Kenneth Koch: Selected Poems

Charles Bukowski

Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

One of the most recognizable poets of the last century, Charles Bukowski is simultaneously a common man and an icon of urban depravity. He uses strong, blunt language to describe life as he lives it, and through it all charts the mutations of morality in modern America. Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way is a treasure trove of confessional poetry written towards then end of Bukowski's life. With the overhang of failing health and waning fame, he reflects on his travels, his gambling and drinking, working, not working, sex and love, eating, cats, and more. Sifting Through is Bukowski at his most meditative - published posthumously, it's completely non-performative, and gets to the heart of Bukowski's lifelong pursuit of natural language and raw honesty. We recommend you read this as Bukowski wrote: by sifting through the madness for what hits you as the word, the line, the way.

Deborah Parker

Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet

Bronzino's stature as one of the great painters of the Florentine Renaissance has long been recognized. By contrast, his literary achievements as a poet have been neglected. This is the first modern study to focus on the poetry of Bronzino. Seeking to clarify the meaning of Bronzino's poems, Deborah Parker argues that they are considerable literary achievements. Importantly, she demonstrates that our understanding of Bronzino's paintings is incomplete without careful attention to his poetry. Click to view Deborah Parkers lecture on Bronzino at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations

The astonishing collection of the translations Robert Bly has been producing for more than fifty years, introducing foreign poets to American readers for the first time. Robert Bly has always been amazingly prescient in his choice of poets to translate. The poetry he selected supplied qualities that seemed lacking from the literary culture of this country. At a time when editors and readers knew only Eliot and Pound, Bly introduced Neruda, Vallejo, Trakl, Jimenez, Trastromer, and Rumi. His most recent translations include Rolf Jacobsen, Francis Ponge, and the nineteenth-century Indian poet Ghalib. Here, in The Winged Energy of Delight, the poems of twenty-two renowned and lesser-known poets from around the world are brought together. As Kenneth Rexroth has said, Robert Bly "is one of the leaders of a poetic revival that has returned American literature to the world community."