Social Poetry

Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color.... Since 2009, when it first published, to today, Bluets has drawn scores of readers and listeners with its surprising insights into the emotional depths that make us most human - via 240 short pieces, at once lyrical and philosophical, on the color blue. This new edition celebrates Maggie Nelson’s uncompromising vision, inviting longtime fans and newcomers alike to experience and share in an indispensable work that continues to disrupt the literary landscape.

Henry has been deaf from an early age. He's intelligent and aware of language, but by age six, he has decided it's not safe to speak to strangers. When the time comes for him to start school, he is labeled "unteachable." Because his family has very little money, his parents and older sister, Molly, feel powerless to help him. Henry's sent to Riverview, a bleak institution where he is misunderstood, underestimated, and harshly treated. Victor, a conscientious objector to World War II, is part of a Civilian Public Service program and arrives at Riverview to serve as an attendant in 1942.

Before Josh and Jordan Bell were streaking up and down the court, their father was learning his own moves. In this prequel to Newbery Medal winner The Crossover, Chuck Bell takes center stage, as listeners get a glimpse of his childhood and how he became the jazz music worshiping basketball star his sons look up to. A novel in verse with all the impact and rhythm listeners have come to expect from Kwame Alexander, Rebound will go back in time to visit the childhood of Chuck "Da Man" Bell during one pivotal summer when young Charlie is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers basketball and learns more about his family's past.

Astronomy-loving Calliope June has Tourette's syndrome, so she sometimes makes faces or noises that she doesn't mean to make. When she and her mother move yet again, she tries to hide her TS. But it isn't long before the kids at her new school realize she's different. Only Calliope's neighbor, who is also the popular student body president, sees her as she truly is - an interesting person and a good friend.

William Blake's highly personal messages of humanity and social conscience are as relevant today as in 18th-century London. Although Blake's works were ignored or dismissed until long after his death, their directness and unsentimental simplicity will strike a chord with many today.

New York Times best-selling author Nikki Grimes has received numerous accolades for her writing, including the Coretta Scott King Award. In Planet Middle School, 12-year-old Joylin Johnson is satisfied with her life. Everything seems pretty simple: a nice, relaxed game of basketball with the boys is all she needs to keep her happy. But it all changes when her best girlfriend starts flirting with her best guy friend.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event - which lasted eight days and resulted in 38 deaths and almost 500 injuries - through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.

You gotta know the rules to play the game. Ball is life. Take it to the hoop. Soar. What can we imagine for ourselves? What if we were the star players, moving and grooving through the game of life? What if we had our own rules of the game to help us get what we want, what we aspire to, what will enrich our lives? The Playbook is intended to provide inspiration for kids ages 10 and up to help them succeed on and off the court.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Garvey's father has always wanted Garvey to be athletic, but Garvey is interested in astronomy, science fiction, reading - anything but sports. Feeling like a failure, he comforts himself with food. Garvey is kind, funny, smart, a loyal friend, and he is also overweight, teased by bullies, and lonely. When his only friend encourages him to join the school chorus, Garvey's life changes. The chorus finds a new soloist in Garvey, and through chorus Garvey finds a way to accept himself and a way to finally reach his distant father.

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

I forget things too. It makes me sad. Or it makes me the saddest. The sadness is not really about George W. or our American optimism; the sadness lives in the recognition that a life can not matter. The award-winning poet Claudia Rankine, well known for her experimental multigenre writing, fuses the lyric and the essay in this politically and morally fierce examination of solitude in the rapacious and media-driven assault on selfhood that is contemporary America.

What better way for Bear to say thanks, than to have a big dinner with all his friends! Bear has come up with the perfect way to say thanks - a nice big dinner! When Bear decides to throw a feast, his friends show up one by one with different platters of delicious food to share. There's just one problem: Bear's cupboards are bare! What is he to do?

Anikwa and James, 12 years old in 1812, spend their days fishing, trapping, and exploring together in the forests of the Indiana Territory. To Anikwa and his family, members of the Miami tribe, this land has been home for centuries. As traders, James' family has ties to the Miami community as well as to the American soldiers in the fort. Now tensions are rising - the British and American armies prepare to meet at Fort Wayne for a crucial battle, and Native Americans from surrounding tribes gather in Kekionga to protect their homeland.

Full of tragic heroes, intoxicating love stories, and the unstoppable force of fate, there is no conflict more iconic than the Trojan War. Troy is the story of the epic battle retold by Fry with drama, humor, and vivid emotion. Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Helen, their lovers, and their mortal enemies all burn bright in Fry's compelling prose. This volume invites you to explore a captivating world with a brilliant storyteller as your guide.

Ruby’s story picks up a few months after the events of The One and Only Bob. Now living in a wildlife sanctuary, Ruby’s caretaker from the elephant orphanage in Africa where she grew up is visiting. Seeing him again brings back a flood of memories both happy and sad of her life before the circus, and she recounts the time she spent in the African savannah to Ivan and Bob.

Ever since Ellie wore a whale swimsuit and made a big splash at her fifth-birthday party, she's been bullied about her weight. To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules - like "no making waves", "avoid eating in public", and "don't move so fast that your body jiggles". And she's found her safe space - her swimming pool - where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. In the water, she can stretch herself out like a starfish and take up all the room she wants. It's also where she can get away from her mom, who thinks criticizing Ellie's weight will motivate her to diet.

Following the success of several recent inspirational and practical books for would-be writers, Poemcrazy is a perfect guide for everyone who ever wanted to write a poem but was afraid to try. Writing workshop leader Susan Wooldridge shows how to think, use one's senses, and practice exercises that will make poems more likely to happen.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma or 'duty' and moksha or 'liberation') takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'self') and the workings of karma.