Selected Poems And Songs

Celebrated as a novelist and made famous by her novel Anne of Green Gables and its sequels, L.M. Montgomery (1874–1942) is far less known for also writing and publishing hundreds of poems over a period of half a century.Although this output included a chapbook and a full-length collection in which she presented herself primarily as a nature poet, most of her poems appeared in periodicals, including women’s magazines, farm papers, faith-based periodicals, daily and weekly newspapers, and magazines for children. As a shrewd businesswoman, she learned to find the balance between literary quality and commercial saleability and continued to publish poetry even though it paid less than short fiction. A World of Songs: Selected Poems, 1894–1921, the second volume in The L.M. Montgomery Library, gathers a selection of fifty poems originally published across a twenty-five-year period. Benjamin Lefebvre organizes this work within the context of Montgomery’s life and career, claiming her not only as a nature poet but also as the author of a wider range of "songs": of place, of memory, of lamentation, of war, of land and sea, of death, and of love. Many of these poems echo motifs that readers of Montgomery’s novels will recognize, and many more explore surprising perspectives through the use of male speakers. These poems offer today’s readers a new facet of the career of Canada’s most enduringly popular author.

'The Poetic Genius of my Country...bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural pleasures of my natal Soil, in my native tongue.' Many of the poems and songs of Robert Burns (1759-96) are familiar to readers the world over: lyrical, acerbic, comic, bawdy, democratic. They include 'To a Mouse', 'John Anderson my Jo', 'A red red Rose', 'Auld lang syne', 'Tam o 'Shanter' and many more, whose vernacular energy and simple beauty have ensured lasting popularity. This generous new selection offers Burns's work as it was first encountered by contemporary readers, presenting the texts in the contexts in which they were originally published. It reproduces the whole of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect published at Kilmarnock in 1786, the volume which made Burns famous; and it reunites a generous selection of songs from The Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Scottish Airs with their full scores. Comprehensive notes describe the circumstances in which other poems and songs found their way into print, both before and after the poet's death. The edition also includes some important letters, and a full glossary to explain Scots words.

A magnificent selection of song lyrics and poems from across the storied career of one of the most daring and affecting poet-songwriters in the world. In the more than half century since his first book of poems was published, Leonard Cohen has evolved into an international cult figure who transcends genres and generations. This anthology contains a cross section of his five decades of influential work, including such legendary songs as “Suzanne,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “Bird on the Wire,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” and “I’m Your Man” and searingly memorable poems from his many acclaimed poetry collections, including Flowers for Hitler, Beautiful Losers, and Death of a Lady’s Man. Encompassing the erotic and the melancholy, the mystical and the sardonic, this volume showcases a writer of dazzling intelligence and live-wire emotional immediacy.

In the decades since he recorded his first album, Leonard Cohen has evolved into an international cult figure--and one of the most literate, daring, and affecting poet-songwriters in the world. Stranger Music presents a magnificent cross-section of Cohen's work--including the legendary songs "Suzanne," "Sisters of Mercy," "Bird on a Wire," "Famous Blue Raincoat," "I'm Your Man," and "The Future"; selections from such books as Flowers for Hitler, Beautiful Losers, and Death of a Lady's Man, and eleven previously unpublished poems. This volume demonstrates definitively that Cohen is a writer of dazzling intelligence and a force that transcends genres.

Claimed by some to have been compiled by Confucius in the 5th century BCE, the Book of Songs is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry. Produced using traditional Chinese bookbinding techniques, this newly-translated edition is a selected anthology of 25 classic poems presented in an exquisite dual-language edition.

Champion of Chinese classics and the growth of the Chinese poetic tradition, Song Lin is one of China’s most innovative poets. When the Tiananmen protest exploded in Beijing in June 1989, Song led student demonstrations in Shanghai and was imprisoned for almost a year before leaving China soon afterwards. This selection of poems, made by the translator Dong Li and the poet himself, spans four decades of poetic exploration, with a focus on poems written during the poet’s long stay in France, Singapore, Argentina, and more recently, his return to China. As a result of his wanderings, Song Lin may be thought of as an international poet, open to an unusual extent to influences – though informed by the classics and a thorough study of the Chinese language, his poetry weaves through American, French, and Latin-American traditions. His influences are the modernists, the surrealists, the romantics, the deep imagists and the objectivists—but what distinguishes Song is his ability to absorb them all, and make them his own. From the experience of displacement and exile, his poetry continues to open and expand its horizons.

Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934) is considered Israel's national poet and one of the greatest Hebrew poets of all time. Several of his poems, particularly his immensely popular children's verse, were set to music and proved to be among the most popular twentieth-century Hebrew songs. An essayist, storyteller, translator, and editor, he had a unique ability to use fully the entire linguistic and conceptual inventory of the Hebrew language. Bialik's career was a turning point in Hebrew literature, bringing Biblical Hebrew into a contemporary usage and forming the basis of its renewed vigor. His legacy remains embedded in modern Hebrew literature like an immovable foundation stone. Atar Hadari's new translation of Bialik's major poetry fills a long-standing gap in English letters.

A comprehensive collection of the poetry and song lyrics of Leonard Cohen, taken from Cohen's eight books of poetry and 11 record albums. Includes some poems not previously published.