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Cover ArtCelebrate National Poetry Month with this illustrated collection of silly verse kids will be delighted to read on their own or out loud together. If your family enjoys Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky this is a must-read!
 
Publisher description:
"A witty, illustrated collection of humorous (and sometimes even heartwarming) poems and nonsense inspired by the absurdities of everyday life"
 
Cover ArtI'm really glad I picked up this poetry book. These poems about all types of love for friends, family, and community are accessible, funny, and vulnerable. Bonus points for being in English and Spanish.
 
Publisher's description: 

A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing how every kind of love--self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural--is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, Promises of Gold explores many forms of love and how "a promise made isn't always a promise kept," as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American Dream laying bare the ways in which "love is complicated by forces larger than our hearts.

En esta innovadora colección de poemas, José Olivarez explora cada tipo de amor - el propio, fraternal, romántico, familiar, cultural. Lidiando con las contradicciones del sueño americano, con una humanidad inquebrantable, deja al descubierto las maneras en que "el amor se va complicando por fuerzas más grandes que nuestros corazones". Ya sea que los lectores entren a esta colección en inglés o a partir de la traducción al español del poeta David Ruano González, estos extraordinarios poemas serán atesorados seguramente por sus iluminaciones sobre el amor y la vida.
 

Find Promises of Gold/Promesas de Oro in our online catalog. 

03/29/2023
Boulder Library
Cover ArtI tell my friends that if they only read one poet in their lives, that poet should be Mary Oliver. Unpretentious and life-affirming, Oliver's poems brim with hope, wonder, and love for a world big enough to have a place for everyone, "no matter how lonely."
 
Publisher description:
Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years. Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.
 
Cover ArtKaveh Akbar is one of my favorite contemporary poets. His works wrestle with everything from faith to addiction. For me, I felt that even though this collection goes to some dark places, it ends with radiant joy.
 
Publisher's description:
This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight.
 
Cover ArtReading this book was an experience that I found both informative and very moving. I have an interest in what life was like in the Classical world, including what can be known of the personalities of those people living in it. Freeman brings Sappho to life, so to speak, and celebrates her poetry.
 
Publisher's description: For more than twenty-five centuries, all that the world knew of the poems of Sapphothe first woman writer in literary historywere a few brief quotations preserved by ancient male authors. Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world. The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience.
 
Cover ArtThis beautiful classic is a lovely read aloud to share over the holidays. My favorite edition is illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. You can also find the original recording read by the author online.
 
Publisher's description: The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recalls the celebration of Christmas with his family and the feelings it evoked in him as a child.
 
Cover ArtA wonderful and humorous adaptation of the Christmas classic on a Native theme. I also loved the glossary at the end, which explained words like "hoka-hey" (a Lakota term of encouragement that Old Red Shirt shouts to his team of buffalo).
 
Publisher's description:
An innovative retelling of the classic Christmas tale, this full-color book takes a whimsical look at what Christmas Eve might be like for an American Indian family.
 
Cover ArtVirtuosic, beautiful, heart-wrenching but filled with moments of joy, this is the work of two artists at the top of their game. The idea of a COVID book could be wearisome in the wrong hands, but this is a work of beauty about the pandemic, George Floyd, mental health, and being black in the U.S.
 
Publisher's description: 

A smash up of art and text that viscerally captures what it means to not be able to breathe, and how the people and things you love most are actually the oxygen you most need. Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW. And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.

Find Ain't Burned All the Bright in our online catalog. 

Cover Art
In this thoughtful series of vignettes--one for each her fifty years as a poet--former Poet Laureate Joy Harjo reflects on how her Native heritage and life experiences have shaped her work. Library Journal calls this "a comforting island for writers who enjoy reading about how authors succeed." Recommended for readers who enjoyed Ann Patchett's recent memoir, These Precious Days.
 
Publisher's description:
In this lyrical meditation about the why of writing poetry, Joy Harjo reflects on significant points of illumination, experience, and questioning from her fifty years as a poet. Composed of intimate vignettes that take us through the author's life journey as a youth in the late 1960s, a single mother, and a champion of Native nations, this book offers a fresh understanding of how poetry functions as an expression of purpose, spirit, community, and memory--in both the private, individual journey and as a vehicle for prophetic, public witness. Harjo insists that the most meaningful poetry is birthed through cracks in history from what is broken and unseen. At the crossroads of this brokenness, she calls us to watch and listen for the songs of justice for all those America has denied. This is an homage to the power of words to defy erasure--to inscribe the story, again and again, of who we have been, who we are, and who we can be.
 
Cover ArtThis book was very intriguing! It follows the story of Sam, a teenage girl who has severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). However, she concocts a series of lies to hide her therapy sessions, new passion, and new friends in order to fit in with her popular "friends." From dealing with fake friends and making new ones to a shocking plot twist at the end, this book kept me engaged the whole way. It brought up experiences that everyone could relate to and experiences that I left up to my imagination. This book also did a great job of demonstrating what was going on in Sam's mind compared to what she appeared to be on the outside- a constant reminder that no one is perfect, and no one needs to try to be.
Emma, eighth-grade teen volunteer
 
Publisher's description: 
Consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off, a girl coping with Purely-Obsessional OCD learns to accept herself and take control of her life through her experiences in poetry club.
 
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