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The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It
By Carl Sandburg, Harriet Pincus. 1978
The Rag Doll was blessed with many friends ― the Wisk Broom, the Furnace Shovel, and the Coffee Pot among…
them ― but when it came time to marry, she chose the Broom Handle. On the day of their wedding, the bride and groom were attended by a fantastical procession of well-wishers: the Spoon Lickers, the Tin Pan Bangers, the Easy Ticklers, the Musical Soup Eaters, and other whimsical characters, all marching along in a manner befitting their extraordinary names. This tale of wedding pomp and madcap mirth comes from poet Carl Sandburg's classic book of American fairy tales, The Rootabaga Stories. Marvelous drawings by Harriet Pincus, a noted illustrator of children's books, enhance the tale. Out of print for years, the book is now available in a new edition that introduces the story and its gloriously antic art to a new generation of parade-lovers, wedding-goers, and everyone who enjoys a fanciful celebration.What You Want
By Constantine Phipps. 2014
Patrick is still in love with his separated wife. Returning with their son after a trip to an amusement park,…
he begs, one last time, to reconcile with her. When she refuses, he is driven to thoughtless desperation: a bottle of sleeping pills, a bottle of whisky. And in his dying dream, he revisits that theme park of childish desire. There he finds the landscape - still garish and indulgent - has evolved. The attractions are religion, money and sex. The characters - costumed and acted - are transformed into Jefferson, Xunzi, Aristotle. And their purpose is to instruct Patrick in the pursuit of happiness throughout human history. But Patrick can only answer with his own story. He remembers falling in love with Louise. Recalls the enlightenment of their youth and the banality of their family life. He tells of their marriage, how it came under strain after the birth of his son; how he cheated; the unravelling of all his joy. Yet still his love persists. Beginning with the first line of Dante's Divine Comedy and taking in Disneyworld, the Declaration of Independence and the canon of philosophy in its stride, What You Want is a literary feat: a novel written entirely in verse, depicting life in all its ordinariness. It gives voice to a new Everyman and brings forth an unparallelled modern epic.Time's Covenant
By Eric Ormsby. 2007
Jason and the Argonauts
By Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, Aaron Poochigian, Apollonius Of Rhodes. 2009
The first new Penguin Classics translation of the Argonautica since the 1950sNow in a riveting new verse translation Jason and…
the Argonauts (also known as the Argonautica), is the only surviving full account of Jason's voyage on the Argo in quest of the Golden Fleece aided by the sorceress princess Medea. Written in third century B.C., this epic story of one of the most beloved heroes of Greek mythology, with its combination of the fantastical and the real, its engagement with traditions of science, astronomy and medicine, winged heroes, and a magical vessel that speaks, is truly without exact parallel in classical or contemporary Greek literature and is now available in an accessible and engaging translation.The Acorn-Planter: A California Forest Play
By Jack London. 2012
Jack London was an American novelist, journalist, social-activist and short-story writer whose works deal romantically with elemental struggles for survival.…
At his peak, he was the highest paid and the most popular of all living writers. Because of early financial difficulties, he was largely self educated past grammar school. London drew heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike during the Gold Rush and at various times was an oyster pirate, a seaman, a sealer, and a hobo. His first work was published in 1898. From there he went on to write such American classics as Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, and White Fang.The Aeneid
By Virgil, Bernard Knox, Robert Fagles. 2006
The city of Troy has been ransacked by conquering Greeks and lies in smouldering ruins. A warrior, Aeneas, manages to…
escape from the ashes. He will go on to change the history of the world . . . The Aeneid tells the story of an epic seven year journey that sees Aeneas cross stormy seas, become entangled in a tragic love affair with Dido of Carthage, visit the world of the dead - all the way tormented by the vengeful Juno, Queen of the Gods - and finally reach Italy, where he will fulfil his destiny: to found the Roman people. A sweeping epic of arms and heroism, dispossession and defeat, and a searching portrait of a man caught between love, duty and fate, The Aeneid brings to life a whole human world of passion, nobility and courage. This is the much-anticipated new version of Virgil's epic poem from the translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad. With this stunning modern verse translation Robert Fagles reintroduces the Aeneid to a whole new generation, and completes the classical triptych at the heart of Western civilization. It retains all of the gravitas and humanity of the original, as well as its powerful blend of poetry and myth. With an illuminating introduction to Virgil's world from noted scholar Bernard Knox, this new Aeneid gives a vibrant, contemporary voice to the literary achievement of the ancient world.The Odyssey
By Homer. 1994
Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American…
Academy of Arts and Letters presents us with Homer's best-loved and most accessible poem in a stunning new modern-verse translation. "Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. " So begins Robert Fagles' magnificent translation of the Odyssey, which Jasper Griffin in The New York Times Review of Books hails as "a distinguished achievement. " If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once the timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox's superb Introduction and textual commentary provide new insights and background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Fagles' translation. This is an Odyssey to delight both the classicist and the public at large, and to captivate a new generation of Homer's students. @IthacaStateOfMind Uh oh. This cave is a giant's lair. He has a taste for cheese, and my companions. He also has only one eye. Trying to keep from laughing. Got him drunk. Put a hot poker in his ONE EYE when he blacked out. That will show him - if he could see. LOL. Time to leave. Damn. Poseidon pissed. How was I supposed to know One-Eye was his son? What Olympian whore did he sleep with to get an issue like that? From Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less .Yevgeny Onegin
By Alexander Pushkin, Anthony Briggs. 2016
The aristocratic Yevgeny Onegin has come into his inheritance, leaving the glamour of St Petersburg's social life behind to take…
up residence at his uncle's country estate. Master of the nonchalant bow, and proof of the fact that we shine despite our lack of education, the aristocratic Onegin is the very model of a social butterfly - a fickle dandy, liked by all for his wit and easy ways. When the shy and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him, Onegin condescendingly rejects her, and instead carelessly diverts himself by flirting with her sister, Olga - with terrible consequences.Yevgeny Onegin is one of the - if not THE - greatest works of all Russian literature, and certainly the foundational text and Pushkin the foundational writer who influence all those who came after (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, etc). So it's no surprise that this verse novella has drawn so many translators. It's a challenge, too, since verse is always harder to translate than prose. (Vikram Seth, rather than translating Onegin again, updated it to the 1980s in San Franciso in his The Golden Gate). A.D.P. Briggs is arguably the greatest living scholar of Pushkin, certainly in the UK, and as such he's spent a lifetime thinking about how to translate Pushkin. Briggs is an experienced and accomplished translator, not only for Pushkin (Pushkin's The Queen of Spades) but for Penguin Classics (War and Peace, The Resurrection) and others. Briggs has not only been thinking about Pushkin for decades, he's been working on this translation for nearly as long. It's a landmark event in the history of Onegin translations and this edition is accompanied by a thoughtful introduction and translator's note.From the Trade Paperback edition.Maldoror (Les Chants de Maldoror)
By Guy Wernham, Conte De Lautreamont. 1965
This macabre but beautiful work, Les Chants de Maldoror, has achieved a considerable reputation as one of the earliest and…
most extraordinary examples of Surrealist writing. Maldoror is a long narrative prose poem which celebrates the principle of Evil in an elaborate style and with a passion akin to religions fanaticism. The French poet-critic Georges Hugnet has written of Lautréamont: "He terrifies, stupefies, strikes dumb. He could look squarely at that which others had merely given a passing glance." When first published in 1868-69, Maldoror went almost unnoticed. But in the 1890s the book was rediscovered and hailed as a work of genius by such eminent writers as Huysmans, Léon Block, Maeterlinck, and Rémy de Gourmont. Later still, Lautréamont was to be canonized as one of their principal "ancestors" by the Paris surrealists. This edition, translated by Guy Wernham, includes also a long introduction to a never-written, or now lost, volume of poetry. Thus, except for a few letters, it gives all the surviving literary work of Lautréamont.Amphitryon
By Molière, Richard Wilbur. 2010
"Richard Wilbur's translations of classic French drama are among the undiscovered treasure of our recent literature."-The Hudson ReviewMolière's late, elegant…
comedy, based on Plautus' Roman version, alludes to the love affairs of the French king. This is the fourth and final volume of Theatre Communication Group's series (with cover designs by Chip Kidd), completing trade publication of these vital theatrical works. ncludes Richard Wilbur's translation notes.Richard Wilbur is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a former poet laureate of the United States. His verse translations of Molière's plays have been performed for audiences throughout the world.From Sarajevo With Sorrow
By Goran Simic, Amela Simic. 2005
From Sarajevo, with Sorrow restores all that is offensive, despairing and necessary to our understanding of war by capturing the…
poems' original power and humanity. This collection contains both previously unpublished poems, written "under the candlelight" of the siege, and new poems returning to the sniper's alleys and bunkers of Sarajevo. This is a disturbingly resonant, timely and important collection.The Bungler
By Molière, Richard Wilbur. 2010
"A mischievous new translation by the poet Richard Wilbur, [The Bungler] is great good fun and should open the gate…
for the play to be presented with the regularity it deserves."--Bruce Weber, The New York Times"My notion of translation is that you try to bring it back alive. Speak-ability is so important. . . . I came to see that a line that simply says 'I love you,' at the right point in the show, is entirely adequate, that a great deal of verbal sophistication is not necessarily called for."--Richard WilburPoet Richard Wilbur's translations of Molière's plays are loved, renowned, and performed throughout the world. This volume is part of Theater Communications Group's new series (with cover designs by Chip Kidd) to complete trade publication of these vital works of French neoclassical comedy. The Bungler is Molière's first recognizably great play, and the first to be written in verse. The charming farce is set in Sicily and born of the great Italian tradition of the commedia dell'arte: Loyal valet Mascarille schemes to win the lovely Celie away from rival Leadre, and into the arms of his master Leslie. Molière himself originated the role Mascarille, self-described as "the rashest fool on earth," who naturally bungles the job along the way.Richard Wilbur is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a former Poet Laureate of the United States. His publications include six volumes of poetry and two collections of selected verses, a collection of prose, and two books for children.School for Husbands and The Imaginary Cuckold, or Sganarelle
By Richard Wilbur, Jean Baptiste De Moliere. 2009
"My notion of translation is that you try to bring it back alive. . . . If you take on…
a text which is somehow appropriate to you and which you may already love, what you want to do is to be as perfectly the slave of it as you can be."--Richard WilburOriginally inspired by a revelatory Comédie-Française production of The Misanthrope in 1948 Paris, Richard Wilbur has made translating Molière part of his lifework. These two comedies of marriage and misunderstanding are gathered here in a single volume that is part of TCG's new series (with design by Chip Kidd) to complete trade publication of these vital theatrical works.Lovers' Quarrels
By Richard Wilbur, Jean Baptiste De Molière. 2009
"I came to see that a line that simply says 'I love you,' at the right point in the show,…
is entirely adequate, that a great deal of verbal sophistication is not necessarily called for. . . . Speak-ability is so important. That's something I slowly had to learn about poetry, and something I had to work on always with Molière."--Richard WilburLovers' Quarrels is Molière's second full-length verse play, animated with deception and tangles of love.Richard Wilbur is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former Poet Laureate of the United States. His verse translations of Molière's plays have been performed for audiences throughout the world.The Way The Light Bends
By Cordelia Jensen. 2018
A powerful novel in verse about fitting in, standing out, defining your own self-worth, and what it takes to keep…
a fracturing family whole.Virtual twins Linc and Holly were once extremely close. But while artistic, creative Linc is her parents' daughter biologically, it's smart, popular Holly, adopted from Ghana as a baby, who exemplifies the family's high-achieving model of academic success. Linc is desperate to pursue photography, to find a place of belonging, and for her family to accept her for who she is, despite her surgeon mother's constant disapproval and her growing distance from Holly. So when she comes up with a plan to use her photography interests and skills to do better in school--via a project based on Seneca Village, a long-gone village in the space that now holds Central Park, where all inhabitants, regardless of race, lived together harmoniously--Linc is excited and determined to prove that her differences are assets, that she has what it takes to make her mother proud. But when a long-buried family secret comes to light, Linc must decide whether her mother's love is worth obtaining.A novel in verse that challenges the way we think about family and belonging.Catching a Storyfish
By Janice Harrington. 2016
Keet knows the only good thing about moving away from her Alabama home is that she'll live near her beloved…
grandfather. When Keet starts school, it's even worse than she expected, as the kids tease her about her southern accent. Now Keet, who can "talk the whiskers off a catfish," doesn't want to open her mouth. Slowly, though, while fishing with her grandfather, she learns the art of listening. Gradually, she makes her first new friend. But just as she's beginning to settle in, her grandfather has a stroke, and even though he's still nearby, he suddenly feels ever-so-far-away. Keet is determined to reel him back to her by telling him stories; in the process she finds her voice and her grandfather again. This lyrical and deeply emotional novel-in-verse celebrates the power of story and of finding one's individual voice.Struwwelpeter in English Translation
By Heinrich Hoffmann. 1995
First published in 1845. Struwwelpeter (variously translated as "slovenly" or "shock-headed" Peter) has become widely recognized as one of the…
most popular and influential children's books ever written. Heinrich Hoffmann was a Frankfurt physician. Unhappy with the dry and pedagogic books available for children at the time, he wrote and illustrated Struwwelpeter as a Christmas present for his three-year-old son. The book relates in verse and pictures the often gruesome consequences that befall children who torment animals, play with matches, suck their thumbs, refuse to eat, fidget at meals, etc.Written in rhyming couplets and illustrated by the author, the book was an immediate success. It has since gone through hundreds of editions and been published in almost every European language. The present volume reprints 25 color plates from a German edition (including a bonus plate done for the 100th edition in 1876) with the reset text of a standard English translation. Also included are the full German text and an afterword with a brief biography of the author and note on how the book came to be written.Children, bibliophiles, antiquarians--any lover of time-honored tales for children--will welcome this new edition of the classic German story. Content is optimized for tablet.This Impossible Light
By Lily Myers. 2017
From the YouTube slam poetry star of "Shrinking Women" (more than 5 million views!) comes a novel in verse about…
body image, eating disorders, self-worth, mothers and daughters, and the psychological scars we inherit from our parents.Fifteen-year-old Ivy's world is in flux. Her dad has moved out, her mother is withdrawn, her brother is off at college, and her best friend, Anna, has grown distant. Worst of all, Ivy's body won’t stop expanding. She's getting taller and curvier, with no end in sight. Even her beloved math class offers no clear solution to the imbalanced equation that has become Ivy’s life. Everything feels off-kilter until a skipped meal leads to a boost in confidence and reminds Ivy that her life is her own. If Ivy can just limit what she eats—the way her mother seems to—she can stop herself from growing, focus on the upcoming math competition, and reclaim control of her life. But when her disordered eating leads to missed opportunities and a devastating health scare, Ivy realizes that she must weigh her mother's issues against her own, and discover what it means to be a part of—and apart from—her family. This Impossible Light explores the powerful reality that identity and self-worth must be taught before they are learned. Perfect for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins.Praise for This Impossible Light:★ "In an exceptional novel in verse, slam poet Myers debuts with a powerful commentary on maternal inheritance and eating disorders....striking use of the flexibility of free verse...absorbing and evocative." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "Written in evocative verse, with notes of wonder and despair, the cadence flows across and down the pages with grace. Lifted beyond the confines of the problem novel with its lyricism and resonance." —Kirkus Reviews"The undeniable teen appeal makes it a first purchase for any YA collection." —School Library Journal"More than a touching debut, this is a surefire coping companion, too." —BooklistThis Impossible Light
By Lily Myers. 2017
From the YouTube slam poetry star of "Shrinking Women" (more than 5 million views!) comes a novel in verse about…
body image, eating disorders, self-worth, mothers and daughters, and the psychological scars we inherit from our parents.Fifteen-year-old Ivy's world is in flux. Her dad has moved out, her mother is withdrawn, her brother is off at college, and her best friend, Anna, has grown distant. Worst of all, Ivy's body won’t stop expanding. She's getting taller and curvier, with no end in sight. Even her beloved math class offers no clear solution to the imbalanced equation that has become Ivy’s life. Everything feels off-kilter until a skipped meal leads to a boost in confidence and reminds Ivy that her life is her own. If Ivy can just limit what she eats—the way her mother seems to—she can stop herself from growing, focus on the upcoming math competition, and reclaim control of her life. But when her disordered eating leads to missed opportunities and a devastating health scare, Ivy realizes that she must weigh her mother's issues against her own, and discover what it means to be a part of—and apart from—her family. This Impossible Light explores the powerful reality that identity and self-worth must be taught before they are learned. Perfect for fans of Laurie Halse Anderson and Ellen Hopkins.Praise for This Impossible Light:★ "In an exceptional novel in verse, slam poet Myers debuts with a powerful commentary on maternal inheritance and eating disorders....striking use of the flexibility of free verse...absorbing and evocative." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "Written in evocative verse, with notes of wonder and despair, the cadence flows across and down the pages with grace. Lifted beyond the confines of the problem novel with its lyricism and resonance." —Kirkus Reviews"The undeniable teen appeal makes it a first purchase for any YA collection." —School Library Journal"More than a touching debut, this is a surefire coping companion, too." —BooklistParadiso
By Robert Hollander, Dante. 2007
The Divine Comedy is a complete scale of the depths and heights of human emotion," wrote T.S. Eliot. "The last…
canto of the Paradiso is to my thinking the highest point that poetry has ever reached or ever can reach."The Divine Comedy stands as one of the towering creations of world literature, and its climactic section, the Paradiso, is perhaps the most ambitious poetic attempt ever made to represent the merging of individual destiny with universal order. Having passed through Hell and Purgatory, Dante is led by his beloved Beatrice to the upper sphere of Paradise, wherein lie the sublime truths of Divine will and eternal salvation, to at last experience a rapturous vision of God."A spectacular achievement," said poet and critic Archibald MacLeish of John Ciardi's version of Dante's masterpiece. "A text with the clarity and sobriety of a first-rate prose translation which at the same time suggests in powerful and unmistakable ways the run and rhythm of the great original."From the Hardcover edition.