Elise Paschen

The author of Infidelities and Bestiary presents a collection poetry about what is hidden in the night. In Elise Paschen’s prize-winning poetry collection, Infidelities, Richard Wilbur wrote that the poems “…draw upon a dream life which can deeply tincture the waking world.” In her third poetry book, The Nightlife, Paschen once again taps into dream states, creating a narrative which balances between the lived and the imagined life. Probing the tension between “The Elevated” and the “Falls,” she explores troubled love and relationships, the danger of accident and emotional volatility. At the heart of the book is a dream triptych which retells the same encounter from different perspectives, the drama between the narrative described and the sexual tension created there. The Nightlife demonstrates Paschen’s versatility and formal mastery as she experiments with forms such as the pantoum, the villanelle and the tritina, as well as concrete poems and poems in free verse. Throughout this poetry collection, she interweaves lyric and narrative threads, creating a contrapuntal story-line. The book begins with a dive into deep water and ends with an opening into sky. “In lean and supple lyrics darted with alarming rhymes and laced with skirmishing patterns, Paschen . . . achieves breathtaking perfection of craft and form. . . . As these poised, elegant, wry, and knowing poems crisply unlock and gracefully unfurl, they reveal fresh perceptions at every turn.” —Booklist “Not only a beautiful and inventive collection, it’s an important contribution to this period in American poetry. . . . This is poetry that reminds us of all the power and possibilities of poetry itself.” —Laura Kasischke, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

Poems

The Nightlife

Rebekah Presson Mosby

Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath (Book and 3 Audio CDs)

Poetry Speaks

Dominique Raccah

A collection of more than one hundred poems for teenagers features the works of classic and contemporary poets, including Emily Dickinson, Nikki Grimes, Langston Hughes, and Seamus Heaney.

Poetry Speaks who I Am

“The poems in Elise Paschen’s Bestiary explore domestic preoccupations set against the backdrop of the wild-heartedness, real and imagined, of the animal world,” praises the poet Jason Shinder. In this modern-day Bestiary, or “Book of Beasts,” the line between animal and human is thinly-drawn – the daughter of a Celtic king, through love, is transformed from beast to human; lovers take flight as moon and owl; manatees transform, before the explorers’ eyes, into mermaids. This dynamic runs throughout the collection: taking flight, hovering between air and earth, plunging, and then resurfacing from water. The poems create a constant engagement between what tethers us to our daily lives – marriage, motherhood, raising a family, the loss of parents in old age –and the desire for other worlds. Exploring notions of transformation, these poems cross thresholds between animal and human, between death and life. Award-winning poet, Elise Paschen, creates in her third and most complex poetry collection, work which is elegant and passionate, preternaturally still and reckless all at once. Paschen displays a variety of form and nuance – from ghazals to long-lined free verse poems. Writing out of a distinct Western literary tradition, but tapping into her Native American (Osage) roots, Paschen celebrates the mythic, the unusual, the magical glimpsed in the everyday.

Bestiary

Infidelities

Presenting a diverse cross-section of the 20th centurys best poets, this classic poetry anthology has now been revised with added essays and poems. Includes three audio CDs with recordings of each poet reading his or her work.

Hear Poets from Tennyson to Plath Read Their Own Work

Poetry Speaks Expanded

Charles Osgood

Poetry Speaks features the work of the most influential writers in modern poetry-written and performed-from 1892 to 1997. This book combines their most significant poems in print with the authors themselves reading their poetry on audio CD. Poets range from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot and Dorothy Parker to Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath and Gwendolyn Brooks. The power of spoken poetry is at the heart of Poetry Speaks. Poetry is a vocal art, an art meant to be read aloud. Listening to a poem read aloud can be a transforming experience. Poetry Speaks not only introduces the finest work from some of the greatest poets who ever lived, it reintroduces the oral tradition of poetry. Poetry Speaks features over 40 poets in chapters each containing: - The poems that are read by the poet on the audio CD - Additional poems in print form to allow the reader to further explore the poet - A short biography and photo of each poet - Original manuscripts and letters for most of the featured poets - An original essay for each poet written by today's most influential poets, a veritable Who's Who of poetry, including: Seamus Heaney on W.B. Yeats; Richard Wilbur on Robert Frost; Mark Strand on Wallace Stevens; Jorie Graham on Elizabeth Bishop; Glyn Maxwell on Dylan Thomas; and Rita Dove on Melvin B. Tolson. Poetry Speaks-combining the talents of great poets past and living, their words written and spoken-is the most ambitious, comprehensive and innovative poetry project to be published in years, and is sure to be the model for collections to come.

Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath

Molly Peacock

Neil Neches

One hundred poems from the poetry placards in New York City's subway and buses. Amid ads for mace and cockroach exterminators, a happy glimmer in 16 lines or less. From Sappho, to W. H. Auden, to Chu Chen Po.

100 Poems from the Subways and Buses

Poetry in Motion

From the New York Times best-selling anthologist, Elise Paschen, comes The Eloquent Poem, a groundbreaking collection of new poems by 128 contemporary poets, including Mary Jo Bang, Marilyn Chin, Billy Collins, Cornelius Eady, Martîn Espada, Kamiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Edward Hirsch, Major Jackson, Laura Kasischke, Joy Ladin, Randall Mann, Paul Muldoon, Marilyn Nelson, Aimee Nezhukmatathil, Stanley Plumly, Rosanna Warren, and many others. This extraordinary volume is divided into sections by poetic approach--some formal, some occasional, and some thematic--and includes illuminating micro-essays from the contributors on how each poem came to be.

128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making

The Eloquent Poem

Rebekah Presson

"Superb, accessible...A unique and essential purchase." --School Library Journal The most ambitious, comprehensive and innovative poetry project to be published in years, Poetry Speaks combines the significant poetry of the last two with the authors themselves reading their poetry on audio CD. Poets range from Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot and Dorothy Parker to Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath and Gwendolyn Brooks.

An illustrated collection of ninety-five poems for children features the works of seventy-three classic and contemporary poets.

Elise Paschen

Books

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