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Lyn Hejinian is among the most prominent of contemporary American poets. Her poem My Life has garnered accolades and fans inside and outside academia. First published in 1980, and revised in 1987 and 2002, My Life is now firmly established in the postmodern canon. This Wesleyan edition includes the 45-part prose poem sequence along with a closely related ten-part work titled My Life in the Nineties. An experimental intervention into the autobiographical genre, My Life explores the many ways in which language-the things people say and the ways they say them-shapes not only their identity, but also the very world around them.

Lyric meditations on writing poetry in a time of ecological crisis and right wing populism_x000D__x000D_During the time of an increasingly powerful alt-right which was also the time when species extinction was ever increasing, Juliana Spahr sat down to read Brecht. She was looking for an answer to Brecht's question about the dark times, about whether there will also be singing during the dark times. The answer that Brecht provides is that yes, that poets will sing of the dark times. In the six ars poeticas that Spahr writes, she sings of the dark times but also of coral, the pop song's possible liberation, and the love of comrades. She writes not only of the rich history of what politics and poetry have done with each other, but what they might yet do together._x000D__x000D_[Sample Poem]_x000D__x000D_from ARS POETICA 1: CORAL _x000D__x000D_To write poetry after Castle Bravo._x000D_Then to write poetry after 1500 feet._x000D_After high-quality steel frame buildings_x000D_not completely collapsed, except_x000D_all panels and roofs blown in._x000D_After 2,000 feet._x000D_After reinforced concrete buildings collapsed_x000D_or standing but badly damaged._x000D_After 3,500 feet._x000D_After church buildings completely destroyed._x000D_After brick walls severely cracked._x000D_After 4,400 feet._x000D_After 5,300 feet._x000D_After roof tiles bubbled and melted._x000D_After 6,500 feet._x000D_After mass distortion of large steel buildings._x000D_To write the Cold War and doves._x000D_The Cold War and tapeworms._x000D_The Cold War and sails of ships._x000D_The Cold War and the steel of bridges._x000D_To write poetry after that._x000D_To write in a world with few nutrients,_x000D_one that rocks back and forth._x000D_The same beginning in both the sea and the land._x000D_To write poetry that knows a hard, cup-shaped skeleton._x000D_And then poetry that knows_x000D_the long, stinging tentacles capturing._x000D_Knows the water._x000D_The Atlantic and the Pacific._x000D_The connections between._x000D_The one moving into the other._x000D_To develop poetry in the stomach_x000D_that then exits through the mouth_x000D_which is the anus._x000D_To write poetry in the blue_x000D_that is the absence of green._x000D_Light penetration._x000D_Whorls of tentacles._x000D_The slime earth too._x000D_Hunters and farmers._x000D_Shallow water._x000D_Few nutrients._x000D_High fecundity._x000D_Rapid growth._x000D_Multiarmed morphology and tube feet._x000D_To write tube feet._x000D_To write the exact place._x000D_Seaward slope place._x000D_Sea terrace place._x000D_Algal ridge place._x000D_Coral algal zone place._x000D_Seaward reef flat place._x000D_Islet or interisland reef crest place._x000D_Lagoon reef flat place._x000D_Lagoon terrace place._x000D_Lagoon floor or basin place._x000D_Coral knolls, pinnacle and patch reefs place._x000D_To write poetry after.

Observant and visionary poems offer way stations amidst turmoil_x000D_/>_x000D_/>Acclaimed author Rae Armantrout's remarkable new collection Safe Rooms, explores the undercurrents of modern life with an unflinching eye on human nature, social malaise, and the unsettling ways in which we attempt to protect ourselves from a world that continually undermines our sense of safety. As the title poem says: "your thoughts /roar and echo//around you—originating/god knows where.// You try to plug your ears/but you are an ear/ that can't stop listening." Through poems that examine our darker impulses—our tendencies to self-destruct, to grapple with envy, and to navigate the intricate web of family dynamics—Armantrout captures the complex, often contradictory ways in which we search for meaning and connection. Her work holds a mirror to the forces shaping us, both intimate and vast, showing that the so-called "safe rooms" we construct are fragile, temporary shelters, not havens from the chaos that surrounds us._x000D_/>_x000D_/>[sample poem]_x000D_/>_x000D_/>THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE_x000D_/>_x000D_/>        1_x000D_/>_x000D_/>An atom "is localized_x000D_/>by an interaction"_x000D_/>_x000D_/>the way you surprise yourself_x000D_/>by expressing an opinion_x000D_/>_x000D_/>when asked,_x000D_/>_x000D_/>one you didn't know you had_x000D_/>and may not hold_x000D_/>_x000D_/>for long._x000D_/> _x000D_/> _x000D_/>        2_x000D_/> _x000D_/>A subatomic particle is not_x000D_/>its mass or spin_x000D_/> _x000D_/>the way a person_x000D_/>is not a body_x000D_/> _x000D_/>and a poem is not_x000D_/>what it says.

Elegy for a broken world and all it—we—might still become._x000D_/>_x000D_/>Love Like a Body Carried to Shore, from award-winning poet Abigail Chabitnoy, is an invitation to listen. This ecologically and emotionally charged collection explores continuity through water and weather, through the intimacies of relation, where knowing is a bodied verb. Moving with a tidal rhythm across its unsectioned form, the book weaves ancestral memory with myth. It stays with the work of environmental witness and extends its meditation to the permeability between human and animal. Domestic spaces blur with the mythic. The self emerges inside the landscape._x000D_/>_x000D_/>Engaging Indigenous and Judeo-Christian cosmologies, Chabitnoy reconfigures these frames into openings toward mutuality. Amid ecological and cultural precarity, the poems enact reclamation, seeking moments outside of causal time, where future catastrophe loosens its hold long enough for the body to remember what it is to love the world and be loved by it._x000D_/>_x000D_/>[sample poem]_x000D_/>_x000D_/>NOT A DRILL_x000D_/>_x000D_/>The berries were not _x000D_/>ripe we plucked and _x000D_/>burst on our tongues._x000D_/>_x000D_/>We bent low to thumb_x000D_/>each foreign body that_x000D_/>opened_x000D_/>_x000D_/>held our breath to _x000D_/>record erratics _x000D_/>glissading_x000D_/>from the mountains we _x000D_/>left standing_x000D_/> the sigh of icemelts_x000D_/>_x000D_/>the rust we smelled_x000D_/>already monument._x000D_/>_x000D_/>It was love we _x000D_/>pressed our fingers_x000D_/>through_x000D_/>the honeyed fungus _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we let the _x000D_/>shallow rooted _x000D_/>spruce stand _x000D_/>where no one had need _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we sang to _x000D_/>chase the bears _x000D_/>from the _x000D_/>brush _x000D_/>_x000D_/>we projected _x000D_/>on the iceberg _x000D_/>when the dark was _x000D_/>sufficient _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we refrained _x000D_/>from throwing _x000D_/>stones at the_x000D_/>muddied lake. _x000D_/>_x000D_/>Sea weeding  _x000D_/>through green _x000D_/>it was love  _x000D_/>we did not pluck _x000D_/>the unsightly _x000D_/>growth  from the  _x000D_/>supple  _x000D_/>earth.

Elegy for a broken world and all it—we—might still become._x000D_/>_x000D_/>Love Like a Body Carried to Shore, from award-winning poet Abigail Chabitnoy, is an invitation to listen. This ecologically and emotionally charged collection explores continuity through water and weather, through the intimacies of relation, where knowing is a bodied verb. Moving with a tidal rhythm across its unsectioned form, the book weaves ancestral memory with myth. It stays with the work of environmental witness and extends its meditation to the permeability between human and animal. Domestic spaces blur with the mythic. The self emerges inside the landscape._x000D_/>_x000D_/>Engaging Indigenous and Judeo-Christian cosmologies, Chabitnoy reconfigures these frames into openings toward mutuality. Amid ecological and cultural precarity, the poems enact reclamation, seeking moments outside of causal time, where future catastrophe loosens its hold long enough for the body to remember what it is to love the world and be loved by it._x000D_/>_x000D_/>[sample poem]_x000D_/>_x000D_/>NOT A DRILL_x000D_/>_x000D_/>The berries were not _x000D_/>ripe we plucked and _x000D_/>burst on our tongues._x000D_/>_x000D_/>We bent low to thumb_x000D_/>each foreign body that_x000D_/>opened_x000D_/>_x000D_/>held our breath to _x000D_/>record erratics _x000D_/>glissading_x000D_/>from the mountains we _x000D_/>left standing_x000D_/> the sigh of icemelts_x000D_/>_x000D_/>the rust we smelled_x000D_/>already monument._x000D_/>_x000D_/>It was love we _x000D_/>pressed our fingers_x000D_/>through_x000D_/>the honeyed fungus _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we let the _x000D_/>shallow rooted _x000D_/>spruce stand _x000D_/>where no one had need _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we sang to _x000D_/>chase the bears _x000D_/>from the _x000D_/>brush _x000D_/>_x000D_/>we projected _x000D_/>on the iceberg _x000D_/>when the dark was _x000D_/>sufficient _x000D_/>_x000D_/>love we refrained _x000D_/>from throwing _x000D_/>stones at the_x000D_/>muddied lake. _x000D_/>_x000D_/>Sea weeding  _x000D_/>through green _x000D_/>it was love  _x000D_/>we did not pluck _x000D_/>the unsightly _x000D_/>growth  from the  _x000D_/>supple  _x000D_/>earth.

Three ground-breaking works from a master of modern science fictionTo the short list that includes Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as founding fathers of science fiction, the name of the Belgian writer J.-H. Rosny aîné must be added. He was the first writer to conceive, and attempt to narrate, the workings of aliens and alternate life forms. His fascination with evolutionary scenarios, and long historical vistas, from first man to last man, are important precursors to the myriad cosmic epics of modern science fiction. Until now, his work has been virtually unknown and unavailable in the English-speaking world, but it is crucial for our understanding of the genre. Three wonderfully imaginative novellas are included in this volume. "The Xipehuz" is a prehistoric tale in which the human species battles strange geometric alien life forms. "Another World" is the story of a mysterious being who does not live in the same acoustic and temporal world as humans. "The Death of the Earth" is a scientifically uncompromising Last Man story. The book includes an insightful critical introduction that places Rosny's work within the context of evolutionary biology.

Anni Albers (1899 - 1994) was one of the most influential textile designers of the 20th century. Born in Berlin, in 1922 she became a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where she met her husband, Josef Albers. From 1933 to 1949 Albers taught at Black Mountain College. The fifteen essays gathered here illustrate Anni Albers's concept of design as the pursuit of wholeness -- "the coalition of form answering practical needs and form answering aesthetic needs." This beautifully illustrated book addresses the artistic and practical concerns of modern design and considers the ever-changing role of the designer.Albers's work is in private collections and in those of leading museums both here and abroad. Among them are the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum Neue Sammlung in Munich, the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin, and the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. Her previous books include On Weaving (1965) and On Designing (1961), both published by Wesleyan

A multi-dimensional explosion hurls the starship's few passengers across the galaxies and onto an uncharted barren tundra. With no technical skills and scant supplies, the survivors face a bleak end in an alien world. One brave woman holds the daring answer, but it is the most desperate one possible.Elegant and electric, We Who Are About To... brings us face to face with our basic assumptions about our will to live. While most of the stranded tourists decide to defy the odds and insist on colonizing the planet and creating life, the narrator decides to practice the art of dying. When she is threatened with compulsory reproduction, she defends herself with lethal force. Originally published in 1977, this is one of the most subtle, complex, and exciting science fiction novels ever written about the attempt to survive a hostile alien environment. It is characteristic of Russ's genius that such a readable novel is also one of her most intellectually intricate.

Poetry that precisely conjures images of the war in Vietnam by an award-winning author.

The Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, was the site of two key political conventions in the early nineteenth century. The legislatures of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island sent official delegations to the first "Hartford Convention" at the end of 1814, when the War of 1812 was going badly. This convention threatened to make a separate peace with Britain if certain amendments to the United States Constitution were not accepted, and fell into disgrace when the war came to an unexpectedly favorable conclusion. The second convention, in 1818, drafted a constitution that reformed the structure of government established in the Charter of 1662 and submitted its handiwork to the people for approval. Parts of the Constitution of 1818 survive in Connecticut's present form of government.Original Discontents contains twenty-five selections of newspaper and pamphlet commentary about this constitutional revision, introduced and annotated by the editors, along with text of the Fundamental Orders of 1639, the Charter of Connecticut (1662), and the Constitution of 1818. This anthology is useful to all students of Connecticut history and relevant to enduring constitutional debates.

Theorizing the experiences of black and brown bodies in hip hop dance Baring Unbearable Sensualities brings together a bold methodology, an interdisciplinary perspective and a rich array of primary sources to deepen and complicate mainstream understandings of Hip Hop Dance, an Afro-diasporic dance form, which have generally reduced the style to a set of techniques divorced from social contexts. Drawing on close observation and interviews with Hip Hop pioneers and their students, Rosemarie A. Roberts proposes that Hip Hop Dance is a collective and sentient process of resisting oppressive manifestations of race and power. Roberts argues that the experiences of marginalized black and brown bodies materialize in and through Hip Hop Dance from the streets of urban centers to contemporary worldwide expressions. A companion web site contains over 30 video clips referenced in the text.

In Musical Resilience, Shalini Ayyagari shows how professional low-caste musicians from the Thar Desert borderland of Rajasthan, India have skillfully reinvented their cultural and economic value in postcolonial India. Before India's independence in 1947, the Manganiyar community of hereditary musicians were tied to traditional patrons over centuries and through hereditary ties. In postcolonial India, traditional patronage relations faded due to new political conditions, technological shifts, and cultural change. Ayyagari uses resilience, one of the most poignant keywords of our times, to understand how Manganiyar musicians sustain and enliven their cultural significance after the fading of traditional patronage.

In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful is a meditation on water, land, women, and violent environmental changes as they affect both the natural world and human migration. The poet reckons with the unsettling realities that women experience, questioning the cause and effect of events and asking why stories of oppression are so often simply accepted as the only stories. Alutiiq language is used throughout these poems that are in conversation with history, ancestors, and an uncertain future, in imagery that moves in waves, returning again and again to the ocean, and a deep visioning of the "current."

Lost in the woods with a horse, a mouse, and the ghost of a dead bird, you will discover if you're meant to live. In Sarah Blake's epic poem of survival, we follow a nameless main character lost in the woods. There, they discover the world anew, negotiating their place among the trees and the rain and the animals. Something brought them to the woods that nearly killed them, and they're not sure they want to live through this experience either. But the world surprises them again and again with beauty and intrigue. They come to meet a pregnant horse, a curious mouse, and a dead bird, who is set on haunting them all. Blake examines what makes us human when removed from the human world, what identity means where it is a useless thing, and how loss shapes us. In a stunning setting and with ominous dreams, In Springtime will take you into a magical world without using any magic at all—just the strangeness of the woods. 7. If only the night held one dream instead of many. In the next dream you dig up the bird. In the next dream you dig in the same place and find a gun. You've shot someone. You weren't supposed to return to this place where you hid the gun. You're an idiot in your dream. In the next dream the horse returns. The horse startles you awake. But you are still asleep. Dreams are some wicked things. In the next dream you are in a desert. That's different. You forget what grass is. What it smells like. What the shadows of trees look like across your legs. You laugh your head off at the sight of a cactus. In the next dream you can see the spirit of the bird that will haunt you for weeks. Her tongue makes you think all of her words will come out garbled. Then you remember all she does is sing.

The definitive guide to a major African American poet/>/>This volume promises to be the definitive guide to Calvin C. Hernton's unparalleled poetic career, re-introducing readers to a major voice in American poetry. Hernton was a cofounder of the Umbra Poets Workshop; a participant in the Black Arts Movement, R. D. Laing's Kingsley Hall, and the Antiuniversity of London; and a teacher at Oberlin College who counted amongst his friends bell hooks, Toni Morrison, and Odetta. As a pioneer in the field of Black Studies, Hernton developed a theoretical and practical pedagogy with lasting impact on generations of students. He may be best known as an anti-sexist sociologist, following in the footsteps of W.E.B. Du Bois, but Hernton viewed himself, above all, as a poet. This volume includes a generous selection of Hernton's previously published poems, from classics like the often anthologized "The Distant Drum" to the visionary epic The Coming of Chronos to the House of Nightsong, reprinted in full for the first time since 1964, alongside uncollected and unpublished material from the Calvin C. Hernton papers at Ohio University, a new critical introduction, and detailed notes, chronology, and bibliography./>/>[sample poem]/>/>The Distant Drum/>/>I am not a metaphor or symbol./>This you hear is not the wind in the trees./>Nor a cat being maimed in the street./>I am being maimed in the street/>It is I who weep, laugh, feel pain or joy./>Speak this because I exist./>This is my voice/>These words are my words, my mouth/>Speaks them, my hand writes./>I am a poet./>It is my fist you hear beating/>Against your ear.

The first comprehensive biography of the director behind Godzilla and other Japanese sci-fi classics. Ishiro Honda was arguably the most internationally successful Japanese director of his generation, with an unmatched succession of science fiction films that were commercial hits worldwide. From the atomic allegory of Godzilla and the beguiling charms of Mothra to the tragic mystery of Matango and the disaster and spectacle of Rodan, The Mysterians, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and many others, Honda's films reflected postwar Japan's real-life anxieties and incorporated fantastical special effects, a formula that appealed to audiences around the globe and created a popular culture phenomenon that spans generations. Now, in the first full account of this long overlooked director's life and career, authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski shed new light on Honda's work and the experiences that shaped it—including his days as a reluctant Japanese soldier, witnessing the aftermath of Hiroshima, and his lifelong friendship with Akira Kurosawa. Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa features close analysis of Honda's films (including, for the first time, his rarely seen dramas, comedies, and war films) and draws on previously untapped documents and interviews to explore how creative, economic, and industrial factors impacted his career. Fans of Honda, Godzilla, and tokusatsu (special effects) film, and of Japanese film in general, will welcome this in-depth study of a highly influential director who occupies a uniquely important position in science fiction and fantasy cinema, as well as in world cinema.  Together, the authors have provided audio commentary tracks and produced supplemental material for numerous home video releases, including Ishiro Honda's Godzilla for the British Film Institute. They co-produced the documentary feature Bringing Godzilla Down to Size (2008).

Native puppeteers from the White Earth Reservation travel to the 1962 World's Fair. In the summer of 1962, a group of young Native American puppeteers travel in a converted school bus from the White Earth Reservation to the Century 21 Exposition, World's Fair in Seattle, Washington. The five Natives, three young men and two young women, have endured abandonment, abuse, poverty, and find solace, humor, and courage with a mute puppeteer—a Native woman in her seventies who writes original dream songs, and creates hand puppets and ironic parleys that mock the ghosts of authority. Dummy Trout, the mute puppeteer, also figured in Native Tributes and Satie on the Seine. The troupe attends a performance of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and they create a puppet parley for Wovoka, the inspiration of the Native American Ghost Dance Religion.

Evie Shockley's new poems invite us to dream - and work - toward a more capacious "we"  In her new poetry collection, Evie Shockley mobilizes visual art, sound, and multilayered language to chart routes towards openings for the collective dreaming of a more capacious "we." How do we navigate between the urgency of our own becoming and the imperative insight that whoever we are, we are in relation to each other? Beginning with the visionary art of Black women like Alison Saar and Alma Thomas, Shockley's poems draw and forge a widening constellation of connections that help make visible the interdependence of everyone and everything on Earth. perched i am black, comely,a girl on the cusp of desire.my dangling toes take the restthe rest of my body refuses. spine upright,my pose proposes anticipation. i poisein copper-colored tension, intent onmanifesting my soul in the discouraging world. under the rough eyes of others, i stiffen. if i must be hard, it will be as a tree, alivewith change. inside me, a love of beauty riseslike sap, sprouts from my scalpand stretches forth. i send out my song, an ariablue and feathered, and grow toward it,choirs bare, but soon to bud. i amblack and becoming. - after Alison Saar's Blue Bird

The first bilingual edition of this radically original work Aimé Césaire's masterpiece, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, is a work of immense cultural significance and beauty. This long poem was the beginning of Césaire's quest for négritude, and it became an anthem of Blacks around the world. Commentary on Césaire's work has often focused on its Cold War and anticolonialist rhetoric—material that Césaire only added in 1956. The original 1939 version of the poem, given here in French, and in its first English translation, reveals a work that is both spiritual and cultural in structure, tone, and thrust. This Wesleyan edition includes the original illustrations by Wifredo Lam, and an introduction, notes, and chronology by A. James Arnold.

Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a work of loveIn Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection, we find, in the poet's words, that "the elegy is a mode that can transform a broken heart in a fierce world into a fierce heart in a broken world." For Gizzi, ferocity can be reimagined as vulnerability, bravery and discovery, a braiding of emotional and otherworldly depth, "a holding open." In Gizzi's voice joy and sorrow make a complex ecosystem. One of our foremost practitioners of the lyric, Gizzi here extends his mastery of the form. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a mode of love poetry as well. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature - the time & details of the world - meaning the space(s) in which we live - defining love in this way. Writing along the edge. A way of writing about hope."[sample poem]Creely Songall that is lovelyin words, evenif gone to piecesall that is lovelygone, all of itfor love andautobiographyas if I werewriting thishello, listenthe plan isthe body andall of it for lovenow in piecesall that is lovelyechoes stillin life & deathstill memorygardens openonto windowslovely, the charmthat mirrorsall that was, allthat is, lovelyin a song

Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a work of loveIn Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection, we find, in the poet's words, that "the elegy is a mode that can transform a broken heart in a fierce world into a fierce heart in a broken world." For Gizzi, ferocity can be reimagined as vulnerability, bravery and discovery, a braiding of emotional and otherworldly depth, "a holding open." In Gizzi's voice joy and sorrow make a complex ecosystem. One of our foremost practitioners of the lyric, Gizzi here extends his mastery of the form. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a mode of love poetry as well. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature - the time & details of the world - meaning the space(s) in which we live - defining love in this way. Writing along the edge. A way of writing about hope."[sample poem]Creely Songall that is lovelyin words, evenif gone to piecesall that is lovelygone, all of itfor love andautobiographyas if I werewriting thishello, listenthe plan isthe body andall of it for lovenow in piecesall that is lovelyechoes stillin life & deathstill memorygardens openonto windowslovely, the charmthat mirrorsall that was, allthat is, lovelyin a song

mahogany is about the passing of time and unimaginable loss, strength, humor, and lovemahogany takes its name from the dark wood prized for its durability, workability, and elegant look, and from the Diana Ross movie, whose theme song asks if what lies ahead is what you really want. This book is the third in a trilogy, and like the first two books it is steeped in pop music. Each poem here takes its title from a line of a Diana Ross and The Supremes song, as well as songs from Diana Ross' solo career. Short lines flow down the page like postmodern psalms, connecting dailyness to timelessness, merging the historical and the beloved through reverence for family, music, and the life we actually live. mahogany is a lament for the passing of time and unimaginable loss, and at the same time it models the daily search for joy, and the deep shine that can arise from the darkest times.

_mahogany_ takes its name from the dark wood prized for its durability, workability, and elegant look, and from the Diana Ross movie, whose theme song asks if what lies ahead is what you really want. This book is the third in a trilogy, and like the first two books it is steeped in pop music. Each poem here takes its title from a line of a Diana Ross and The Supremes song, as well as songs from Diana Ross' solo career. Short lines flow down the page like postmodern psalms, connecting dailyness to timelessness, merging the historical and the beloved through reverence for family, music, and the life we actually live. _mahogany_ is a lament for the passing of time and unimaginable loss, and at the same time it models the daily search for joy, and the deep shine that can arise from the darkest times.[sample poem]_i'm like a woman who once knew splendor*_sometimes i feel like the pink pantherall naked and pinklost in the morass ofdo the best you can todayand nigga heal thy selfour end of winterspirits breaklike old tibetan snowi rememberyou was conflictedand i found myself alonehere on my ancient hurtthe disquieting humof living historydear god, pleaseput my head above my heartwe can only be togetherif the stories are toldplain facesame instrumentjust a couple of coke bottlesfull of gasolinelike god and rainis a waste of timemy mother used to clean housesas a childsome days i can barelyget out of bedin my mindshe's like diana rossscrubbing the white lady's stairsin lady sings the bluesexcept prettierand with green eyesi've just been livingoff of cough dropsand water and angerjust sitting in the whole foodsparking lot eating pineapplei am literallythe definition of "hot mess"pain changes everythingsomebody comeand pick upmy limp bodyoff the groundi am dyinga slow ohio deathwe miss you starmanit's our first sunrise of the burn*"dark side of the world" erica lewis

Keen, pithy meditations on a world that continues to surprise us/>/>The poems in Pulitzer Prize-winner Rae Armantrout's new book are concerned with "this ongoing attempt/ to catalog the world" in a time of escalating disasters. From the bird who "check-marks morning/once more//like someone who gets up/to make sure// the door is locked" to bat-faced orchids, raising petals like light sails as if about to take flight, these poems make keen visual and psychological observations. The title Go Figure speaks to the book's focus on the unexpected, the strange, and the seemingly incredible so that: "We name things/ to know where we are." Moving with the deliberate precision that is a hallmark of Armantrout's work, they limn and refract, questioning how we make sense of the world, and ultimately showing how our experience of reality is exquisitely enfolded in words. "It's true things fall apart." Armantrout writes. 'Still, by thinking/we heat ourselves up."/>/>Sample Text/>/>HYPER-VIGILANCE/>/>Hilarious,/>/>the way a crab's slender/>eye-stalks/>stand straight up/>/>from its scuttling/>carapace—/>/>the way vigilance/>takes many forms?/>/> */>/>That bird check-marks morning/>once more/>/>like someone who gets up/>to make sure/>/>the door is locked./>/> */>/>I sound/>like I know/>what I'm talking about./>/>I sound like a comedian.

How conflicts between science and the humanities have shaped our understanding of the line between art and animal behavior  Over the past century and a half, the voices and bodies of animals have been used by scientists and music experts as a benchmark for measures of natural difference. Animal Musicalities traces music's taxonomies from Darwin to digital bird guides to show how animal song has become the starting point for enduring evaluations of species, races, and cultures. By examining the influential efforts made by a small group of men and women to define human diversity in relation to animal voices, this book raises profound questions about the creation of modern human identity, and the foundations of modern humanism.

A multivoiced dance history book, authored by twelve diverse choreographers  In an effort to deepen our understanding of what dance is and how it has functioned throughout human history, this prismatic book project is dedicated to an artist-centric perception of dance history. Diverse dance artists from the American dance field contribute personal views of how dance has unfolded over time, answering the question: "Who is in your imaginary dance family tree, FROM the beginning of time to YOU/now?" Twelve illustrated booklets, each written by a working choreographer, address the subject of dance history from nonacademic, subjective, poetic perspectives. The books model a way of enlarging and complicating how we view dance history by giving the authorial microphone to artists, to learn how their embodied perceptions relate to or diverge from the dominant dance canon. With contributions by mayfield brooks, Thomas F. DeFrantz, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Keith Hennessy, Bebe Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Eiko Otake, Annie-B Parson, Javier Stell-Fresquez, Ogemdi Ude, Mariana Valencia, and Andros Zins-Browne. Published by Big Dance Theater, Dancing Foxes Press, and Wesleyan University Press with support of the Howard Gilman Foundation and Virginia and Timothy Millhiser.