""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone...

Across a turbulent history, Black poets created a rich and multifaceted tradition that has been both a reckoning with American realities and an imaginative response to them. One of the great American art forms, African American poetry encompasses many kinds of verse: formal, experimental, vernacular, lyric, and protest. The anthology opens with moving testaments to the power of poetry as a means of self-assertion, as enslaved people voice their passionate...

Here, in this compact volume, is a greatest hits collection of the 100 best poems ever written, by the world's greatest poets. This essential collection is perfect for the poetry lover who wants to carry around his/her favorite poems, & ideal for the reader seeking an introduction to the greatest poems world literature has to offer. The authors included are each represented by one of his or her best-known & best-loved works, from the Classics (Homer,...

Nineteen poems about the Middle East and about being an Arab American living in the United States. "Tell me how to live so many lives at once ..." Fowzi, who beats everyone at dominoes Ibtisam, who wanted to be a doctor Abu Mahmoud, who knows every eggplant and peach in his West Bank garden mysterious Uncle Mohammed, who moved to the mountain a girl in a red sweater dangling a book bag children in velvet dresses who haunt the candy bowl at the party...

A survey of major poets and movements of American postmodern poetry includes more than four hundred poems by 103 poets.