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April Theme: National Poetry Month, Digital Titles

Join us in celebrating creativity! Choose from this curated selection of digital titles within Pfeiffer Library that celebrate poetry, all readily available at your fingertips:

Haiku for a Season / Haiku per una Stagione by Andrea Zanzotto; Anna Secco (Editor); Patrick Barron (Editor)

ISBN: 9780226922225

Publication Date: 2012-11-01

Andrea Zanzotto is one of the most important and acclaimed poets of postwar Italy. This collection of ninety-one pseudo-haiku in English and Italian--written over several months during 1984 and then revised slowly over the years--confirms his commitment to experimentation throughout his life. Haiku for a Season represents a multilevel experiment for Zanzotto: first, to compose poetry bilingually; and second, to write in a form foreign to Western poetry. The volume traces the life of a woman from youth to adulthood, using the seasons and the varying landscape as a mirror to reflect her growth and changing attitudes and perceptions. With a lifelong interest in the intersections of nature and culture, Zanzotto displays here his usual precise and surprising sense of the living world. These never-before-published original poems in English appear alongside their Italian versions--not strict translations but parallel texts that can be read separately or in conjunction with the originals. As a sequence of interlinked poems, Haiku for a Season reveals Zanzotto also as a master poet of minimalism. Zanzotto's recent death is a blow to world poetry, and the publication of this book, the last that he approved in manuscript, will be an event in both the United States and in Italy.

For All My Walking by Santo¯ka Taneda; Burton Watson (Translator)

ISBN: 9780231500630

Publication Date: 2003-11-12

In April 1926, the Japanese poet Taneda Santoka (1882-1940) set off on the first of many walking trips, journeys in which he tramped thousands of miles through the Japanese countryside. These journeys were part of his religious training as a Buddhist monk as well as literary inspiration for his memorable and often painfully moving poems. The works he wrote during this time comprise a record of his quest for spiritual enlightenment.    Although Santoka was master of conventional-style haiku, which he wrote in his youth, the vast majority of his works, and those for which he is most admired, are in free-verse form. He also left a number of diaries in which he frequently recorded the circumstances that had led to the composition of a particular poem or group of poems. In For All My Walking, master translator Burton Watson makes Santoka's life story and literary journeys available to English-speaking readers and students of haiku and Zen Buddhism. He allows us to meet Santoka directly, not by withholding his own opinions but by leaving room for us to form our own. Watson's translations bring across not only the poetry but also the emotional force at the core of the poems.    This volume includes 245 of Santoka's poems and of excerpts from his prose diary, along with a chronology of his life and a compelling introduction that provides historical and biographical context to Taneda Santoka's work.

Modern Arabic Poetry by Waed Athamneh

ISBN: 9780268101541

Publication Date: 2017-03-30

In Modern Arabic Poetry, Waed Athamneh addresses enduring questions raised from the 1950s to the present as she investigates the impact of past and contemporary Middle Eastern politics on its poetry. Focusing on the works of three prominent poets, Iraqi ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bayātī (1926-1999), Egyptian Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī Ḥijāzī (b. 1935), and Palestinian Maḥmūd Darwīsh (1941-2008), Athamneh argues that political changes in the modern Arab world--including the 1967 war and the fall of Nasserism, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and, in Ḥijāzī's case, the 2011 Arab Uprising and its aftermath--inspired transitions and new directions in these poets' works. Enhanced by Athamneh's original translations of a number of the Arabic texts discussed, as well as translations published previously, Modern Arabic Poetry brings these poets fully into the purview of contemporary literary, political, and critical discourse. It argues that their individual responses to political changes proceed in three distinct directions: the metapoetic, in which the poet disengages from the poetry of political commitment to find inspiration in artistic (self-)exploration; the recommitted, in which new political revolutions inspire the poet to resume writing and publishing poetry; and the humanist, in which the poet comes to terms of coexistence with permanent or unresolved conflict.

Abundance from the Desert by Raymond Farrin

ISBN: 9780815632221

Publication Date: 2011-03-30

Abundance from the Desert provides a comprehensive introduction to classi­cal Arabic poetry, one of the richest of poetic traditions. Covering the pe­riod roughly from 500 c.e. to 1250 a.d., it features original translations and illuminating discussions of a number of major classical Arabic poems from a variety of genres. The poems are presented chronologically, each situated within a specific historical and literary context. Together, the selected poems suggest the range and depth of classical Arabic poetic expression; read in sequence, they suggest the gradual evolution of a tradition. Moving beyond a mere chronicle, Farrin outlines a new approach to appreciating classical Arabic poetry based on an awareness of concentric symmetry, in which the poem's unity is viewed not as a linear progression but as an elaborate symmetrical plot. In doing so, the author presents these works in a broader, comparative light, revealing connec­tions with other literatures. The reader is invited to examine these classical Arabic works not as isolated phenomena-notwithstanding their unique­ness and their association with a discrete tradition-but rather as part of a great multicultural heritage. This pioneering book marks an important step forward in the study of Arabic poetry. At the same time, it opens the door to this rich poetic tradi­tion for the general reader.

The Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang (Editor)

ISBN: 9781775417514

Publication Date: 2010-02-01

"The Arabian Nights" is the title which encompasses all of the Persian, Arabian and Indian folk tales which have made their way into western culture over hundreds of years. This collection was edited by Andrew Lang, and his selections were made with the purpose of making the tales more suitable and interesting to a general audience.

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context by Zong-qi Cai (Editor)

ISBN: 9780231185363

Publication Date: 2018-02-20

How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context is an introduction to the golden age of Chinese poetry, spanning the earliest times through the Tang dynasty (618-907). It aims to break down barriers--between language and culture, poetry and history--that have stood in the way of teaching and learning Chinese poetry. Not only a primer in early Chinese poetry, the volume demonstrates the unique and central role of poetry in the making of Chinese culture.    Each chapter focuses on a specific theme to show the interplay between poetry and the world. Readers discover the key role that poetry played in Chinese diplomacy, court politics, empire building, and institutionalized learning; as well as how poems shed light on gender and women's status, war and knight-errantry, Daoist and Buddhist traditions, and more. The chapters also show how people of different social classes used poetry as a means of gaining entry into officialdom, creating self-identity, fostering friendship, and airing grievances. The volume includes historical vignettes and anecdotes that contextualize individual poems, investigating how some featured texts subvert and challenge the grand narratives of Chinese history. Presenting poems in Chinese along with English translations and commentary, How to Read Chinese Poetry in Context unites teaching poetry with the social circumstances surrounding its creation, making it a pioneering and versatile text for the study of Chinese language, literature, history, and culture.

The Songs of Chu by Gopal Sukhu (Translator)

ISBN: 9780231544658

Publication Date: 2017-07-11

Sources show Qu Yuan (?340-278 BCE) was the first person in China to become famous for his poetry, so famous in fact that the Chinese celebrate his life with a national holiday called Poet's Day, or the Dragon Boat Festival. His work, which forms the core of the The Songs of Chu, the second oldest anthology of Chinese poetry, derives its imagery from shamanistic ritual. Its shaman hymns are among the most beautiful and mysterious liturgical works in the world. The religious milieu responsible for their imagery supplies the backdrop for his most famous work, Li sao, which translates shamanic longing for a spirit lover into the yearning for an ideal king that is central to the ancient philosophies of China.    Qu Yuan was as important to the development of Chinese literature as Homer was to the development of Western literature. This translation attempts to replicate what the work might have meant to those for whom it was originally intended, rather than settle for what it was made to mean by those who inherited it. It accounts for the new view of the state of Chu that recent discoveries have inspired.

Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart by Betty De Shong Meador; Judy Grahn (Foreword by)

ISBN: 9780292752412

Publication Date: 2001-02-15

"That these poems deal immediately with the very popular 'goddess literature' and with an individual woman in a most important historical situation should give this work widespread appeal."-John Maier, SUNY College at Brockport, cotranslator of the Epic of GilgameshThe earliest known author of written literature was a woman named Enheduanna, who lived in ancient Mesopotamia around 2300 BCE. High Priestess to the moon god Nanna, Enheduanna came to venerate the goddess Inanna above all gods in the Sumerian pantheon. The hymns she wrote to Inanna constitute the earliest written portrayal of an ancient goddess. In their celebration of Enheduanna' relationship with Inanna, they also represent the first existing account of an individual' consciousness of her inner life.This book provides the complete texts of Enheduanna' hymns to Inanna, skillfully and beautifully rendered by Betty De Shong Meador, who also discusses how the poems reflect Enheduanna' own spiritual and psychological liberation from being an obedient daughter in the shadow of her ruler father. Meador frames the poems with background information on the religious and cultural systems of ancient Mesopotamia and the known facts of Enheduanna' life. With this information, she explores the role of Inanna as the archetypal feminine, the first goddess who encompasses both the celestial and the earthly and shows forth the full scope of women' potential.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

ISBN: 9781467797832

Publication Date: 2015-08-01

In Leaves of Grass, American poet Walt Whitman assembled most of his poetic works. Included in this collection are some of Whitman's most famous poems, including "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and "O Captain! My Captain!" The first edition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1855 and contained only twelve poems. Whitman kept revising his collection throughout his life; the final edition contains more than three hundred poems. This is an unabridged version of the poems from the final edition of Whitman's celebrated collection, published shortly before his death in 1892.

Why Poetry Matters by Jay Parini

ISBN: 9780300145250

Publication Date: 2008-10-01

A brief, passionate book about the nature of poetry and its use in the world

American Women Poets in the 21st Century by Claudia Rankine (Editor); Juliana Spahr (Editor)

ISBN: 9780819574442

Publication Date: 2013-10-01

A thought-provoking mix of poetry, creative manifesto and criticism.    Poetry in America is flourishing in this new millennium and asking serious questions of itself: Is writing marked by gender and if so, how? What does it mean to be experimental? How can lyric forms be authentic? This volume builds on the energetic tensions inherent in these questions, focusing on ten major American women poets whose collective work shows an incredible range of poetic practice.  Each section of the book is devoted to a single poet and contains new poems; a brief "statement of poetics" by the poet herself in which she explores the forces -- personal, aesthetic, political -- informing her creative work; a critical essay on the poet's work; a biographical statement; and a bibliography listing works by and about the poet. Underscoring the dynamic give and take between poets and the culture at large, this anthology is indispensable for anyone interested in poetry, gender and the creative process.    CONTRIBUTORS: Rae Armantrout, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lucie Brock Broido, Jorie Graham, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Susan Howe, Ann Lauterbach, Harryette Mullen.

Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century by Claudia Rankine (Editor); Lisa Sewell (Editor)

ISBN: 9780819572363

Publication Date: 2012-02-21

The ideal introduction to eleven of today's most engaging women poets    Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century is an exciting sequel to its predecessors in the American Poets in the 21st Century series. Like the earlier anthologies, this volume includes generous selections of poetry by some of the best poets of our time as well as illuminating poetics statements and incisive essays on their work. This unique organization makes these books invaluable teaching tools. Broadening the lens through which we look at contemporary poetry, this new volume extends its geographical net by including Caribbean and Canadian poets. Representing three generations of women writers, among the insightful pieces included in this volume are essays by Karla Kelsey on Mary Jo Bang's modes of artifice, Christine Hume on Carla Harryman's kinds of listening, Dawn Lundy Martin on M. NourbeSe Phillip (for whom "english / is a foreign anguish"), and Sina Queyras on Lisa Robertson's confoundingly beautiful surfaces. A companion web site will present audio of each poet's work.

The Poems of Catullus by . Catullus; Jeannine Diddle Uzzi (Edited and Translated by); Jeffrey Thomson (Translator)

ISBN: 9781139236324

Publication Date: 2015-10-05

The Roman poet Catullus is one of the most popular and frequently studied ancient authors. His poems were written just over two thousand years ago during the chaotic but culturally vibrant final decades of the Republic and deal with themes of passion and grief, friendship and enmity, politics, literature and myth. This new translation, the product of a collaborative effort between a classicist and a poet, allows modern readers to experience his poems rather as his ancient Roman audience did. The poems are presented as contemporary and concise with a new energy and pace that both enhance Catullus' appeal for non-specialists and challenge specialists to consider his work from a fresh perspective. Extensive notes are provided, as well as an introduction which takes account of modern poetics and popular culture. The translation will appeal not only to classicists but also to lovers of literature in general and poetry in particular