Poetry Books

...The gist of it was this: Crow is one of the best books of poetry published in the last 50 years...

As an English major in 1973, one of my professors recommended this book of poetry. None of our textbooks contained any of Ted Hughes' work but I jotted his name and this title in the margin of one of my books. After graduating, I spent very little time reading or thinking about poetry. But I recently revived my interest in poetry, specifically after reading several biographies of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. I pulled out my old poetry textbooks, found this note and immediately ordered Crow to read it for myself.
What an experience. The work is fantastic - the images, the rhythm, the concept. Amazing, entertaining, and relevant.
I highly recommend this book.

A brilliant work! Honest, straightforward, raw and hardcore poems
that will knock your socks off. This is the only work I recommend reading by Hughes.

I first read this in the late 70's. The harshness, the brutality of it all was a punch in the stomach. An overturning of how i imagined poetry to be. Poetry because of this could belong to me too. It was a similar sensation to the crashing, nihilistic verve of early punk records. It will always remind me that poetry can be as powerful as a 3 minute, 3 chord record, and just as accessible. It did not have any of the cultural baggage of TS Eliot's Wasteland,for example, Which to a provincial boy stuck in a Comprehensive School, belonged to a diferent, musty world .

"Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow" is a collection of poems by Ted Hughes. The copyright page notes that the book was first published in 1972. This is a remarkable book that often reads like some apocryphal sacred text. The book is dominated by its title character, who is the focus of a significant number of the poems. Crow is a multifaceted character with mythic heft: he is a warrior, theologian, trickster, and partner with God in creation. He is both heroic and ridiculous, foolish and wise. He's a compelling and delightful character who ultimately transcends all cultures and historical eras.

The collection as a whole is whimsical, witty, apocalyptic, bold, revelatory, irreverent, visceral, horrific, and playful. At times, Hughes' poetic marriage of the earthy and the mystical reminded me of Walt Whitman. The book also calls to mind traditional Native American animal stories.

Many of the poems in "Crow" touch on the magic and power of words. The natural world is another key recurring motif. Hughes delivers some striking images and some interesting arrangements of words on the page--many poems really engage the eye. Many poems read like religious litanies. Overall, an impressive and enjoyable poetic achievement.

This book cannot be praised enough. Here you have the opportunity to read the early poems of one of the generation's best poets. As has been remarked by previous reviewers, there is an optimism in Kaminsky's poems even amidst tragedy; an unearthly eloquence and musicality to each and every line. It is an unbelievably refreshing tone.

You'll breeze through the book in no time and then realize that you can spend a day on every page. This is a book of transport - to another time, another country, in other bodies and minds - and what you will find there is a new mythos - cities of birds and song and silence all together. And there, on the bench reading a small book filled with beauty in the midst of cobblestones? Why it is you.

from the first encounter to the sixtieth, this book grabs and holds. It is a daring, beautiful debut and the kind of book that makes me invest in books of poetry, hopeful each time that they will yield the percentage of brilliance and beauty that this book does. Kaminsky reminds me why we write and why we read.

I highly recommend Ilya Kaminsky's first book. It is full of small beautiful lyric moments that rise across history. His love poems are simply beautiful. I can't agree more with those reviewers too who mention Kaminsky's style of reading. The poet Joe Weil once wrote "poetry has forgotten how to praise/ forgotten how to pray." Ilya Kaminsky has not forgotten either.

This is the best book of poetry I've read in years. I read it again and again.
I couldn't recommend it more.

John FitzGerald, author of Spring Water

I had the pleasure of hearing Ilya Kaminsky read his poetry from Dancing in Odessa the other day at my college. He came into the room and seemed a bit shy at first. Uncertain as to "what to do" he began to read from his book. A powerful and lyrical voice filled the room and everyone was glued to her/his seat listening. He not only writes wonderful, thought-provoking and dazzling poems but he reads with an energy unsurpassed. He uses his voice in incredible ways, incredible ranges and he employs his whole body in the experience. One gets the sense she is witness to something profound and passionate, spellbinding. Kaminsky's voice is strange, beautiful and musical.

One of the most famous - and infamous - letters in all of literature, De Profundis is a strange little piece of work: either much more than it appears on the surface, or much less. It is something I think everyone should read, if only for its insight into the human character, particularly that of one under great personal suffering. Wilde wrote this extraordinarily long letter from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas, his friend, lover, and the man who - by all accounts - was the reason Wilde was in jail in the first place. Despite repeated assertions in the first few pages alone to the contrary, Wilde seems reluctant to blame himself. He clearly blames Douglas to the hilt, and harbors a certain bitter resentment towards him. And yet... he clearly still hold much dear affection toward - and even loves - Douglas. He still seems to be asking for forgiveness - despite the fact that, by all accounts hardly excluding his own, he was the man wronged. It is quite clear from reading this letter that, desite the view history holds of him, Wilde was clearly a man of very high moral character. Certainly, one would not put Wilde atop a pedastal as the zenith of ethics - he himself says that morals contain "absolutely nothing" for him, and clearly admits - and is proud of - his having lived the high life to the hilt during his youth - but Wilde was a man of principles, and he stuck to those principles to the tragic, bitter end. Perhaps you might say he carried them too far. One gets the sense in reading this letter - or a biography of Wilde - that, not only could he have stopped his immiment imprisonment, but could have severed his ties with Douglas completely - had he wanted to. Apparently, he had his own utterly compelling reasons for not doing so. Whatever the case, Oscar Wilde is one of the most fundamentally and perpetually interesting characters in the whole of history. A self-described man of paradoxes - Wilde was subsequently the true essence of his time, while also being far ahead of his time - De Profundis makes for required reading by one of the most endlessly fascinating individuals you'll ever read about, and also provides a startling - indeed, perhaps too much so - insight into human nature.

De Profundis, though long for a letter, is not a long work in the conventional sense. Consequently, as many editions of Wilde's collected works are available, buying this on its own may be deemed questionable. I highly reccommend purchasing a Collected Works of Oscar if you have not done so already - it's well worth the price - but, should you desire to have more compact editions of specific works, an edition such as this will be privy to your needs.

This is a very moving account of a heartbroken man who was betrayed by a person he loved dearly. The pain, the trauma, the love, the anger, the frustration is evident in every single well-written sentence. This book is not only a window into the mind of one of the best British writers of the late 19th century. It is also a timeless lesson on what can happen when one falls in love with someone who doesn't truly appreciate what they have before them. Of course there are other lessons to be learned in this book but rather than point them out here, I'd much prefer you pick up a copy of "De Profundis" as soon as you can.

Not actually a "letter," though it had to be originally presented as such for him to be allowed to write it while in prison, *De Profundis* is Wilde's masterpiece--one has to have really lived and really, really suffered to have written it and it's amazing that he achieved it.

I only very recently read it--and "got" it. It rings true to me, and is very, very moving and "profound." It ain't summer beach reading.

Wilde is still and will probably always be best known as a "Personality"--that and the author of a couple of decent period plays, a short novel, a few stories, and lots of forgettable poems and such. But THIS--THIS is IT.

He really WAS a great writer, it turns out, after all.

So many people concentrate on De Profundis' accusations cast towards Alfred Douglas. Yes, it's true that the letter was written to him and that Wilde is ruthless in letting Douglas know exactly what he thinks of him but that's not why De Profundis is a great piece of work. It is great for three reasons. Number one - It contains the best account of the life of Christ. Christ as the romantic artist is the only account that has moved me to tears and the only account I can personally embrace. Number two - it is chock full of the Oscar Wilde voice and wit and as a result it reverbates as a true work of art and number three - It is ultimately a work that celebrates the things in life worth feeling - failure, love, injustice, strength and forgiveness.

Don't waste your time with the accusations towards Douglas. He is unimportant. Oscar Wilde is what's important and De Profundis is Oscar Wilde bare.

Ah, me...one doesn't know which to be more irritated
and exasperated with: whether it be Walt Whitman doing
his dissembling shuck-and-shuffle about the children
he had sired (to throw off a probing, serious John
Addington Symonds) -- or Oscar, in this "j'accuse," which
he should have spoken while looking in a mirror, rather
than writing it on paper to Lord Alfred.
This is without doubt a fascinating, horrifying,
and yet in places humorous, "piece de Miserere mei"
(to combine a bit of French with Latin).
If one chooses to believe Oscar, his only fault
was weakness in "giving in" to Lord Alfred. Oh,
come now. Blinded by Eros, reason flies out the
door...if ever reason was in control. There are
some sentences which are devastatingly revealing,
but Oscar doesn't seem to see it. "The trivial in
thought and action is charming. I had made it
the keystone of a very brilliant philosophy expressed
in plays and paradoxes." Ye gods, and little fishes!

And this man dared to call himself a "Classicist?!"
Yikes!!!
The best exercise for the reader is to just take
many of the things which Oscar accuses Lord Alfred
of, and turn them toward the self-blind, self-
justifying Oscar, to see their devastating hitting
of the mark. Never having met the young man, but
only having the "benefit" of hearsay (mostly from
Oscar's literary defenders) Lord Alfred seems to have
been calculating, temperamental (using anger to get
his way), manipulative, etc., etc., etc. The best
description of him may be Wilde's referring to him
with the lines from Aeschylus' play AGAMEMNON,
about the lion cub being raised in a house and
being let loose to wreak havoc and ruin.
But Oscar bears his share of blame -- more than just
that of the "sin" of weakness which he constantly falls
back upon in his own justification. Even in the midst
of what purports to be some sort of penitent cry from
the depths of hell...Oscar still is ever the poseur:
"And I remember that afternoon, as I was in the railway
carriage whirling up to Paris, thinking what an impossible,
terrible, utterly wrong state my life had got into, when
I, a man of world-wide reputation, was actually forced
to run away from England, in order to try and get rid
of a friendship that was entirely destructive of everything
fine in me either from the intellectual or ethical point
of view...." Er, when was the last time that the
"everything fine" had last seen the light of day?
Was Oscar an "Artist," as he consistently claims?
Was he the wronged, harmed Artist? Perhaps only the
reader can decide that for himself. Without doubt
he was witty, acerbic, funny, cute, clever, perhaps
even charming (to some -- sort of like a Pillsbury
Dough Boy with flair and a clever tongue), perhaps
stylish (in a frumpy, velveteen sort of way). Was
he wronged by a predatory clinger and manipulator,
and a hypocritical social prudery and class power
play (Oscar is no Socrates--that's for sure!)? He
hardly seems worthy, in some ways, of being a poster-boy
for Gay Pride parades. More likely, he is a better
warning poster boy for the self-excusing, and never
take-responsibility-for-your-own-actions crowd.
But this is an incredible piece to read and think
about. There is some of it that is mordantly hilarious.

Powerful is the word that comes to mind. The writing, the plot and the dialogue. The character of Carrie is as different from me as night and day and yet when she needed to be strong she totally came through for herself. I didn't agree with many of the choices she made yet by the end of the novel I was rooting for her like she was a best friend.

The husband is truly irredeemable and I am glad to say I have not in my lifetime been around anyone so domineering, condescending, insufferable and without self-awareness. In fact, his whole life revolved around him, he can't grasp why everyone around him wasn't focused at all times on his needs. Loathsome. The author does a terrific job of making him so real that you hope never to cross paths with him.

I absolutely adored Val. I could totally see why Carrie was drawn to her. I loved the way Val was written as so very strong and unique yet not without flaws.

This is a book that will stay with you forever.

I was quite disappointed in this book - it was the first fiction of its kind I have ever read and sadly it lived up to all the negative stereotypes. The husband character in the book is such a cardboard-cut out villian the lesbian lover is a virtual saint. However the author has a real talent for making sex scenes erotic. Definitely a book for flicking through ...

Katherine has done it again, with her usual finesse, she's brought characters to life with writing so clear and descriptive it was as if I had been scooped up by some force and surreally planted in the midst of the events of EMERGENCE. I am in awe! I only wish there were some sort of epilogue, to give me some sense of closure to Val and Carrie's relationship, and especially to the evil that befalls Paul (Carrie's ex-husband). No complaints; just wishes. Truly remarkable!!

I began reading Katherine V Forrest's mystery novels and I hate to admit... but I wasn't terribly impressed. Yet so many of my friends said she was one of their favorite authors. So I finally picked up "An Emergence of Green" and now she is also one of my favorite authors.
This is a wonderfully touching story of how the friendship between two women blossom into something more. I highly recommend this book to anyone, gay or straight.
It reads very fast, and I was on the edge of my seat through many chapters not wanting to wait to find out what happens next. The setting is a bit dated, but the story refreshing. You won't be disappointed

Alice Street Editions has released a new edition of this 1986 novel by author Katherine V. Forrest, originally published by Naiad Press. If you read this novel long ago, it is worth the purchase price just to read the foreword from the author and the afterword written by Victoria A. Brownworth. But the book is worth rereading for its own merits.
Set in 1984 in Los Angeles against the backdrop of the Olympics and the presidential campaign involving the first (and only) woman candidate for vice president, the novel is not dated at all by this, nor is it dated by its subject matter. It is as fresh and nuanced and topical as if it had been written today.
The point is made in the afterword that Ms. Forrest writes about lesbians for lesbians. In this novel, among the first in a new genre of lesbian fiction, Ms. Forrest carefully and skillfully presents the male character, the antagonist, as fully drawn and as sympathetically as one could, a man trapped by his upbringing and his past and the social mores of his time. One may not feel sympathy for him, given the inevitable and violent denouement, but we can certainly understand him.
In fact, a reader might even begin to feel less sympathy and more impatient with the main character Carolyn Blake than perhaps might be expected. She is a trophy wife, married at nineteen to a man ten years older who is already well established in his corporate career track. She sublimates her own education and career to his, leaving jobs to move with his transfers, seemingly accepting without question that her career is less important. A friendship with the woman next door, Val Hunter, a divorced artist with a son, allows Carolyn, and the reader, to begin to draw comparisons.
One of the most interesting things about this novel is how close we get to all three main characters. We see Val through Carolyn's admiring eyes and growing affection, and also through Paul's growing resentment and jealousy as he comes to understand she is his rival. We see Carolyn both through her husband's idealistic view as a possession of which he inordinately proud, and as Val comes to know her, a vibrant woman who has spent far too much time acquiescing to Paul's idea of the perfect wife. Carolyn struggles to continue to believe her husband's possessiveness is a product of his impoverished childhood, the early loss of his mother, and his love for her, which she believes is genuine. Val sees a grown man who is domineering and arrogant in his presumptive male superiority. She instinctively feels there is something infantile about Paul's need for Carolyn, and Carolyn herself often refers to her husband as a little boy. Once she thought of this as an endearing trait, but she begins to feel his need to have her with him as clinging, suffocating, and ultimately controlling.
The tug of war that ensues between husband and friend for the heart and mind of Carolyn Blake slowly escalates as the sexual tension and awareness between the two women increases.
For those who haven't read this book before, a few words of caution. The nature of sex itself is at the heart of this novel. There are no pulled punches here. Ms. Forrest is not shy about delineating the intimate sexual details of a marriage and, exquisitely, the sexual and very sensual relationship between the two women. Nor does she back away from the same attention to the excruciating unraveling of Paul Blake and his eventual recourse to violence as the familiar world he has created starts to crumble.
I once had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Forrest, and found myself peppered with questions about this book, then yet to be released by Alice Street. On the eve of the release of her thirteenth book, the eighth in the Kate Delafield detective series, she wanted to know about a book she had written almost twenty years ago, as nervous as a first time author. Perhaps recalling the critical reviews of many years ago, she asked whether the main character, Carolyn Blake, was too weak.
The answer then and now is an emphatic no. Many women may recognize themselves in Carolyn, guided by the accepted precepts of her time, who believed that in placing their husbands' lives and careers first, they were perhaps doing the hard work often assigned women, that of balancing the cementing of family and home against their own sometimes unspoken desires; to be a woman meant doing what had to be done, and then doing more, if one wanted to also have a career. It takes some time for Carolyn Blake to realize her own needs and to leave behind the conventions to which she adhered but in which she found no rewards for her loyalty, no comfort or room for herself.
The afterword properly places this novel, and Katherine V. Forrest's body of work, firmly in the history of a genre she helped to create, both as an author of great skill, and as senior editor at Naiad Press for ten years.

In a collection of poems inspired by some of the concepts fundamental to relationships between lover and loved. Glenn A. Fenster's FEELINGS AND PROMISES taps into the human experience of love, sex, death, connection, loss, hope, mystery and more.

The poem's subjects range from the very personal to the broadly elemental. He describes both beautiful scenery and complex inner emotions, sometimes within the same verse. This is an interesting collection that feels very accessible to those of us who might not read poetry regularly. At one poem per page, this slim volume of 69 pages offers a lot of material to explore. FEELINGS AND PROMISES delivers Fenster's view of the world, and in the way of poetry, asks us to consider our own.

The poetry of Glenn A. Fenster is carefully crafted, elegant, lyrical, and memorable. Feelings And Promises is a superb introduction to Fenster's abilities and skills as a weaver of words, images, and feelings. Time And Space: Summers first rain,/Words drown./Obscurity creates disbelief,/Tears act as exoneration/A pain death could cause/And love could give./Standing in shadows/Swallowed by the light,/As recycled paper/Years fasten themselves/To pass as thorns/And ill advised moments/Only to be balanced/By the offing/That you pervade./Landscaped lives/Obtaining the malicious possessions/Time spaced by inconsistences/Of a man's life/We choose or become/Accept and be stagnate/Emotionally secured by either/We tend to lean upon,/Time and space.

Feelings and Promises: The poetry of Glenn A. Fenster,69 pages of poetry, 3 pages Table of Contents in numerical order and 3 pages of acknowledgements is dedicated to his brother Randy. Published by Gray matter Publishing & Design Co., Athens, GA. Glenn A. Fenster's Feelings and Promises is a fine philosophical collection of poems which speak out with an independent voice that shapes his creations the way that wind sculpts soft sand into visions of art. Among these excellent works are poems which etch picturesque cells of life. I particularly enjoyed the following: Dying Rose Petals ("My tongue felt your exquisite body reach out...") (p.12) Decades Have Passed... of this poem, it is as if Glenn is meditating with a distant Zulu shaman and is being taught secrets from the great book of mystery about the reason he must write. (p.23) Children ("Echoed sounds of passing trains / Become children turned into statues") (p.68)

Here are poems from a very personal perspective. The word "I" used in many of Glenn's writings, lets the reader know just how personal Glenn's "Feelings and Promises" are crafted into each poem. This book is recommended to read during those times when you search for answers within yourself, and also to understand as though looking inward, through another person's mind, just what that search has discovered.

Gary Elton Warrick December 29, 1999

Hi, I have read a few of my Uncle Glenn A. Fenster's poems even though he doesn't approve of me reading his poetry. I think his poetry is great. It expresses his emotions and feelings greatly. I truly like his work. Not because he's my uncle but because he as a true talent.

From, Stephanie 15 yr. old niece of Glenn Fenster.

"FEELINGS & PROMISES" is just a wonderful collection of contemporary poetry. I found it to be insightful, soulful and thought provoking. As a fellow poet of "BARE BREASTED HEART" I could relate to the written words of this wonderful collection.

So much poetry is written in code where you really have to hesitate and wonder if you are comprehending the poetry as the author intended. This collection althought thought provoking bring you full circle to the intention of the writer.

I loved it and I encourage further writing from this poet! Would make a great gift or a personal treat to oneself.

Saadia's writing always leaves me wanting to read more...and more...
Her poems are powerful, confident, honest, funny and sexy. Never dull and always lively. The juxtapositions in her work never cease to amaze.
These are the kind of poems I wish I had written. That I want to send to my friends, because it's what I'm thinking. I love 'Mischief: Inspired by Tequila' ... ("My discarded/ red dress/watches us rejected and/dry"). And 'Kerouac's Lover' is just plain hot.

Her poetry has a way of making you root for sin. Always.

I'm not going to try to wax poetic here. I just want to say that Saadia's poetry is top notch! She can write about anything imaginable, and that is the mark of a true artist. Like the title says, her poems have the ability to hit you like a bullet, and other times like a nice soft pillow. The variety is amazing. Reading her poems is a joy and at the same time educational. Those of us on Xanga refer to her as our "poetry professor." I have learned more about poems, poetry, forms, and creativity in the last few months, than I have learned in my lifetime. I am grateful to have found the writing of this talented poet, and I am also grateful that I can call her a friend. -Randy Van Otterloo

She's a lover, and a lady, a mother, and a wife, a sinner, and a saint sharing pieces of life. She, and her words, so beautifully irresistible, that she will lure you in with her "Lavish Lines and Luscious Lies". You will go happily to your demise. What better way to go. Give in to her sultry temptation, and you will be rewarded with "Flirtations and Booze"

Saadia's writing, is a weekend in the finest hotel with the lover of your dreams, and memories that will last a lifetime..... She takes you for a ride in a BMW Z8 through the canyon roads of southern California at 100 miles an hour... Hang on tight! The ride is an intense one, but she has everything under control. ..... and now, I can't wait for the next ride :o)

Brent

This may be a "short," but it's long on brilliance. Aschemann's keen intelligence and stiletto wit carries the reader along breathlessly into worlds wished for but never quite achieved. Perhaps she's holding us up to the prism of her reality, forcing us to look inside ourselves, holding us responsible for our forbidden thoughts. Whatever it is, she certainly knows her way around words and makes them work hard for the money.

Required reading.

Amazing! This is one of those things that I downloaded with every intent on reading it later when I had time. But once I took a peek, I couldn't stop, everything else went on the back burner. This was the best 'me' time, I had in quite a while. Sultry Saadia draws you in with the first poem, leaving you breathless to the end....

Gargoyle 42 is a brilliant collection of brash, dynamic and creative literary works. Particularly moving is the hard-hitting "Boyfriend" by Jenny Badman. When this woman lays it out there, you'll feel it. Buy the book!

This hot author is already outstanding. Not only has captured the heat of the moment, but she relates it to everyday life. It has flavor and edge. Loved it!

This dynamic work of literature inspired me to take more chances in my life. I found it captivating, seductive and dark. Keep up the awesome work!

I loved this work! My fav section was the poem by Jenny B. It moved me and inspired me to make some changes in my life. This work was spellbinding, riveting and seductive. Encoré Jenny B!

GARGOYLE should be required reading for every creative writing class. This work sparkles with literary elegance and discipline, bubbles with sex and boils with blood. BUY IT! You will feel these writers breathing on your neck deep into the night!

I bought this book as part of my project assignment. I liked the fact that it was both in Spanish and in English. It teaches the Spanish alphabet through beautiful illustrations of the Mexican culture and farm workers. It is first class print and one can tell that much time and effort went into the preparation of the book. However, I did not like the fact that 'happy' farm workers covered most of the pages. I believe it is stereotyping the Hispanic population to some degree and as someone who has also worked in the farms under the blazing sun, I wasn't smiling most of the time... Overall, I recommend the book provided that parents/teachers exercise caution while using it because of its stereotypical elements.

This is one of the best bilingual alphabet books I've encountered. It is suitable for children of all ages, including adults. The poems written by Alma Flor Ada are symbolic and elegantly ilustrated by Simon Silva. Silva brings his farmworker roots to his illustrations in this life of the harvester themed book. I can't say enough about the illustrations, suffice to say, they are simple yet stunning colorful depictions of the farmworkers life. This is first and foremost a Spanish alphabet book, with an English translation; it begins with Arboles and Trees, which as you may note are not exactly both A words. Besides the excellent ilustrations, brilliant author (she has a PHD, has done postdoctoral work at Harvard and is a Fullbright Scholar), DR. Aida brings to life the alphabet with her insightful poetry. She uses simple language to convey matters of the earth and a rich cultural heritage. Not overly flowery, her use of language is one that evokes the simplicity and toughness of the life of the farmworker. Her educational and lifetime experiences, reflected in some of her some of her books like A Magical Encounter: Latino Children's Literature in the Classroom (2nd Edition),Under The Royal Palms: A Childhood in Cuba extend from a broad palette of knowledge that is dedicated to children. This book is one that every child can benefit from, regardless of race. Families, teachers and students will love this book. It is a book to be cherished from one generation to the next. This book belongs in all young bilingual families homes, community and school(K-12) libraries. There is something for everyone to enjoy in this gorgeous, soulful book.

I highly recommend this book. It has beautiful illustrations and poems, and teaches Mexican history. It is larger than I expected, which is great. A great value, I would have paid a lot more!

Right away, one can see that this is much more than your run-of-the-mill alphabet books. Two extremely talented people, author Alma Flor Ada and Simon Silva, collaborate on 28 short poems that celebrate the pride of the Latino familes that work the fields as migrant farmworkers. In fact, this book is dedicated to the memory of Cesar Chavez. Alma Flor Ada has written extensively on what it is like to be a Latina immigrant in such books as "Me Llamo Isabel," and Simon Silva has illustrated such like-themed books as "La Mariposa" and "El Campo."

The poems tell of the harvest, from Arboles (trees) to Zanahoria (carrot), with C and Ch telling the story of Cesar Chavez. The poems are both in English and Spanish; in both languages, the verse is rendered with great sensitivity. The beautiful illustrations convey not only the hard work of the fields, but also beauty and hope, not to mention a strong and serene sense of family. The people give thanks to the wind, sky, rain, sun, field, flower, and Earth for all the delicious fruits, while extoling honor, both in hard work and caring in the family. I can think of few other books that tell of these things, which most people take for granted, more beautifully.

This brilliantly illustrated bilingual book is a delightful adventure into the world of language and art, "simple words and sun-drenched paintings", as Alma Flor Ada and Simon Silva take young readers into orchards and fields, alongside the people who harvest the bounty of nature, dedicated to the living memory of Cesar Chavez: "Your example and your words sprout anew in the field rows as seedlings of quiet hope." The illustrated alphabet is Spanish, text in both Spanish and English: arboles (trees) "the companions of my childhood"; duraznos (peaches) "like a gentle caress in the palm of my hand"; tomates (tomatoes) "red tomato in the kitchen, in the little tacos my godmother loves to make"; zanahoria (carrot) "The carrot hides beneath the earth. After all, she knows the sun's fiery color by heart."

Nothing less than a celebration of a shared heritage of working the land and the language of nature's bounty, the bilingual text is rendered with an eye to the beauty of words and the images wrought from the earth's palette, a rich history of the cycle of growth and those who labor to carry their fruits from field to kitchen, from the hands that toil upon the land to those that prepare the rich foods that grace the tables of grateful families. Saturated with vivid color and the dignity of hard work, Gathering the Sun is nothing less than brilliant, a reflection of the author and illustrator's appreciation for all aspects of growth, from field to heart to spirit, acknowledging "honor and pride, family and friends, history and heritage, and... the bounty of the harvest." Luan Gaines/2006.

Regent St. Claire explores the gray area between evil and innocence, as the dark flip side of human nature. Regent's first book "Altered States of Grace" had read like its very own haunted theatre. Beautiful, also with such melodic melancholy that its all so very intense, so much that it gets so hard to digest at times that it compels me to read on. I can't wait to get my hands on his new book, "Glamour & Damnation". And, by the way, check out his project "Candyappleblack" at its very own website, for a bigger taste of the supernatural side of his imagination.

Somehow, unknowingly, the world today has been let loose on a constant campaign to lose more and more of the grip on things that really matter, things that make a difference... feelings that are meant to lie just beneath the surface... the very essence of the liquid tears that run from the flame and harden into rivers of substance.

I am glad to say that now, Regent St. Claire may be the one to make the world stop rolling off its own edge... and to make it listen... both in times of Glamour and in spells of Damnation.

His raw angst and passion colour his words with a depth and clarity that transpose his thoughts unerringly right through the keyholes of those special places in your heart and your mind that many of us strive to keep hidden, dusty and cold, and that will unlock you from within. His poetry is unencumbered by rules, regulations or sterotypes, and is as is... refreshingly fresh and excitingly exciting as one of the most genuine collection of poems that I have had the pleasure of coming across.

In a world of rising waves overhead and raging currents underneath... Glamour & Damnation travels in the space between... deep, rich, thick and weightless. Finally, a book that returns the age-old romance of reading. Three sweet cheers and a black apple to Mr. St. Claire.

I have kept a copy of Regent St. Claire's "Glamour & Damnation," with me wherever I go for the past several weeks, ever since I received it in the mail. Whenever I happen to have a moment or two, I read as many pages as time will allow. Truthfully, I've probably read and reread the whole book, cover to cover, six or seven times, so far. The beautiful imagery in this book gets better and more vivid with each reading.

With each rereading I can feel myself being "washed down a storm drain" in THE LIE OF THE SEA; I feel like an angel remade in WITHER & BLOOM; my knees go weak after reading PROFOUNDLY MOVING.

These poems pull you in, like a gift to be unwrapped, and then when you remove the paper, you are left with a stunning piece of the narrator's heart. On every page, Mr. St. Claire takes us beyond the superficial, leading the reader past the meat of the poem and into the marrow of what he really wants to say.

If the first piece doesn't pull you apart and pull you in, your heart is hardened beyond repair. The first time, the tenth time, and every time I read BENT, BROKEN and BACKWARDS, my heart races at "168 beats per minute."

Ever since my first reading of the very first poem, in G&D, I've become a fan of St. Claire's poetry. I cried, I laughed, I scoffed right along with the poet as if he sat next to me, sharing his intensely personal poems with their cunning insight and page turning titles. I read G&D in my car while I'm waiting for the light to turn green. I read them with my coffee in the morning and during the day when I should be working on my own writing. I read them in the shade at the park and in bed before I slip off to sleep. If you are a person who likes well-crafted, accessibly readable poetry that will bring you into the world of a poet with a sharp eye, and fierce heart , buy this book. And if you think you don't like poetry, read it anyway. G&D just might change your mind about poetry.

Finally! A literary step forward in the art of self expression.
Untainted, undaunted and yes, believe it or not, unfiltered.

Most people write to be published, gearing their genere right to the hearts of the prime time crowd. Mr. St Clare abandons those who hide behind a job title, the latest skin care product or diet fad. He tears his heart out and uses it to document the most intimate of his rantings.

I applaud the courage of this author and I am confident that once you absorb and digest these verbal portraits of obscure perception, you will join me in demand for more food for thought...

I am loathe to write, as my poor attempts at description are amateurish compared to the other reviews that I have read about this book, however, I feel compelled to say something about a text that is human, moving, loving and yet dark, grim and humorously disturbing at the same time.

"In the Tongue of the Talking Bed" is one of the most real moments of human loss of love and bittersweet rememberance that everyone who has ever had a deep love will identify with. For a matter of fact, flip to any one of the poems and the only way it won't move you is if you're not from this planet (or a sociopath and even then, I think there's a chance that a sociopath would be moved in some small way).

Buy it, and buy one for a friend, it will be a tome to talk about and your friend will honestly thank you for it. (I speak from experience on this one-).

Great book. Great detail.A must for anyone who has seen the film. Gives you a 100% more info and detail.

Turning dense, non fiction material such as Nick Pileggi's 1985 best seller "Wiseguy," into a cohesive screenplay is no easy task, but Pileggi and the brilliant Martin Scorsese pulled it off beautifully in 1990 with the script for "Goodfellas"

"Goodfellas" remains America's penultimate crime film; the "Godfather" is Hollywood's version of what wiseguys are like; "Goodfellas" depicts them as how they really are.

This Faber paperback edition of the screenplay, with a foreward by David Thompson ("Scorsese on Scorses") reproduces all of the dialouge verbatim (including the scenes that were improvised on the set such as the famous "what's so funnny about me" sequence between Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta).

The book serves as both as written testamint to what great movie making is all about and as a primer for budding screenwriters.

As a bonus, there is a listing of all the music Scorcese used on the soundtrack (no small part of what made the movie a classic),including those selections that were unfortunately deleted from the commercial issue on Atlantic records).

As Joe Pesci's character might say--"this is one great -------book!"

Though Nicholas Pileggi's source book, Wise Guy, gave this screenplay both its voice-over and its final conclusion, the screenplay to GoodFellas is an essential addition to any screenplay library. If not for the fact that Pileggi and Martin Scorsese have pulled off the mammoth task of interpreting the detailed-packed, wide-scoped vision of the book into cinema-speak, then for the writing itself. GoodFellas is a screenplay that can be read as entertainment -- fast-paced, crisp, clear, and exciting. The published version of this script is mostly in master-scene form, giving only the most evocative details, beautifully paced. This is one of the crowning entries in Faber and Faber's superb screenplay series, ranking right up there along Paul Schrader's Taxi Driver and Odets/Lehmann's for Sweet Smell of Success. To any upstart screenwriter or serious student of film, this series is invaluable.

Sure, if you're not into the film "Goodfellas" that much or if you don't care for screenplays, then chances are that this would be rather worthless to you. Might as well find something else to buy, because this isn't going to do anything for you.

But, if you DO love the film and would like to read the screenplay, then this is just the thing for you. Written by Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, "Goodfellas" is an amazing script that sucks you in right away.

Henry Hill has always wanted to be gangster, as he states in the very beginning of the film. This is his story of how he became one and everything he had witnessed and experienced. It's a tragic story of how good things always have to come to an end. It's also about how power and money can grab hold of your life until it's too late to turn back. A tale full of crime, murder, paranoia, and greed, "Goodfellas" is a trip down Mafia Lane that you will never forget. This is Mr. Hill's story.

The script is based on Nicholas Pileggi's novel, "Wise Guys," which is also based on a true story. The dialogue is sharp and very realistic and gives us a window into the lives of people in the Mafia. It is a very quick read, only about 130 pages. That's pretty short, considering that the movie was at least 2 and a half hours long. But, it's just dialogue, which is why it is very easy to read it quickly. I finished it in less than a day.

If you love the film "Goodfellas," and are interested in reading screenplays, then this is the perfect book for you. Here's your chance to relive some of your favorite moments, this time in writing. A very fine screenplay, it is.

Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" is, hands down, the best gangster film ever made. "The Godfather" created the mythical imagery of mob families that was forever buried by this gutty, bloody real life drama. Based upon the true story as told by the film's main character, Henry Hill, "Goodfellas is the best filmed example of the real life glamour and woekmanlike drudgery that goes with being a wiseguy. It is difficult to imagine a show like "The Sopranos," for example, had not "Goodfellas" reinvented the gangster film genre.

Ray Liotta is excellent as Henry, but the movie's real showcases are the performances of Joe Pesci and Robert DiNiro as his partners in crime. Pesci in particular gives a tour de force performance that is downright frightening. Other first rate performances come from Lorraine Bracco as Henry's Jewish wife and Paul Sorvino, whose performance as a real life Godfather could not be more different than Marlon Brando's.

This film is a must see for anyone who enjoys gangster movies. It also has to rank as THE best American movie of the 1990s.