Download or read book Birds on the Kiswar Tree written by Odi Gonzales and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BIRDS ON THE KISWAR TREE by Peruvian Andean poet Odi Gonzales presents poems that sing in the voices of native birds and speak through the devout, but subversive, Quechua artists of Peru’s colonial era. Their religious art provides the imagery for these astounding poems. In the Eden painted by one anonymous artist, Andean kiswar trees grow, native ñukchu flowers bloom, llamas graze, and parrots perch in the trees, and in out-of-the-way nooks of Andean churches, rebel angels hide, armed with harquebuses. Canvas by canvas, poem by poem, Gonzales gives us a poetry collection as a living and talking museum in which the Quechua artists of Peru’s past demonstrate both their sincere Christian faith and their opposition to the Spanish destruction of the Inca empire. Originally published in Peru in 2005 as La Escuela de Cusco (The School of Cusco), BIRDS ON THE KISWAR TREE stands as an elegant and richly imagined tribute to these indigenous and mestizo artists. By extension, it shows how artists may put forth their views when prevailing circumstances make outward protest a perilous option.

Download or read book Providencia written by Sean Frederick Forbes and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PROVIDENCIA, Sean Frederick Forbes’s debut poetry collection, offers deeply personal poetry that digs beneath the surface of family history and myth. This coming of age narrative traces the experience of a gay, mixed-race narrator who confronts the traditions of his parents’ and grandparents’ birthplace: the seemingly idyllic island of Providencia, Colombia against the backdrop of his rough and lonely life in Southside Jamaica, Queens. These lyric poems open doors onto a third space for the speaker, one that does not isolate or hinder his sexual, racial, and artistic identities. Written in both free verse and traditional poetic forms, PROVIDENCIA conjures numerous voices, images, and characters to explore the struggles of self-discovery.

Download or read book After Houses written by Claire Millikin and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AFTER HOUSES is an extended meditation on homelessness. In unflinching, raw poetry, poet Claire Millikin explores states of homelessness, and a longing for, even a devotion to, houses—houses as spaces where one could be safe and at ease. The poems move through an American landscape, between the South and the North, between childhood and adulthood, reaching toward a home that’s never reached, but always at one’s fingertips. Throughout the collection, Millikin draws from personal and family history, from classical mythology and architectural theory, to shape a poetry of empathy, in which some of the places where people get lost in America are faced and given place. AFTER HOUSES echo the voices of girls who have not quite survived, but who persist, intact in the way that Rimbaud insists on intactness, in words.

Download or read book Last of the Po Ricans y Otros Afro Artifacts written by Not4Prophet and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LAST OF THE PO’RICANS Y OTROS AFRO-ARTIFACTS, the debut poetry collection of Not4Prophet, provides an incredible verbal and musical profusion of poetry that reflects the cultural landscapes of the perpetual islands of Puerto Rican and New York City through the eyes of a Puerto Rican born in Ponce, living in El Barrio/East Harlem and the South Bronx. As he elaborates this “otherness,” which includes the hassles of poverty, racial pride and racial discord, Not4Prophet pays homage to the old school cats from the Nuyorican and Black Arts movements. Written in free verse and layered with cultural and historical references, LAST OF THE PO’RICANS breaks boundaries and challenges us with iconic imagery and word play that dares to speak of the unspeakable.. With graphics by Vagabond and an introduction by Tony Medina.

Download or read book Broke Baroque written by Tony Medina and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BROKE BAROQUE is the third in a series of Broke Books by award-winning poet, Tony Medina. Centered on Medina’s iconic everyman, Broke, a character that bears witness to his plight of homelessness in a humorous yet profound way. BROKE BAROQUE contains poetry peppered with images articulating Broke’s erratic experiences on the streets of Any City, USA. Through tall tales, anecdotes, episodes, rants and jokes, Broke eloquently and irreverently conveys his marginalization in a grossly unaccommodating society. With his trademark absurd and caustic wit, Medina portrays Broke’s anger, fear, humility, and resolve with humor, insight and compassion, bringing moments of levity and hopefulness to Broke’s plight. Funny and perversely sharp, whimsical and impassioned, BROKE BAROQUE is compulsively readable and will connect with any book and poetry lover alike. With a powerful introduction by McArthur-winner Ishmael Reed.

Download or read book What Does It Mean to Be White in America written by Gabrielle David and Sean Frederick Forbes and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA? BREAKING THE WHITE CODE OF SILENCE, A COLLECTION OF PERSONAL NARRATIVES, is a 680-page groundbreaking collection of 82 personal narratives that reflects a vibrant range of stories from white Americans who speak frankly and openly about race. In answering the question, some may offer viewpoints one may not necessarily agree with, but nevertheless, it is clear that each contributor is committed to answering it as honestly as possible. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WHITE IN AMERICA? provides an invaluable starting point that includes numerous references and further readings for those who seek a deeper understanding of race in America.

Download or read book Black Lives Have Always Mattered A Collection of Essays Poems and Personal Narratives written by Abiodun Oyewole and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2017-07-08 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED, A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, POEMS AND PERSONAL NARRATIVES, edited by Abiodun Oyewole, extends beyond the Black Lives Matter movement’s primary agenda of police brutality to acknowledge that even when affronted with slavery, segregation and Jim Crow, racial injustice and inequality, black lives have always mattered. While written primarily by African American poets, writers, activists and scholars, selections are also from people of the Latino and African diasporas and white activists. Collectively, these 79 contributors provide a call-to-action that challenges readers to confront long-held values and beliefs about black lives, as well as white privilege and fragility, as it surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and its persistence of structural inequality. More importantly, BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED provides a first-hand perspective to a problem known to the African American community long before the Black Lives Matter movement revealed it to the general public: that black lives have always mattered. Connecting the past to the present, the contributors of BLACK LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED provide an eye-opening and engaging collection that has the potential to reignite a broader push for black liberation and equality for all.

Download or read book Tartessos and Other Cities written by Claire Millikin and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In TARTESSOS AND OTHER CITIES, Claire Millikin uses poetry to express some of the emotions surrounded by homelessness and loss. Named for Tartessos, a lost city on the Guadalquivir, a river in Andalusia, Spain that was likely buried by a devastating tidal wave in BC, the poems in TARTESSSOS gather lost cities and places that were not myths, but were once real. Throughout the collection, Millikin examines American geographies of loss, with the poems serving as archeological elements that persist against these losses. From New York City to Muscogee Country, Georgia, from New Haven, to the Haw River, TARTESSOS charts a map of disappearances and resistances to vanishing that make up part of the ghostly American landscape. TARTESSOS AND OTHER CITIES leads readers to discover that home is not just the place where you happen to live, it is the place where you become yourself.

Download or read book The Morning Side of the Hill written by Ezra E. Fitz and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In THE MORNING SIDE OF THE HILL, Ezra E. Fitz’ debut novella, he asks readers: What if you anted up and kicked in everything you had on a belief, a hope, a dream, on faith, and you lost? This is one of the questions facing Willie and Mo, the two insecure, incomplete protagonists that was inspired by – and is an homage to – William Faulkner’s classic novel The Wild Palms. Like Faulkner’s novel, it unfolds in two parallel stories told in alternating chapters that subtly illuminate one another. In the first, set in uptown Manhattan, a disillusioned graduate student who’s just a little too familiar with the neighborhood drug dealer and a lonely woman appears doomed to a disastrous end. In the second, set in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a soft-spoken parolee looking to reassemble the broken pieces of his former life meets a young, withered yet surprisingly ebullient cancer patient that eventually puts his one final chance at freedom at risk. As you read on, the twin tales gather like a storm to an exhilarating ferocity, culminating in a violent flood of passions that none of the characters can control, and which threatens to drown them all. Faulkner fans may think they know what the end holds for these four characters, but rest assured . . . the culmination of THE MORNING SIDE OF THE HILL exposes an unexpected coincidence that Faulkner may have hinted at but never fully explored.

Download or read book Brassbones Rainbows written by Shirley Bradley LeFlore and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is the debut poetry collection of Shirley Bradley LeFlore, an oral poet and performance artist from St. Louis, Missouri who has been on the literary scene for over five decades. While LeFlore tackles social, political and cultural issues with a profound love for humanity, she also provides insight into self-identity, inner-strength, beauty and faith. A literary griot, LeFlore shares the fabric of verse through jazz, blues and gospel in an easy going, smooth and soothing Southern American dialect mixed with African American Vernacular English serving as musical notes. BRASSBONES & RAINBOWS is a stunning testament to Shirley Bradley LeFlore, a story singer whose words will certainly roll off your tongue.

Download or read book Imaginarium Sightings Galleries Sightlines written by A. Robert Lee and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: IMAGINARIUM: SIGHTINGS, GALLERIES, SIGHTLINES, A. Robert Lee’s latest collection of poetry, turns on two connecting keynotes: imagination and sight. Across a broad canvas each of its sequences explores the ways we go about imagining as much as seeing reality. Sightings, which opens the book, turns upon a dozen or so celebrated paintings, among them J.M.W. Turner and Frida Kahlo. Galleriesextends the usual meaning of the term to include vantage-points like a French archeological cave, a Bosphorus Straits crossing and a Tokyo station. Sightlines frames a run of personal encounters within the heights and widths of buildings and landscapes – whether different Metro stations, or a major Japanese waterfall or Memphis’s Beale Street. IMAGINARIUM explores yet other kinds of seeing, including poems that use bird flight as metaphors of imagination, airplane travel and its larger meanings of self-journey, Science Fiction film and the envisioning of other worlds, a roster of US photography, and imagination itself as a process to be imagined. In sum the reader is invited into a two-way exchange, imagination as seeing, seeing as imagination.

Download or read book A Country Without Borders written by Lalita Pandit Hogan and published by 2Leaf Press. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COUNTRY WITHOUT BORDERS, POEMS AND STORIES OF KASHMIR is the debut collection of Lalita Pandit Hogan, an expatriate Kashmiri scholar and poet who shares with readers the loss of identity and home, culture, migration, womanhood, otherness and exile. Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, these full-blooded poems are elegant, mythic, and intricately woven, evoking a home no longer accessible. A COUNTRY WITHOUT BORDERS is an invaluable collection for all who are interested in cultural remembrance and meditations that reflect postcolonial poetry, and to students reading South Asian literature and culture.

Download or read book Michigan Quarterly Review written by and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Dark Sweet written by Linda Hogan and published by Coffee House Press. This book was released on 2014-06-16 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dark. Sweet. offers readers the sweep of LindaHogan's work—environmental and spiritual concerns, her Chickasaw heritage—in spare, elemental, visionary language. From "Those Who Thunder": Those who thunder have dark hair and red throw rugs. They burn paper in bathroom sinks. Their voices refuse to suffer and their silences know the way straight to the heart; it's bus route number eight. Linda Hogan is the recipient of the 2007 Mountains and Plains Booksellers Spirit of the West Literary Achievement Award. She is also a recipient of the 2016 PEN New England Henry David Thoreau Prize. Her poetry has received an American Book Award, Colorado Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle nomination.

Download or read book Talking Dead written by Neil Rollinson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2015 Costa Poetry Prize Like Neil Rollinson’s earlier books, Talking Dead is a refreshment of the senses: lifting the lid on the human condition in a heartfelt celebration of the act of being, whether in moments of love or mortality, sex or feasting. In the central sequence of the book – a meditation on the space between life and death – the dead speak of their final earthly moments with a liberating sense of fascination, and a luminous awe. Elsewhere we enjoy al fresco sex, astronomy via many pints in the Cat and Fiddle, and the deliverance of an Indian monsoon after weeks of thirst and drought. In ‘Christmas in Andalucia’ two lovers Skype each other achingly across hundreds of miles – ‘I am full of loss and longing,’ the poet says, ‘the heart is hewn from elm and oak and mistletoe.’ As provocative, sensual and subversive as ever, these poems seek and find the numinous in the everyday: some element of ritual or wonder that transforms experience. Although the spectre of darkness is never far away, it is the spirit of pleasure that endures, and we discover to our delight, as D. H. Lawrence did, that the Dionysian finally prevails over the Apollonian.

Download or read book Poems for the Writing written by Valerie Fox and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Second edition of the popular book of prompts for writing poetry.

Download or read book Miss Plastique written by Lynn Levin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 57 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miss Plastique, the fourth full-length poetry collection by Lynn Levin, invites the reader into a world of female bravado in which Miss Plastique and her many selves rant, fret, joke, fall in love, dress up, and do their hair. Poems in this collection first appeared in Boulevard, Artful Dodge, Hunger Mountain, Connecticut Review, Knockout, Nerve Cowboy, and other places. Lynn Levin, a poet known for her eclecticism, humor, and range of poetic styles, is the author of the previous poetry collections Fair Creatures of an Hour, a Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist in poetry; Imaginarium, a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award; and A Few Questions about Paradise (all from Loonfeather Press). Her craft of poetry book, Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets (with Valerie Fox) is forthcoming from Texture Press in 2013. Lynn Levin is also a writer and literary translator. She has received nine Pushcart Prize nominations, two grants from the Leeway Foundation, and Garrison Keillor has read her work on his radio show The Writer's Almanac. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levin has lived in the Philadelphia area since 1980. She is the 1999 Bucks County, Pa. poet laureate and currently teaches at Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania. Advance praise for Miss Plastique: Miss Plastique is a busy girl: giving it to her enemy in stiletto heels, giving it up to an Elvis impersonator, thumbing a ride across Texas. She has turned from the mirror and can't look back. She's sexy and seductive and refuses to be pinned down; she's silk so fluid you could drink her-read her instead, but watch she doesn't explode in your hands. -Meg Kearney, author of Home By Now The poems in Lynn Levin's Miss Plastique hold their tension between fantasy and devastation. -Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of Necropolis This book is just as explosive as plastique and packed as tightly and with the impeccable craft you'd expect from a good detonation expert. Lynn Levin has the perfect timing and sensitive touch of one who works with volatile materials-an Elvis impersonator, the Beav and Eddie Haskell, Gaspara Stampa, Eve and Lilith at Macy's. We are better for the aftershocks of this verse. -Christopher Bursk, author of The Improbable Swervings of Atoms