Staff Picks - Jace

"In this wise and intimate telling--which carries us through the seasons when her marriage was ending--Sharon Olds opens her heart to the reader, sharing the feeling of invisibility that comes when we are no longer standing in love's sight; the surprising physical bond that still exists between a couple during parting; the loss of everything from her husband's smile to the set of his hip. Olds is naked before us, curious and brave and even generous...

"Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle - and rewards - of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, in concert with the themes of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented...

"In 1851 the Town Council of Santa Barbara appointed a committee to apply names to the fifty-two new streets being created ... they gave names to our streets that portrayed the geography and botany of our town, honored the Chumash, early settlers, governors, and showed a distinct sense of humor ... Author and local historian Neal Graffy shares with us the stories behind the names."--P. [4] of cover.

From Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda comes Intimacies--a beautiful companion to On the Blue Shore of Silence--showcasing some of Neruda's most extraordinary love poems, and once again married with Mary Heebner's earthy, evocative paintings. The poems in this collection remind us that love is woven through all life, and that amorous love is only but the tip of such a powerful emotion. This collection presents Neruda at the height of his powers, with some...

"An exploration and manifesto investigating the power of reading--and our potential to become radically better readers in the world"--

"Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places. Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a darkened ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, coexistence,...

"Tropicalia is a collection of poems by Emma Trelles, winner of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. The book is a melodic union between the green insistence of the subtropics and the city ensconced within. Trelles's language is detailed and startling, her poems infused with color and light, and the secret beauty of back alleys and parking lots is seamed to sorrow, hope, and land. Rock bands play among odes to Lorca and Chagall, and the hard news of protest...

This anthology features poems by Mark Doty, Ross Gay, Donald Hall, Marie Howe, Naomi Shihab Nye and many others. These poets, from all walks of life, and from all over America, prove to us the possibility of creating in our lives what Dr. Martin Luther King called the "beloved community," a place where we see each other as the neighbors we already are. Healing the Divide urges us, at this fraught political time, to move past the negativity that often...

Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame is poetry full of gambling, drinking and women. Charles Bukowski writes realistically about the seedy underbelly of life.