and soften your light.]]></dc:description>
<dc:contributor><![CDATA[Rebecca Armstrong, McNally Jackson Books, New York, NY]]></dc:contributor>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-10-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[New and Selected Poems, Volume 2]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068878</link>
<description><![CDATA[Mary Oliver has been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and in that time she has become America’s foremost poetic voice on our experience of the physical world. This collection presents forty-two new poemsan entire volume in itselfalong with works chosen by Oliver from six of the books she has published since New and Selected Poems, Volume One.Oliver’s poetry is of the Earth, and about the Earth, and as these poems give voice to the planet, they render human life more beautiful, more sentient, more meaningful.” Karen McCarthy, ForeWordMary Oliver, the winner of numerous prizes, is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her works include New and Selected Poems, Volume One (Beacon / 6877-9 / $16.00 pb) and At Blackwater Pond (Beacon / 0700-6 / $19.95 audio). She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.A P R I L]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[New and Selected Poems, Volume 2]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[19]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068878]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Mary Oliver has been writing poetry for nearly five decades, and in that time she has become America’s foremost poetic voice on our experience of the physical world. This collection presents forty-two new poemsan entire volume in itselfalong with works chosen by Oliver from six of the books she has published since New and Selected Poems, Volume One.Oliver’s poetry is of the Earth, and about the Earth, and as these poems give voice to the planet, they render human life more beautiful, more sentient, more meaningful.” Karen McCarthy, ForeWordMary Oliver, the winner of numerous prizes, is one of the most celebrated and best-selling poets in America. Her works include New and Selected Poems, Volume One (Beacon / 6877-9 / $16.00 pb) and At Blackwater Pond (Beacon / 0700-6 / $19.95 audio). She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.A P R I L]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2007-04-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Song of Myself: And Other Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781582435718</link>
<description><![CDATA["Song of Myself," the premier poem in Leaves of Grass, is widely believed to be one of the most important poems in American literature. A large part of the brilliance of "Song of Myself" is the raffish playfulness of its diction--the poem belongs to the mid-nineteenth century's love of wordplay that also characterizes the work of Dickens and Twain. Walt Whitman was deeply interested in the American language as it was emerging in his time. He wrote about American dictionaries and was fascinated by the vocabularies of the sciences and the streets. There is a story that Walt Whitman was a regular visitor to the New York Public Library, where he loved to peer into the provenience of the words he overheard and read. Robert Hass and Paul Ebenkamp's lexicon walks us through his greatest poem and, in their footsteps, much is revealed about the words Whitman chose in 1855--their inflections, meanings, and native usages we wouldn't otherwise know. We are made to understand, perhaps truly for the first time, Whitman's query in "Song of Myself": "Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?" In the first part of the collection, Hass offers an introduction to the poem and then, with Ebenkamp, a rich annotation of "Song of Myself." The second part of this book includes poems from across the span of Whitman's career, selected by Hass, that give us a fresh look at the beauty, authority, and sweep of Whitman's work.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Song of Myself: And Other Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[20]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walt Whitman]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Counterpoint]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9781582435718]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA["Song of Myself," the premier poem in Leaves of Grass, is widely believed to be one of the most important poems in American literature. A large part of the brilliance of "Song of Myself" is the raffish playfulness of its diction--the poem belongs to the mid-nineteenth century's love of wordplay that also characterizes the work of Dickens and Twain. Walt Whitman was deeply interested in the American language as it was emerging in his time. He wrote about American dictionaries and was fascinated by the vocabularies of the sciences and the streets. There is a story that Walt Whitman was a regular visitor to the New York Public Library, where he loved to peer into the provenience of the words he overheard and read. Robert Hass and Paul Ebenkamp's lexicon walks us through his greatest poem and, in their footsteps, much is revealed about the words Whitman chose in 1855--their inflections, meanings, and native usages we wouldn't otherwise know. We are made to understand, perhaps truly for the first time, Whitman's query in "Song of Myself": "Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?" In the first part of the collection, Hass offers an introduction to the poem and then, with Ebenkamp, a rich annotation of "Song of Myself." The second part of this book includes poems from across the span of Whitman's career, selected by Hass, that give us a fresh look at the beauty, authority, and sweep of Whitman's work.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-02-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Why I Wake Early: New Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780807068793</link>
<description><![CDATA[Mary Oliver continues to tutor us in attention, gratitude, and reverence in this new collection of forty-seven poems.”Frederick and Mary Brussat, Spirituality and HealthPraise for Owls and Other Fantasies:Mary Oliver is beautiful and accurate in this book of poetry and prose about birdsall rendered with the precision of a line-drawing of a single feather that puts the entire wing into perspective.” Orion Praise for Mary Oliver’s poetry:These are life enhancing and redemptive poems that coax the sublime from the subliminal.” Sally Connolly, PoetryMary Oliver’s poems are natural growths out of a loam of perception and feeling, and instinctive skill with language makes them seem effortless. Reading them is a sensual delight.” May SwensonThe gift of Oliver's poetry is that she communicates the beauty she finds in the world and makes it unforgettable” Miami Herald]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Why I Wake Early: New Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[21]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Oliver]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Beacon]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780807068793]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Mary Oliver continues to tutor us in attention, gratitude, and reverence in this new collection of forty-seven poems.”Frederick and Mary Brussat, Spirituality and HealthPraise for Owls and Other Fantasies:Mary Oliver is beautiful and accurate in this book of poetry and prose about birdsall rendered with the precision of a line-drawing of a single feather that puts the entire wing into perspective.” Orion Praise for Mary Oliver’s poetry:These are life enhancing and redemptive poems that coax the sublime from the subliminal.” Sally Connolly, PoetryMary Oliver’s poems are natural growths out of a loam of perception and feeling, and instinctive skill with language makes them seem effortless. Reading them is a sensual delight.” May SwensonThe gift of Oliver's poetry is that she communicates the beauty she finds in the world and makes it unforgettable” Miami Herald]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2005-04-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Inferno]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780451531391</link>
<description><![CDATA[Belonging in the company of the works of Homer and Virgil, The Inferno is a moving human drama, a journey through the torment of Hell, an expression of the Middle Ages, and a protest against the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Inferno]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[22]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dante Alighieri]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Signet Classics]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780451531391]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Belonging in the company of the works of Homer and Virgil, The Inferno is a moving human drama, a journey through the torment of Hell, an expression of the Middle Ages, and a protest against the ways in which men have thwarted the divine plan.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Mass Market Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2009-10-01T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[Love Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811217293</link>
<description><![CDATA[Charged with sensuality and passion, Pablo Neruda's love poems are the most celebrated of the Nobel Prize winner's oeuvre, captivating readers with earthbound images and reveling in a fiery re-imagining of the world. Mostly written on the island paradise of Capri (the idyllic setting of the Oscar-winning movie Il Postino), Love Poems embraces the seascapes surrounding the poet and his love Matilde Urrutia, their waves and shores saturated with a new, yearning eroticism. And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body, bells shake the sky, and a hymn fills the world. (c) 1973 by Neruda & Walsh]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[Love Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[23]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Pablo Neruda]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[New Directions]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780811217293]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Charged with sensuality and passion, Pablo Neruda's love poems are the most celebrated of the Nobel Prize winner's oeuvre, captivating readers with earthbound images and reveling in a fiery re-imagining of the world. Mostly written on the island paradise of Capri (the idyllic setting of the Oscar-winning movie Il Postino), Love Poems embraces the seascapes surrounding the poet and his love Matilde Urrutia, their waves and shores saturated with a new, yearning eroticism. And when you appear all the rivers sound in my body, bells shake the sky, and a hymn fills the world. (c) 1973 by Neruda & Walsh]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2008-01-01T00:00:00-05:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[The Trouble With Poetry: And Other Poems]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780375755217</link>
<description><![CDATA[Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins. With his distinct voice and accessible language, America’s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed. Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation, intense wonder, and a reverence for the everyday: “The birds are in their trees, / the toast is in the toaster, / and the poets are at their windows. / They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earth–the Chinese poets looking up at the moon, / the American poets gazing out / at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.” Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn’t have to be obscure or incomprehensible, qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with most “serious” poetry: “By now, it should go without saying / that what the oven is to the baker / and the berry-stained blouse to the drycleaner / so the window is to the poet.” In this dazzling new collection, his first in three years, Collins explores boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time, and, of course, writing–themes familiar to Collins’s fans but made new here. Gorgeous, funny, and deeply empathetic, Billy Collins’s poetry is a window through which we see our lives as if for the first time.]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[The Trouble With Poetry: And Other Poems]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[24]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Billy Collins]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[Random House]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780375755217]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins. With his distinct voice and accessible language, America’s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed. Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation, intense wonder, and a reverence for the everyday: “The birds are in their trees, / the toast is in the toaster, / and the poets are at their windows. / They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earth–the Chinese poets looking up at the moon, / the American poets gazing out / at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise.” Through simple language, Collins shows that good poetry doesn’t have to be obscure or incomprehensible, qualities that are perhaps the real trouble with most “serious” poetry: “By now, it should go without saying / that what the oven is to the baker / and the berry-stained blouse to the drycleaner / so the window is to the poet.” In this dazzling new collection, his first in three years, Collins explores boyhood, jazz, love, the passage of time, and, of course, writing–themes familiar to Collins’s fans but made new here. Gorgeous, funny, and deeply empathetic, Billy Collins’s poetry is a window through which we see our lives as if for the first time.]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Paperback]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2007-03-13T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
</item>

<item>
<title><![CDATA[White Egrets]]></title>
<link>http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780374289294</link>
<description><![CDATA[A DAZZLING NEW COLLECTION FROM ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POETS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his careerthe Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, his love of the Western literary tradition, the wisdom that comes through the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural worldwith an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening the possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language. White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth centurya celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, andperhaps most surprisinglygetting older.                                                       Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. He is the author of eight collections of plays and a book of essays. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. White Egrets is his fourteenth collection of poems.                                In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his careerhis love of the Western literary tradition, the Caribbean's complex colonial legacy, the wisdom that comes with the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural worldwith an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening in possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language.  White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth centurya celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, andperhaps most surprisinglygetting older.                                                                     "More than almost any other contemporary poet, Derek Walcott might seem to be fulfilling T. S. Eliot’s program for poetry. He has distinguished himself in all of what Eliot described as the 'three voices of poetry': the lyric, the narrative or epic, and the dramatic . . . Walcott has deliberately avoided the confessional path pioneered by his early friend and supporter Robert Lowell, choosing instead a post-Romantic voice, closely allied with landscape, in which the particulars of a life are incidental to a larger poetic vision, one in which the self is not the overt subject. All the more striking, then, is Walcott’s new book, White Egretsfor it is both visionary, in the best sense of that word, and intensely personal, even autobiographical. It is an old man’s book, craving one more day of light and warmth; and it is a book of stoic reckoning . . . These poems do achieve an extraordinary intimacy of tone, but they also conjure, for that reader, a full spectrum of responses to mortality, from calm ('I reflect quietly on how soon I will be going') through self-mocking ('What? You’re going to be Superman at seventy-seven?') to something darker ('the pitch of para­lysed horror / that his prime is past'). And it is the calm that impresses most, after the disturbances of passion, as Walcott speaks of 'that peace / beyond desires and beyond regrets / at which I may arrive eventually.' White Egrets is also a reckoning with a lifetime’s artistic practice, a measuring of the self against immortals: Wyatt, Surrey and Clare among poets, and among artists (for Walcott is also an accomplished painter, though severe in his judgment of himself) Mantegna, Crivelli and Sarto, Hals, Rubens and Rembrandt . . . For all this new book’s awareness of one geographical location, its true achievement lies in what we might call a pelagic poetic consciousness. Walcott is, in some way, 'homelessly at home,' as Richard Wilbur once said. The mind of these poems exists simultaneously in St. Lucia and in Sicily (after all, St. Lucythe patron saint of light or visioncame from the Italian city of Syracuse); in a harbor that is at once Rodney Bay, Venice and Stockholm; under a mountain that is both the Petit Piton and the Matterhorn. This is the simultaneous vision that allowed Walcott’s epic Omeros to range so effortlessly across the Atlantic Ocean and to exist in the Old World and the New, though in this late work the tide pulls strongly eastward."Karl Kirchwey, The New York Times Book Review]]></description>
<ttl>360</ttl>
<dc:title><![CDATA[White Egrets]]></dc:title>
<bsbl:rank><![CDATA[25]]></bsbl:rank>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Derek Walcott]]></dc:creator>
<dc:publisher><![CDATA[FSG]]></dc:publisher>
<dc:identifier><![CDATA[9780374289294]]></dc:identifier>
<dc:description><![CDATA[A DAZZLING NEW COLLECTION FROM ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POETS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his careerthe Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, his love of the Western literary tradition, the wisdom that comes through the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural worldwith an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening the possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language. White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth centurya celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, andperhaps most surprisinglygetting older.                                                       Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. He is the author of eight collections of plays and a book of essays. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. White Egrets is his fourteenth collection of poems.                                In White Egrets, Derek Walcott treats the characteristic subjects of his careerhis love of the Western literary tradition, the Caribbean's complex colonial legacy, the wisdom that comes with the passing of time, the always strange joys of new love, and the sometimes terrifying beauty of the natural worldwith an intensity and drive that recall his greatest work. Through the mesmerizing repetition of theme and imagery, Walcott creates an almost surflike cadence, broadening in possibilities of rhyme and meter, poetic form and language.  White Egrets is a moving new collection from one of the most important poets of the twentieth centurya celebration of the life and language of the West Indies. It is also a triumphant paean to beauty, love, art, andperhaps most surprisinglygetting older.                                                                     "More than almost any other contemporary poet, Derek Walcott might seem to be fulfilling T. S. Eliot’s program for poetry. He has distinguished himself in all of what Eliot described as the 'three voices of poetry': the lyric, the narrative or epic, and the dramatic . . . Walcott has deliberately avoided the confessional path pioneered by his early friend and supporter Robert Lowell, choosing instead a post-Romantic voice, closely allied with landscape, in which the particulars of a life are incidental to a larger poetic vision, one in which the self is not the overt subject. All the more striking, then, is Walcott’s new book, White Egretsfor it is both visionary, in the best sense of that word, and intensely personal, even autobiographical. It is an old man’s book, craving one more day of light and warmth; and it is a book of stoic reckoning . . . These poems do achieve an extraordinary intimacy of tone, but they also conjure, for that reader, a full spectrum of responses to mortality, from calm ('I reflect quietly on how soon I will be going') through self-mocking ('What? You’re going to be Superman at seventy-seven?') to something darker ('the pitch of para­lysed horror / that his prime is past'). And it is the calm that impresses most, after the disturbances of passion, as Walcott speaks of 'that peace / beyond desires and beyond regrets / at which I may arrive eventually.' White Egrets is also a reckoning with a lifetime’s artistic practice, a measuring of the self against immortals: Wyatt, Surrey and Clare among poets, and among artists (for Walcott is also an accomplished painter, though severe in his judgment of himself) Mantegna, Crivelli and Sarto, Hals, Rubens and Rembrandt . . . For all this new book’s awareness of one geographical location, its true achievement lies in what we might call a pelagic poetic consciousness. Walcott is, in some way, 'homelessly at home,' as Richard Wilbur once said. The mind of these poems exists simultaneously in St. Lucia and in Sicily (after all, St. Lucythe patron saint of light or visioncame from the Italian city of Syracuse); in a harbor that is at once Rodney Bay, Venice and Stockholm; under a mountain that is both the Petit Piton and the Matterhorn. This is the simultaneous vision that allowed Walcott’s epic Omeros to range so effortlessly across the Atlantic Ocean and to exist in the Old World and the New, though in this late work the tide pulls strongly eastward."Karl Kirchwey, The New York Times Book Review]]></dc:description>
<dc:format><![CDATA[Hardcover]]></dc:format>
<dc:date>2010-03-16T00:00:00-04:00</dc:date>
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