The Canterbury Tales

Charles Bukowski

Come on In!: New Poems

another comeback climbing back up out of the ooze, out of the thick black tar, rising up again, a modern Lazarus. you're amazed at your good fortune. somehow you've had more than your share of second chances. hell, accept it. what you have, you have. you walk and look in the bathroom mirror at an idiot's smile. you know your luck. some go down and never climb back up. something is being kind to you. you turn from the mirror and walk into the world. you find a chair, sit down, light a cigar. back from a thousand wars you look out from an open door into the silent night. Sibelius plays on the radio. nothing has been lost or destroyed. you blow smoke into the night, tug at your right ear. baby, right now, you've got it all.

Barry Till, Judith Patt

Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry

The graceful, evocative haiku featured here were composed by the renowned Japanese haiku masters of the past four hundred years, including Matsuo Bash, Taniguchi Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. The deceptively simple poemsrendered in English with Japanese calligraphies and transliterationsare paired with exquisite eighteenth- or nineteenth-century paintings and ukiyo-e prints and twentieth-century shin hanga woodcuts from the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada. Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry presents thirty-five pairs of poems and images, organized seasonally. The Introduction details the origin and development of haiku, the lives of the most famous poets, and the obstacles faced when translating the concise yet complex lines.

The Best Poems of the English Language: From Chaucer Through Robert Frost

"To read Bloom's insights here is to bask in the emanation of genius. As entertaining and erudite as his choices of the works he most loves are, the book's overriding strength is the guidance it gives, in context and comprehension." - Baltimore Sun This comprehensive anthology offers renowned critic Harold Bloom's choice of the best of six centuries of great British and American poetry, selected in accordance with his three absolute criteria: aesthetic splendor, intellectual power, and wisdom. In Bloom's introductory essay "The Art of Reading Poetry," he presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to reading, teaching, and writing about great verse, the literary achievement he loves most. Throughout this volume, Bloom includes extensive introductions to each poet and to many of the individual poems. More than any other anthology, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of sublime art with nearly everything they need in a single volume.