Bonfire Opera

Winner, 2021 Northern California Book Award Finalist, 2021 Patterson Poetry Prize Sometimes the most compelling landscapes are the ones where worlds collide: where a desert meets the sea, a civilization, no-man’s land. Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden. Coyotes cry out on the hill, and lovers find themselves kissing, “bee-stung, drunk” in the middle of road. Here, the dust is holy, as is the dark, unknown. These are poems that praise the impossible, wild world, finding beauty in its wake.

Winner of the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Contest, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye. This stunning debut collection explores family culture, motherhood, and memory.

Vintage Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style. "No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review) “A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” (The New Republic) Sherman McCoy, the central figure of Tom Wolfe's first novel, is a young investment banker with a fourteen-room apartment in Manhattan. When he is involved in a freak accident in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, the police, the clergy, and assorted hustlers high and low close in on him, licking their chops and giving us a gargantuan helping of the human comedy, of New York in the 1980s, a city boiling over with racial and ethnic hostilities and burning with the itch to Grab It Now. Wolfe's novel is a big, panoramic story of the metropolis that reinforces the author's reputation as the foremost chronicler of the way we live in America. Adapted to film in 1990 by director Brian De Palma, the movie stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, and Morgan Freeman.

At fifteen, Tamara has survived the foster-care system through brains, will and attitude. Now there's high school to get through, along with her teacher's latest community project -- volunteering at the local seniors' home. Tamara doubts she can endure either the residents or the smells. Then she's assigned to Jean Barclay, a cranky, wealthy and frail former schoolteacher. As the two size one another up, they realize each is the key to achieving their own very different goals. Miss Barclay wants to attend an opera in Seattle -- a trip doctors insist she's too weak to undertake. Tamara wants to enroll in modeling school in Vancouver -- an expense she can't begin to afford. They plan the road trip of a lifetime -- but can these two bossy, manipulative women keep from throttling each other before their goals are realized?

What we can learn about caregiving and community from the Victorian novel In Communities of Care, Talia Schaffer explores Victorian fictional representations of care communities, small voluntary groups that coalesce around someone in need. Drawing lessons from Victorian sociality, Schaffer proposes a theory of communal care and a mode of critical reading centered on an ethics of care. In the Victorian era, medical science offered little hope for cure of illness or disability, and chronic invalidism and lengthy convalescences were common. Small communities might gather around afflicted individuals to minister to their needs and palliate their suffering. Communities of Care examines these groups in the novels of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Henry James, and Charlotte Yonge, and studies the relationships that they exemplify. How do carers become part of the community? How do they negotiate status? How do caring emotions develop? And what does it mean to think of care as an activity rather than a feeling? Contrasting the Victorian emphasis on community and social structure with modern individualism and interiority, Schaffer’s sympathetic readings draw us closer to the worldview from which these novels emerged. Schaffer also considers the ways in which these models of carework could inform and improve practice in criticism, in teaching, and in our daily lives. Through the lens of care, Schaffer discovers a vital form of communal relationship in the Victorian novel. Communities of Care also demonstrates that literary criticism done well is the best care that scholars can give to texts.

A radically different approach to social and environmental justice work for fans of adrienne maree brown and Bessel van der Kolk Instead of thinking about social justice as a process that starts with changing people's minds, Embodied Activism understands our bodies--how we feel in them and relate to others through them--as the sites of transformation How do ordinary people with busy lives leverage our actions in support of liberation, justice, and authentic connection? How can activists and social change-makers avoid burning out? How does the body factor into what our social movements miss? Drawing on the somatic arts, trauma-informed psychology, and anti-oppressive movements, Embodied Activism helps us explore and transform the political realities of our everyday lives in a new way: by harnessing the felt experience of our bodies as the sites of our activism. Rae Johnson teaches us to listen to our body language--and to question body image norms. They show us how to reconnect to our sensual capacities, which we can lose sight of in a non-stop, nervous-system-hijacking world. They give us tools and exercises to nourish ourselves and protect our bodies, minds, and spirits from the toll that activism can take. And they teach us about nonverbal communication styles and how to connect with each other in joyful, authentic community. Embodied Activism is written for embodiment professionals, community organizers, and all readers looking for new tools and perspectives for changing the world, one body at a time.

Ancient Light is a timely and innovative collection by renowned Anishinaabe poet Kimberly Blaeser. It looks squarely at pressing social issues of our time while simultaneously invoking Indigenous pathways of kinship, healing, and renewal.

The Strategic Poet: Honing the Craft focuses on the craft of poetry and is based on the belief that craft can be taught and the best teacher of craft is a good poem. This book assumes a knowledgeable reader, that is, one who already knows the language of poetry and already practices the craft. This book is organized into thirteen sections, each one devoted to a specific poetic strategy. While only thirteen strategies are used for organizational purposes, the reader will find many additional strategies referred to and discussed within the sections. There is a progression from one section to the next, but each section also stands alone, so the reader or teacher can follow the order of the Contents or move about freely among the sections. Each section begins with a Craft Talk solicited from a well-known poet with a clear mastery of craft. Each Craft Talk is followed by Model Poems and Prompts. Each Model Poem is followed by an analysis of its craft elements, especially its use of the section's strategy. One Model Poem in each section is followed by a Commentary from the poet who wrote the poem and is focused on a particular strategy used in the poem. Each of the thirty-six Prompts is followed by two Sample Poems written to the prompts. These seventy-two poems demonstrate that the prompts are not mere exercises and can produce terrific poems. Each section ends with three Bonus Prompts. There thirty-nine additional prompts were contributed by thirteen contemporary poets. These short prompts provide additional practice with the strategies, can be used multiple times, and should lead to some good poems. Contributors include 114 of our best contemporary poets. This book is suitable for use by poets working independently, by poets in writing groups, and by teachers in the classroom.