Jim Elledge - Böcker

"Every lovesick summer has its song,And this one I pretended to despise.But if I were alone when it came on,I turned it up full-blast to sing along—A primal scream in croaky baritone,The notes all flat, the lyrics mostly slurred—No wonder I spent so much time alongMaking the rounds in Dad's old Thunderbird."—From "Cruising with the Beach Boys" by Dana GioiaNo one should be surprised that rock and roll music turns up in the work of many of the Baby-Boom poets, where it conjures up poignant memories, evokes a specific mood, or haunts the poets' psychic landscape. Arranged in a loosely thematic manner, the 125 poems in Sweet Nothings mirror the varied forms of rock and roll, mimic its sounds, bask in its innocence, draw inspiration from its rebelliousness. For this collection Jim Elledge has gathered works by 79 poets, among them some of the most highly regarded poets of our time: Frank O'Hara, Joyce Carol Oates, David Wojahn, Thom Gunn, Rita Dove, Lynda Hull, Albert Goldbarth, Lisel Mueller, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gary Soto, William Matthews. In the final section of the book the poets comment on the relationship between their works and rock and roll.

"What a great premise for an anthology! And it succeeds, both in its celebration of our crazy culture and its fascinating analysis, through the poems, of popular myths that have stood the test of time." —KliattIn the past few decades, poetry about and around popular culture has become a very hip contemporary art form. Real Things is a collection of over 150 poems by more than 130 poets who themselves represent the cultural diversity of the United States. With subjects ranging from the influence of Mickey Mouse on child-raising to the relationship of Barbie to sex in America, from the societal effects of the movie Psycho to our fascination with dirty politics and Ralph Kramden, the poems in this anthology question and celebrate the attitudes that our society shares.

Masquerade is the most comprehensive anthology yet published of poetry by American gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons. It includes representative poems from more than 100 writers from pre-colonial times to the end of the Second World War. The anthology begins with selections of anonymous texts from the oral traditions of Hawaii and Native America, followed by voodoo chants and cowboy songs (with a few limericks thrown in for good measure). The selections are arranged by the year of the poet's birth and include samplings of poetry by a racially and ethnically diverse group of men and women. Contemporary readers will know the work of some of these poets, such as Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman. Other poets, such as George Santayana and Adah Isaacs Menken, will be strangers to most. In all, these poets created a rich heritage of verse that has been for the most part masked throughout the history of American literature.