Confessions Of A Mad Poet

Baghdad Letters is a collection of correspondence, journals and photographs compiled by a young couple from Texas in Iraq from September 1966 to May 1967. From the book: Baghdad preferred professors with a Texas accent since the Iraqis had problems understanding the oilfield personnel working there, most of whom were from places like Odessa, Texas. On the flight from London, I told a British soldier, "I'm going to Baghdad to teach English." He threw his head back and laughed, "My God, you don't even SPEAK it!" he said. This isn't just a different culture, or even civilization. It is a different Time, a different world. In the desert at midnight we came upon a roadblock. An Iraqi soldier with a machine gun shined a light in our faces and filthy troops crowded around the car to look at us. "Where you go?" "Baghdad," I said. "La," (No) he said, looking at Carole, "You stay tonight with me." I tried not to show the jolt of fear that went through me. But the women are getting college degrees, even going into engineering, I've heard-- My students may be the first, and someday things may change.

" CONFESSIONS OF A POET " is a story of love. In this book you will find happiness, despair, humor, sadness and maybe just a little bit of yourself; what I have learned is: THERE REALLY IS LIGHT AFTER DARKNESS AND THE HUMAN HEART, WHILE SOMETIMES FRAGILE, BEATS STRONGEST WHEN YOU DARE TO DREAM! This collection is my legacy; a gift I choose to share...finally. I open my heart, once more, to let you in.

After a fire destroyed her home, Robin Gabbert realized she had lost all of her handwritten poetry which she had never bothered to computerize. Gone?all the pieces of work going back to her teenage years, decades ago. It was only in the last year before the fire that she started writing again. Several decades of working as a lawyer and raising a family seemed to have intervened, but now all of it was gone. Her condo was reduced to ashes within an hour after she fled. It has now been three years since the fire.She is writing again and decided, after a sufficient period of mourningand self-pity, that she would try to recreate, to the extent possible, those earlier works of poetry that she lost. This book is the result of that endeavor. The first part of the book, The Fledging, is comprised largely of the poems of her youth,reconstituted, or poems about her youth, recently written. The second part of the book, Downs and Ups, is poems written since the fire. The fire and its fallout are a thread that runs through many of these poems like a particularlyvirulent strain of a nasty virus; one that just won't seem to go away. However, it's not in her nature to lay down anddie.

"The Art of Confession tells the history of this cultural shift and of the movement it created in American art: confessionalism. Like realism or romanticism, confessionalism began in one art form, but soon pervaded them all: poetry and comedy in the 1950s and '60s, performance art in the '70s, theater in the '80s, television in the '90s, and online video and social media in the 2000s. Everywhere confessionalism went, it stood against autobiography, the art of the closed book. Instead of just publishing, these artists performed--with, around, and against the text of their lives." --

"Hilarious…This book charmed my socks off." —Patricia O’Conner, New York Times Book Review Mary Norris has spent more than three decades working in The New Yorker’s renowned copy department, helping to maintain its celebrated high standards. In Between You & Me, she brings her vast experience with grammar and usage, her good cheer and irreverence, and her finely sharpened pencils to help the rest of us in a boisterous language book as full of life as it is of practical advice. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Amazon, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal.