Breaking Poems

Breaking Poems
Author: Suheir Hammad
Publisher:
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2008
Genre: Poetry
ISBN:

Poetry. In BREAKING POEMS Suheir Hammad departs from her previous poetry books with a bold and explosive style to do what the best poets have always done: create a new language. Using "break" as a trigger for every poem, Hammad destructs, constructs, and reconstructs the English language for us to hear the sound of a breath, a woman's body, a land, a culture, falling apart, broken, and put back together again. "Suheir Hammad's BREAKING POEMS introduces English to an Arabic vernacular that startles into being an altogether new language, bridging the archipelago of a Palestine under siege to the diaspora and beyond, breaking through convention, breaking open locks on mind and heart, breaking into a music inspired by the Coltranes, Sun Ra and free jazz, Lee Scratch Perry and Ravi Shankar, a music that is at once a joyous celebration of survival and a poignant cri de Coeur that cannot be ignored and that Mahmoud Darwish should have lived to see. This is a poetry written for people who have endured the winds of hurricanes and invasions. What wisdom, energy, joy and poignancy Hammad brings to the page—for all of this, and for teaching me a new speaking, I give her my thanks"—Carolyn Forché.

The Esai Poems

The Esai Poems
Author: Jimmy Santiago Baca
Publisher: Sherman Asher Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre: American poetry
ISBN: 9781890932398

He wakes from his afternoon siesta, / flapping legs and hands, / a bluebird perched on the birch/ branch of mother's arm/ ready to raid/ cornfields/ in his father's heart/ THE ESAI POEMS is the first of four books under the series title of BREAKING BREAD WITH THE DARKNESS by American Book Award recipient Jimmy Santiago Baca. The Esai poems are a poignant blend of Baca's wonder of his and his partner's newborn son, and the thoughts and observations of the world he will be inheriting, includlding, including war, racism, indifference and greed. Through Esai the wonder-struck new father explores the idealic world of his family through Esai's new eyes, "He studies his hands as if they are newly discovered planets . . ." but realizing the harsh realities of our times adds perspective with juxtapositions: "I'll wait to tell him how in some places armies cut off the hands of rebels..." Written as a series of thematically connected and dated poems, moving back and forth between ideas, The Esai Poems are some of Baca's strongest poetic work. Already father of two grown sons, Baca explors the implications of beginning another family with another woman. Subsiquent volumes will include explorations of self and family with Essays and Stories, The Lucia Poems (to his young daugher), and to his son, Tones and Gabe Poems and Essays.

The Hell with Love

The Hell with Love
Author: Mary D. Esselman
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2010-01-23
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0759527032

This heart-wrenching collection of poems expresses the anger, hurt, depression of loss - asking why, analysing rifts and striving for explanation.

100 Poems to Break Your Heart

100 Poems to Break Your Heart
Author: Edward Hirsch
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2021-03-30
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0544931807

“A really beautiful book” of poems that delve into—and help us transcend—suffering, loss, fear, and loneliness, by the author of How to Read a Poem (The Boston Globe). Implicit in poetry is the idea that we are enriched by heartbreaks, by the recognition and understanding of suffering—not just our own suffering but also the pain of others. We are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief, by our refusal to vanish, or to let others vanish, without leaving a record. And poets are people who are determined to leave a trace in words, to transform oceanic depths of feeling into art that speaks to others. In 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, Edward Hirsch—prize-winning poet, critic, and author of How to Read a Poem—selects 100 poems, from the nineteenth century to the present, and illuminates them, unpacking context and references to help the reader fully experience the range of emotion and wisdom within them. “Darkly illuminating.” —Booklist (starred review) “These 100 poems will indeed break hearts, but they also offer examples of resilience, the lasting impact of words, and a wisdom that a reader can return to and share.” —New York Journal of Books

100 Poems to Break Your Heart

100 Poems to Break Your Heart
Author: Edward Hirsch
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2021
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0544931882

100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, a collection that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief or loneliness, selected by the award-winning, best-selling, and beloved author of How to Read a Poem Implicit in poetry is the idea that we are enriched by heartbreaks, by the recognition and understanding of suffering--not just our own suffering but also the pain of others. We are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief, by our refusal to vanish, or to let others vanish, without leaving a record. And poets are people who are determined to leave a trace in words, to transform oceanic depths of feeling into art that speaks to others. In 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, poet and advocate Edward Hirsch selects 100 poems, from the nineteenth century to the present, and illuminates them, unpacking context and references to help the reader fully experience the range of emotion and wisdom within these poems. For anyone trying to process grief, loneliness, or fear, this collection of poetry will be your guide in trying times.

Broken Cup

Broken Cup
Author: Margaret Gibson
Publisher: LSU Press
Total Pages: 79
Release: 2014-09-08
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0807156442

Broken Cup brings breathtaking eloquence to what Margaret Gibson describes as "traveling the Way of Alzheimer's" with her husband, poet David McKain. After his initial and tentative diagnosis, Gibson suspended her writing for two years; but then poetry returned, and the creative process became the lightning rod that grounded her and presented a path forward. The poems in Broken Cup bear witness to how Alzheimer's erodes memory and cognitive function, but they never forget to see what is present and to ask what may remain of the self. Moving and unflinchingly honest in the acknowledgment of pain, frustration, and grief, the poems uncover, time and time again, the grace of abiding love. Gibson gives heart as well as voice to an experience that is deeply personal, yet shared by all too many.

Break, Blow, Burn

Break, Blow, Burn
Author: Camille Paglia
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0307425096

America’s most provocative intellectual brings her blazing powers of analysis to the most famous poems of the Western tradition—and unearths some previously obscure verses worthy of a place in our canon. Combining close reading with a panoramic breadth of learning, Camille Paglia sharpens our understanding of poems we thought we knew, from Shakespeare to Dickinson to Plath, and makes a case for including in the canon works by Paul Blackburn, Wanda Coleman, Chuck Wachtel, Rochelle Kraut—and even Joni Mitchell. Daring, riveting, and beautifully written, Break, Blow, Burn is a modern classic that excites even seasoned poetry lovers—and continues to create generations of new ones.

Index of Haunted Houses

Index of Haunted Houses
Author: Adam O. Davis
Publisher: Sarabande Books
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2020-09-01
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 1946448672

This is a book of ghost stories, and for the most part, ghosts are jealous monsters, intent upon our destruction. They never appear overtly here, yet we gradually become aware of their presence the way spirits in haunted houses trod over creaky floors, slam doors, and issue sudden gusts of wind. The poems are Koan-like—the fewer the words, the more charged they are. The engine driving this sense of haunting and loss is money, which Davis describes as “federal bone” boiling around us. Bison in Nebraska are reduced to bones, “seven/standing men/tall” fodder for the fertilizer used by farmers in the 1800s. Though they often specify dates, there’s an equality to the hauntings—every instance has its moment, and persists, despite being in the past, present, or future. If there really was a 1980 or 1848 or 1499, Davis implies it is somewhere. Index of Haunted Houses is spooky and sad—a stunning debut, one that will surprise, convince, and most of all, delight.

Breaking Broken English

Breaking Broken English
Author: Michelle Hartman
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2019-03-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0815654669

Black-Arab political and cultural solidarity has had a long and rich history in the United States. That alliance is once again exerting a powerful influence on American society as Black American and Arab American activists and cultural workers are joining forces in formations like the Movement for Black Lives and Black for Palestine to address social justice issues. In Breaking Broken English, Hartman explores the historical and current manifestations of this relationship through language and literature, with a specific focus on Arab American literary works that use the English language creatively to put into practice many of the theories and ideas advanced by Black American thinkers. Breaking Broken English shows how language is the location where literary and poetic beauty meet the political in creative work. Hartman draws out thematic connections between Arabs/Arab Americans and Black Americans around politics and culture and also highlights the many artistic ways these links are built. She shows how political and cultural ideas of solidarity are written in creative texts and emphasizes their potential to mobilize social justice activists in the United States and abroad in the ongoing struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until it Breaks

So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until it Breaks
Author: Rigoberto González
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 116
Release: 1999
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9780252067983

An astonishing new talent, Rigoberto González writes with a clarity of the senses that pulls the reader into a marvelous and unfamiliar world. The sidewalk preacher, the umbrella salesman, the nurse on the graveyard shift, the professional mourner-- all allow González a clandestine glimpse of their lives. Crackling with the dry electricity of the desert and flashing with the brilliant colors of Mexico, González's poems are rooted in the fertile soil beneath poverty's dust, the border's violence, and longing's desolation.