Following the success of Poetry Out Loud (now in its eighth printing), an affectionate celebration of the declaimed poem, Love Poetry Out Loud now turns to the choppier waters of affection itself. From Hello, I Love You to Pleasures of the Flesh to Loves Me Not, this collection of one hundred poems shouts out life’s grand passion with the help of the voices of poets old and new. Rubin’s informed, irreverent style skillfully reveals the humor, beauty, variety, tradition, and passion of love poetry. Insightful commentary on the poems’ meanings and on ways to read them aloud, as well as notes on their history and background, are found on every page. Whether long lived like Shakespeare’s sonnets or newly-hewn like Carolyn Forché’s “Taking Off My Clothes,” Love Poetry Out Loud makes each poem as fresh and inspiring as the first time it was uttered.

Creates a muscular but elegant language of the author's own slangy, youthful, up to the minuet jargon and vernacular of his native Northern England. He combines this with an easily worn erudition, plenty of nouns and the benefit of blinkered experience.

These gently fragmented narrative lyrics pursue enlightenment in long, elegant yet plain-spoken, dark yet ecstatic lines. Ali travels by water and by night, seeking the Far Mosque and its overarching paradox: that when God and Self are one, an ascent into Heaven is a voyage within.

The sound of ships' bells, sea waves, and migratory birds fuel Neruda's longing to retreat from life's noisy busyness. Stripped to essentials, these poems are some of the last Neruda ever wrote, as he pulled "one dream out of another." Includes the final lovesong to his wife, written in the past tense: "It was beautiful to live / When you lived!" Bilingual with introduction. "Deeply personal, expansive, and universal... majestic and understated beauty."ÑPublishers Weekly

"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.