"Portions of this book appeared in various forms in American poetry, Poetry, and Poets & writers"--T.p. verso.

Dean Young's poems are as entertaining and imaginative as a three-ring circus painted by Hieronymous Bosch

"In Young's work, the big essential questions—mortality, identity, the meaning of life—aren't simply food for thought; they're grounds for entertainment."—Toronto Star "Surrealism seldom seems as much like real life as in Young's hilarious and cautionary poems."—Booklist Bender gathers a generous selection of new work along with treasure from Dean Young's twelve volumes. Strongly influenced by Surrealism, Dean Young's poems flash with extravagant imagery, humorous speech, sly views of the quotidian, and the exposed nerves of heartache. As the American Academy of Arts and Letters raved, "Young's poems are as entertaining as a three-ring circus and as imaginative as a canvas by Hieronymus Bosch. He is one of the most inventive and satisfying poets writing today." From "Even Funnnier Looking Now": If someone had asked me then, Do you suffer from the umbrage of dawn's dark race horses, is your heart a prisoner of raindrops? Hell yes! I would have said or No way! Never would I have said, What could you possibly be talking about? I had just gotten to the twentieth century like a leftover girder from the Eiffel Tower. My Indian name was Pressure-Per-Square-Inch. I knew I was made of glass but I didn't yet know what glass was made of: hot sand inside me like pee going all the wrong directions, probably into my heart which I knew was made of gold foil glued to dust . . .

"Poetry is the sound of language organized in lines." James Longenbach opens The Art of the Poetic Line with that essential statement. Through a range of examples - from Shakespeare and Milton to Ashbery and Glück - Longenbach describes the function of line in metered, rhymed, syllabic, and free-verse poetry. That function is sonic, he argues, and our true experience of it can only be identified in relation to other elements in a poem. Syntax and the interaction of different kinds of line endings are primary to understanding line, as is the relationship of lineated poems to prose poetry. The Art of the Poetic Line is a vital new resource by one of America's most important critics and one of poetry's most engaging practitioners.

The award-winning poet Carl Phillips's invaluable essays on poetry, the tenth volume in the celebrated Art of series of books on the craft of writing In seven insightful essays, Carl Phillips meditates on the craft of poetry, its capacity for making a space for possibility and inquiry. What does it mean to give shapelessness a form? How can a poem explore both the natural world and the inner world? Phillips demonstrates the restless qualities of the imagination by reading and examining poems by Ashbery, Bogan, Frost, Niedecker, Shakespeare, and others, and by considering other art forms, such as photography and the blues. The Art of Daring is a lyrical, persuasive argument for the many ways that writing and living are acts of risk. "I think it's largely the conundrum of being human that makes us keep making," Phillips writes. "I think it has something to do with revision—how, not only is the world in constant revision, but each of us is, as well."

The next book in the red-hot RECKLESS series is here! ""Oh man, this book pushed every crime fiction button for me...Bliss."" —PATTON OSWALT Bestselling crime noir masters ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS bring us a new original graphic novel starring troublemaker-for-hire Ethan Reckless. It's 1988, and Ethan has been hired for his strangest case yet: finding the secrets of a Los Angeles real estate mogul. How hard could that be, right? But what starts as a deep dive into the life of a stranger will soon take a deadly turn, and Ethan will risk everything that still matters to him. Another smash hit from the award-winning creators of RECKLESS, PULP, MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES, CRIMINAL, and KILL OR BE KILLED—and a must-have for all BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS fans!

A new provocative love story from the New York Times bestselling author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things. “The story of Zee and Gentry is the reason we read.” —Brunonia Barry Their journey will break them—or save them. A moving and complicated love story for our time, The Reckless Oath We Made redefines what it means to be heroic. Zee has never admitted to needing anybody. But she needs Gentry. Her tough exterior shelters a heart that’s loyal to the point of self-destruction, while autistic Gentry wears his heart on his sleeve, including his desire to protect Zee at all costs. When an abduction tears Zee’s family apart, she turns to Gentry—and sets in motion a journey and a love that will change their lives forever. “[A] mind-blowing book that has left me scrambling to pick up the pieces of my brain and my shattered heart . . . Prepare to have your mind and heart expanded to their limits.” —The Oklahoman