Slow Trains Overhead

Author: Reginald Gibbons
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022647884X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 121

Book Description
Few people writing today could successfully combine an intimate knowledge of Chicago with a poet’s eye, and capture what it’s really like to live in this remarkable city. Embracing a striking variety of human experience—a chance encounter with a veteran on Belmont Avenue, the grimy majesty of the downtown El tracks, domestic violence in a North Side brownstone, the wide-eyed wonder of new arrivals at O’Hare, and much more—these new and selected poems and stories by Reginald Gibbons celebrate the heady mix of elation and despair that is city life. With Slow Trains Overhead, he has rendered a living portrait of Chicago as luminously detailed and powerful as those of Nelson Algren and Carl Sandburg. Gibbons takes the reader from museums and neighborhood life to tense proceedings in Juvenile Court, from comically noir-tinged scenes at a store on Clark Street to midnight immigrants at a gas station on Western Avenue, and from a child's piggybank to nature in urban spaces. For Gibbons, the city’s people, places, and historical reverberations are a compelling human array of the everyday and the extraordinary, of poverty and beauty, of the experience of being one among many. Penned by one of its most prominent writers, Slow Trains Overhead evokes and commemorates human life in a great city.

I Didn't Write the Memo I Just Read It

Author: Vinnie Venturella
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1504953045
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
In this, his fourth book, Vinnie Venturella takes a thought-provoking look at some of lifes experiences. His observations are at times instructive, funny, sarcastic, smart, insightful, and action oriented. He shares thoughts about his faith, America, his professions, leadership, his kids, family, and friends. Theyll make you laugh, cry, go hmm or at least think. Vinnie takes an in your face and tell it like it is look at things. If one, a few, or all of these observations resonate with you, hes met his intent. They are a result of decades of experiences, observations, and lessons learned. He hopes his unique style, content, and format appropriately deliver the message as intended. Vinnie retired as a Chief Master Sergeant from the United States Air Force after 21+ years as a Combat Controller in Air Force Special Operations. He has been in a leadership environment since 1985. He is a Certified Financial Planner and works in the personal finance industry. Vinnie, his wife, Tammie, and their daughters, Meaghan and Sophia, live in North Carolina. They attend Manna Church, and Vinnie wants everyone to know hes still under construction.

If I Were Other Than Myself

Author: Sue Hardy-Dawson
Publisher: Troika
ISBN: 9781909991859
Category : Children's poetry, English
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A collection of poetry, full of magical fantasy and dreamlike inventions.

The Third Angel

Author: Alice Hoffman
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307409333
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
A magical and stunningly original story that charts the lives of three women in love with the wrong men from the bestselling author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, The Rules of Magic “Headstrong women, reckless love affairs and a liberal dusting of the supernatural are the pleasurable trademarks of an Alice Hoffman novel. . . . [The Third Angel] should bewitch old fans and new readers alike.”—People Headstrong Madeleine Heller finds herself hopelessly attracted to her sister’s fiancé. Frieda Lewis, a doctor’s daughter and a runaway, becomes the muse of an ill-fated rock star. And beautiful Bryn Evans is set to marry an Englishman while secretly obsessed with her ex-husband. At the heart of the novel is Lucy Green, who blames herself for a tragic accident she witnessed at the age of twelve, and who spends four decades searching for the Third Angel–the angel on earth who will renew her faith. Brilliantly evoking London’s King’s Road, Knightsbridge, and Kensington while moving effortlessly back in time, The Third Angel is a work of startling beauty about the unique, alchemical nature of love.

If You Miss the Train I'm on

Author: Grace Willetts
Publisher: Grace Willetts
ISBN: 1600761240
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Book Description
As Greg struggles after losing his wife in a car accident, he discovers among her final effects well-kept secrets that throw their shared history and relationship into question. Who was she? Which part of her life was the real one? Here begins a journey where truth and reality fragment, and Greg learns to survive among these complexities.

Culture Crash

Author: Scott Timberg
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300195885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
Argues that United States' creative class is fighting for survival and explains why this should matter to all Americans.

Writing and Workshopping Poetry: A Constructive Introduction

Author: Stephen Guppy
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1554813085
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 303

Book Description
Most texts on creative writing emphasize either sources of inspiration or strategies for editing. The process of getting from initial inspiration to final draft isn’t often dealt with in any practical way. Writing and Workshopping Poetry focuses on all three phases of the process of composition: finding the material; building and developing the poem from rough draft to complete work; editing and refining. The text offers everything students and instructors need: extensive notes written in an accessible, conversational style; seventy-five writing exercises; and about a hundred poems chosen from a wide range of sources, from sixteenth-century sonnets to experimental constrained forms, with an emphasis on exciting poems by contemporary American and Canadian poets. Each chapter concludes with a brief, point-form summary of major learning objectives as well as a review list of useful terms.

Space Struck

Author: Paige Lewis
Publisher: Sarabande Books
ISBN: 1946448451
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 71

Book Description
This astonishing, self-assured debut leads us on an exploration to the stars and back, begging us to reconsider our boundaries of self, time, space, and knowledge. The speaker writes, “...the universe/is an arrow/without end/and it asks only one question;/How dare you?” Zig-zagging through the realms of nature, science, and religion, one finds St. Francis sighing in the corner of a studio apartment, tides that are caused by millions of oysters “gasping in unison,” an ark filled with women in its stables, and prayers that reach God fastest by balloon. There’s pathos: “When my new lover tells me I’m correct to love him, I/realize the sound isn’t metal at all. It’s not the coins rattling/ on concrete, but the fingers scraping to pick them up.” And humor, too: “...even the sun’s been sighing Not you again/when it sees me.” After reading this far-reaching, inventive collection, we too are startled, space struck, our pockets gloriously “filled with space dust.”

John Ashbery and American Poetry

Author: David Herd
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526185806
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Book Description
David Herd sets out to provide readers with a new critical language through which they can appreciate the beauty and complexity of Ashbery’s writing. Presenting the poet in all his forms –avant-garde, nostalgic, sublime and camp – the book argues that the perpetual inventiveness of Ashbery’s work has always been underpinned by the poets desire to write the poem fit to cope with its occasion. Tracing Ashbery’s development in the light of this idea, and from its origins in the dazzling artistic environment of 1950’s New York, the book evaluates his poetry against the aesthetic, literary and historical backgrounds that have informed it. The story of a brilliant career, and a history of the period in which that career has taken shape, John Ashbery and American Poetry provides a compelling account of Ashbery’s importance to Twentieth Century Literature.

Fast Train Approaching...

Author: Steve Walter
Publisher: Chipmunkapublishing ltd
ISBN: 1847470408
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Book Description
""Steve is a man who lives life vividly, creatively, courageously. Someone who uses every experience; inspiring, painful, loving and terrifying, to deepen his understanding and illuminate his spiritual journey. This is a deeply moving book, it is a revelation and a wake up call. Read and be inspired!"" - Liz Aram, MIND Trustee""I hope that 'FAST TRAIN APPROACHING...' will be a tool that can be used to help erode the stigma that continues to surround mental illness, for such illness is no respecter of persons! It can happen to any one of us and at any time."" - Jenny Bloomer, Psychotherapist Description'FAST TRAIN APPROACHING...' is a novella length autobiographical story of breakdown and survival. The text is interspersed with poems which represent a form of compressed experience and a thread of continuity throughout the book. 'FAST TRAIN APPROACHING...' is a frank and open account spanning the decade from Steve's first breakdown in 1997 (when he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder) to the present day. This is a confessional book, in many places raw, honest, and in parts shocking. It traces the circumstances and thoughts that contributed towards Steve's breakdown, through illness, losing touch with reality, to returning to whatever normality is. This book challenges common perceptions of mental illness and demonstrates how very real the experience of delusions can be.Steve Walter has written this story, not only because it is therapeutic, but also because he knew that other people often like to read and to understand someone else's experience, to help make sense of their own, or of problems experienced by those close to them. He also thinks it is important to talk about the issues surrounding mental ill health, in the interests of crushing stigma. Too often the experience and effects of depression, mania, delusions are hushed up or result in unfair treatment and discrimination. Mental health problems are often treated as if there's been a death in the family. People avoid talking about them. In 'FAST TRAIN APPROACHING...' Steve offers people an insight into his thinking, his emotions and, with the detail of the actual medical reports, distancing himself through the third person, he takes them through the pain. He shows that it is possible to come out the other side and, with the support of his employer, to be rehabilitated and integrated back into work, into life.