“Nabokovian in his caustic charm and sexy intelligence, Simic perceives the mythic in the mundane and pinpoints the perpetual suffering that infuses human life with both agony and bliss. . . . And he is the master of juxtaposition, lining up the unlikeliest of pairings and contrasts as he explores the nexuses of madness and prophecy, hell and paradise, lust and death.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist "As one reads the pithy, wise, occasionally cranky epigrams and vignettes that fill this volume, there is the definite sense that we are getting a rare glimpse into several decades worth of private journals--and, by extension are privy to the tickings of an accomplished and introspective literary mind."—Rain Taxi Written over many years, this book is a collection of notebook entries by our current Poet Laureate. Excerpts: Stupidity is the secret spice historians have difficulty identifying in this soup we keep slurping. Ars poetica: trying to make your jailers laugh. American identity is really about having many identities simultaneously. We came to America to escape our old identities, which the multiculturalists now wish to restore to us. Ambiguity is the world’s condition. Poetry flirts with ambiguity. As a “picture of reality” it is truer than any other. This doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to write poems no one understands. The twelve girls in the gospel choir sang as if dogs were biting their asses. What an outrage! This very moment gone forever!

An insightful and haunting new collection from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic Irreverent and sly, observant and keenly imagined, Come Closer and Listen is the latest work from one of our most beloved poets. With his trademark sense of humor, open-hearted empathy, and perceptive vision, Charles Simic roots his poetry in the ordinary world while still taking in the wide sweep of the human experience. From poems pithy, wry, and cutting—“Time—that murderer/that no has caught yet”—to his layered reflections on everything from love to grief to the wonders of nature, from the story of St. Sebastian to that of a couple weeding side by side, Simic’s work continues to reveal to us an unmistakable voice in modern poetry. An innovator in form and a chronicler of both our interior lives and the people we are in the world, Simic remains one of our most important and lasting voices on the page.

Offers a guide to monsters of all shapes and sizes, including the minotaur and the kraken, with a review of their menacing homes, stories about them, and the damage they have wrought on humans both on land and by sea.

A colorful combination of storytelling, poets, poetry, and railways presented using America's fifty states as a backdrop. 3 men who travel the U.S.A. in the year of 2012... To write a written documentary on Poets and the Railroad in our times... When they sleep they get taken back in time to the 19th Century, when the roads were built, and they have such great experiences, and meet key Poets, and figures... Upon waking they have conversations about Poets from the 20th Century, and RxR events... Then it goes into their written documentary on Poetry and Poets now... Main Characters that Andy and Red and Train Marshal Charlie journey within their Dreams, and they are Alphonso G. Newcomer, Mad Bear, Jung Hem Sing, Mr. Welchberry, Patrick O'Hara, Jimmy New Orleans, and many more

To save her kidnapped best friend and crush, Zadie must complete an enchanted deadly labyrinth riddled with illusions. Her only hope of survival depends on forming an alliance with the only person who knows the safe path through—a murderous boy she can’t trust.

'In recession-chastened, soddenly staycationing Britain, Foley may well have devised a new bestseller format: a how-to book offering a way of escape ... [a] lovely book' Guardian It has always been difficult to appreciate everyday life, often devalued as dreary, banal and burdensome, and never more so than in a culture besotted with fantasy, celebrity and glamour. Yet, with characteristic wit and earthiness, Michael Foley - author of the bestselling The Age of Absurdity - draws on the works of writers, thinkers and artists who have celebrated and examined the ordinary life, and encourages us to delight in the complexities of the everyday. With astute observation, Foley brings fresh insights to such things as the banality of everyday speech, the madness and weirdness of snobbery, love and sex, and the strangeness of the everyday environment, such as the office. It is all more fascinating, comical and mysterious than you think. Intelligent, funny and entertaining, Foley shows us how to find contentment and satisfaction by embracing the ordinary things in life. 'A convincing argument for the beauty of the seemingly banal… ' Scotsman

Charles Simic and the Poetics of Uncertainty provides the first full account of the poetics of the former US Poet Laureate, who is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed English-language poets writing today. The book argues for uncertainty as the center of Simic’s poetics and addresses the ways that his poetry grows from and navigates various forms of uncertainty. Donovan McAbee addresses uncertainty regarding the national character of Simic’s poetry and how this is complicated by Simic’s identity as a Yugoslavian refugee to the United States. The book assesses the theological and linguistic uncertainties of Simic’s poetry and explores the ways that Simic articulates the aesthetic space created by poems, as a safe place of encounter for the reader. The book argues for the role of humor as a primary mode that holds together the uncertainties of Simic’s poetry, and finally, it articulates the way that within these uncertainties, Simic develops a deeply humane political poetry of survival. Along the way, Simic’s work is placed in conversation with key influences and other important American and international poets and writers, including James Tate, Mark Strand, Charles Wright, Nicanor Parra, Vasko Popa, and others.