While in life Frost (1874-1963) took on the persona of a gentlemen farmer, he emerges from these essays as a far darker and more complex figure. And certainly no poet could ask for better critics Continue reading »
An autumnal mood pervades these verses from the exiled Soviet poet and Nobel laureate. ``Life is the sum of trifling motions,'' observes Brodsky. In ironic, well-made lyrics he broods on being Continue reading »
Nobel laureate Brodsky completed work on this sobering and brilliant collection just a week before his death this past January. Over a third of the poems collected here were written in English, Continue reading »
Beginning when he ""first took up writing poems seriously,"" former U.S. poet laureate Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996 at age 56, wrote a Christmas poem each year. Of the 18 Nativity Poems of Continue reading »
As much a brooding self-portrait as a lyric description of Venice, poet Brodsky's quirky, impressionistic essay describes his 17-year romance with a city of dreamlike beauty that banishes nightmares. Continue reading »
Art, especially literature, is ``a form of moral insurance'' that, if widely disseminated, could counteract the worst impulses of societies and governments, declares Brodsky in his eloquent 1987 Continue reading »
With chunks of chopped paper and expressionistic slashes of paint, Radunsky (Telephone; Hail to Mail) interprets a piece by the late U.S. poet laureate Brodsky about the ""discovery"" of America. Continue reading »
A writer of global scope and acclaim, a Nobel Prize winner and a former U.S. poet laureate, Brodsky (1940-96) first came to U.S. readers' attention as a young Russian poet. Exiled to Siberia in the Continue reading »
An artist’s bohemian existence in Berlin implodes in this exquisite novel from Joseph (At Certain Points We Touch). Shortly after meeting handsome Berlin-based stranger Continue reading »
Jones (An American Marriage) delivers a triumphant novel of two motherless girls from rural Honeysuckle, La., who follow very different paths into adulthood. Vernice “Niecy” Continue reading »
Maurer’s dazzling debut chronicles a boy’s coming-of-age in rural Michigan. Everett, born into a sheep farming clan in Sault Ste. Marie, plans to spend the rest of his life on Continue reading »
The beautiful latest from British author Shearer (River Sing Me Home) follows a young woman transplanted from Jamaica to Nova Scotia in the late 18th century. Orphaned Cora Continue reading »