An anthology of translated and abridged classic works by authors previously little known to Western audiences: Cobo, Garcia, Santos, Vilhena, and Leite de Barros. They present critical analyses spanning hundreds of years, emphasizing Latin American cities of the first rank: Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, Salvador da Bahia, Bogota, and Sao Paulo. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

When the Spaniards settled in Latin America, they immediately surrounded themselves with cities. Equating civilization with urban existence, the early conquerors of the New World rapidly established themselves as urban lords. Latin American cities then became synonymous with Spanish power and all of its privileged attributes: political authority, ecclesiastical activity, commerce, finance, and conspicuous consumption. This volume represents some of the most enduring reflections on the Latin American city. All of the essays were written by public officials, journalists, and social commentators, among others, who participated actively in the affairs of the cities they so perceptively describe. The collection offers critical analyses spanning hundreds of years, beginning with the era of the conquistadores in Tenochtitl_n and continuing to the deafening bustle of today's urban crowds in Mexico City. Professors Gilbert Joseph and Mark Szuchman offer translations of classic pieces by writers previously little known to Western audiences: Cobo, Garc_a, Santos Vilhena, and Leite de Barros.

In this provocative edition, Whitman biographer Gary Schmidgall presents more than 200 of Whitman's finest poems, written during the creative and sexual prime of his life. Line drawings. 7 photos.

Walt Whitman is widely regarded as one of the masters of American poetry. Here are collected his finest poems, a perfect companion for any fan of Whitman's work.

What would you do if you were drafted to fight in a war? As a conscientious objector opposed to all wars, Wayne R. Ferren Jr. had to answer that question during the Vietnam War. He called on his religious and scientific backgrounds as well as his environmental activism to argue that he should be excluded from fighting in, or supporting this war. Following a successful defense of his claim, Wayne served two years of alternative civilian service, which influenced his professional and personal life for the next fifty years. Decades after his service, he was shocked to find his name on the Vietnam War Memorial, which turned out to be that of another young man with a similar name born the same year Wayne was born. That man died in 1968 when his plane was hit by artillery fire and crash landed at Khe Sanh Marine Combat Base. He will forever remain a teenage father killed in a senseless war. To this day, the duality haunts the author, and in this multifaceted memoir, he looks back at a lifetime and how his background, scientific training, and transcendentalism have guided him on a path of conscientious objection, service, and conservation, believing all things are sacred.

In Toward Camden, Mercy Romero writes about the relationships that make and sustain the largely African American and Puerto Rican Cramer Hill neighborhood in New Jersey where she grew up. She walks the city and writes outdoors to think about the collapse and transformation of property. She revisits lost and empty houses—her family's house, the Walt Whitman House, and the landscape of a vacant lot. Throughout, Romero engages with the aesthetics of fragment and ruin; her writing juts against idioms of redevelopment. She resists narratives of the city that are inextricable from crime and decline and witnesses everyday lives lived at the intersection of spatial and Puerto Rican diasporic memory. Toward Camden travels between what official reports say and what the city's vacant lots withhold. Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

OF WHAT FUTURE ARE THESE THE WILD, EARLY DAYS? An exploration of the role that artists play in resisting authoritarianism with a sci-fi twist. In poetry, dialogue and visual art the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe history of Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility. NOT A LOT OF REASONS TO SING is a: -post-apocalyptic road journal -alternate universe history of Hip Hop -“Letters to a Young Poet” -toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility.