Beautiful Poems Beautiful Places

I loved to sit at my Mother’s feet and as she read poems and I repeatedly said, “read it again.” I memorized every one. The first day of school I recited one to my teacher about teachers and got on her good side. As time rolled on, writing Poetry and Prose had competition with Music and many other talents. I became an English Teacher and later acquired a PhD. God has given me many talents along with a love for travel to enjoy the great beautiful world He has placed us in. I am truly Blest. Beautiful Poems Beautiful Places is a small treasure of my experience. I would love for them to be your experience. Writing Poetry soothes my spirit like standing by a stream while I watch the water flow. Writing Poetry is equal to looking out from the peer and over the vast spread of rolling waves coming in and going out, rejoicing to know that God is in full Control. Writing Poetry is precisely like climbing to the Mountain Top and at the Summit experience the closeness of Majesty. I hope that you sense this as you read my book. Writing or Reading Poetry is many more things that give sweet peace. My desire is to encourage and spread hope or, perhaps, implant smiles along life’s way.

Twenty-nine poems from the 1950's.

The sequel to Ferlinghetti's "A Coney Island of the Mind", this sequence of 100 poems with recurrent themes includes various sections on love, art, music, history, and literature, as well as confrontations with major figures in the avant-garde before the arrival of the Beat generation.

What is beauty? Can it only be viewed in physical form, or can it be something deeper, an idea or feeling? Perhaps there is no better way to explore these questions of beauty than through poetry. Author Sheila Griffin Llanas discusses eight poems and poets, with chapters on William Shakespeare, Phillis Wheatley, Edgar Allan Poe, and five others. Accompanied by biographical information on the poet and end-of-chapter questions for further study, Llanas closely examines each poem, including detailed analysis of form, content, poetic technique, and theme, encouraging readers to develop the tools to understand and appreciate poetry.

Featuring “Good Bones”—called “Official Poem of 2016” by the BBC/Public Radio International. Maggie Smith writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they've just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot. These are poems that stare down darkness while cultivating and sustaining possibility, poems that have a sense of moral gravitas, personal urgency, and the ability to address a larger world. Maggie Smith's previous books are The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison (Tupelo, 2015), Lamp of the Body (Red Hen, 2005), and three prize-winning chapbooks: Disasterology (Dream Horse, 2016), The List of Dangers (Kent State, 2010), and Nesting Dolls (Pudding House, 2005). Her poem “Good Bones” has gone viral—tweeted and translated across the world, featured on the TV drama Madam Secretary, and called the “Official Poem of 2016” by the BBC/Public Radio International, earning news coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, the Guardian, and beyond. Maggie Smith was named the 2016 Ohio Poet of the Year. “Smith's voice is clear and unmistakable as she unravels the universe, pulls at a loose thread and lets the whole thing tumble around us, sometimes beautiful, sometimes achingly hard. Truthful, tender, and unafraid of the dark....”—Ada Limón “As if lost in the soft, bewitching world of fairy tale, Maggie Smith conceives and brings forth this metaphysical Baedeker, a guidebook for mother and child to lead each other into a hopeful present. Smith's poems affirm the virtues of humanity: compassion, empathy, and the ability to comfort one another when darkness falls. 'There is a light,' she tells us, 'and the light is good.'”—D. A. Powell “Good Bones is an extraordinary book. Maggie Smith demonstrates what happens when an abundance of heart and intelligence meets the hands of a master craftsperson, reminding us again that the world, for a true poet, is blessedly inexhaustible.”—Erin Belieu

"David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one. . . . Beautiful & Pointless is a clear-eyed, opinionated, and idiosyncratic guide to a vibrant but endangered art form, essential reading for anyone who loves poetry, and also for those of us who mostly just admire it from afar." —Tom Perrotta Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.

"Angular, smart, and fearless, Arisa White's newest collection takes its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians, reworking, re-envisioning, and re- embodying language as a conduit for art, love, and understanding." --