Your Daily Poem launched in June 2009 with a single goal: to share the pleasure of poetry with those who may not have had the opportunity to develop an appreciation for that genre--usually due to a boring experience in a classroom. Along the way, a second goal emerged: to provide a daily dose of something positive and uplifting. This book is a harvest of "the cream of the crop"--100 poems selected out of the nearly 4000 archived on YDP for their ability to make you feel good about life, count your many blessings, and smile.

From a prize-winning poet, a new collection that chronicles a weekend in the life of a group of friends coming of age in East Harlem at the dawn of the hip-hop era Willie Perdomo, a native of East Harlem, has won praise as a hip, playful, historically engaged poet whose restlessly lyrical language mixes "city life with a sense of the transcendent" (NPR.org). In his fourth collection, The Crazy Bunch, Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a "crew" coming of age in East Harlem at the beginning of the 1990s. In poems written in couplets, vignettes, sketches, riffs, and dialogue, Perdomo recreates a weekend where surviving members of the crew recall a series of tragic events: "That was the summer we all tried to fly. All but one of us succeeded."

These 34 poems range in subject from politics (with a cast of historical characters from Napoleon to Richard Nixon) to New England and its sea coast to poems about country stars, about a fire-screen at Mount Vernon, about a slave's courageous stoicism in the face of his own death by fire. There is a love poem "Crossing Over" and finally a collection of dialogues with other writers such as Lewis Thomas, John Berryman, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath.

Bringing the Shovel Down maps the long and arduous process of being inculcated with the mythologies of state and power, the ramifications of that inculcation (largely, the loss of our humanity in the service of maintaining those mythologies), and finally, what it might mean, what it might provide us, if we were to transform those myths. The book, finally, has one underlying question: How might we better love one another?

A bold, groundbreaking novel about coming out, coming into your own, and coming apart. Vanilla and Hunter have been dating since seventh grade. They came out together, navigated middle school together, and became that couple in high school that everyone always sees as a couple. There are complications and confusions, for sure. But most of all, they love each other.As high school goes, though, and as their relationship deepens, some cracks begin to show. Hunter thinks they should be having sex.Vanilla isn't so sure. Hunter doesn't mind hanging out with loud, obnoxious friends.Vanilla would rather avoid them. If they're becoming different people, can they be the same couple?Falling in love is hard.Staying in love is harder.

THE THICH NHAT HANH POETRY COLLECTION: Over 50 inspiring poems from the world-renowned Zen monk, peace activist, and author of The Miracle of Mindfulness. “ . . . the antidote to our modern pain and sorrows. His books help me be more human, more me than I was before.” —Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Though he is best known for his groundbreaking and accessible works on applying mindfulness to everyday life, Thich Nhat Hanh is also a distinguished poet and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. This stunning poetry collection explores these lesser-known facets of Nhat Hanh’s life, revealing not only his path to becoming a Zen meditation teacher but his skill as a poet, his achievements as a peace activist, and his experiences as a young refugee. Through more than 50 poems spanning several decades, Nhat Hanh reveals the stories of his past—from his childhood in war-torn Vietnam to the beginnings of his own spiritual journey—and shares his ideas on how we can come together to create a more peaceful, compassionate world. Uplifting, insightful, and profound, Call Me By My True Names is at once an exquisite work of poetry and a portrait of one of the world’s greatest Zen masters and peacemakers.

I began writing poetry in 1951. This book of poetry is influenced by my faith in God that spreads through every poem that I have written on these humble pages. My intentions are to edify and exhort the reader to be inspired by these treasures of my soul. Anna L. Nelson

This exceptional anthology often establishes astonishing contexts from which to explore the intimate codes of relationships. This impressive collection is rich with color and surprise.Stand out poems include "The world is beautiful of flowers", "Love Syrup", " My Heart", "Drop of water from the rose " , "My Love to one who is a Solder", " You are in the Army", "Being loved by someone should never hurt", "Heartfelt", "The Thought of light". Poem "The tree of Oak" stands out as it is about the time I was born, the world I have pictured and the sense I have felt.Each of my poems was carefully engraved the deepest love into full bloom. Therefore The New Full Bloom Love Poem book will inspire every person with a sincere Soul.

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Thus begins “Phenomenal Woman,” just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou’s third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh—and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it. “It is true poetry she is writing,” M.F.K. Fisher has observed, “not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes.”

An endearing poem of a child who refuses tempting invitations, instead staying with her mother at playtime, blissful in her company. Words woven with great tenderness by the greatest poet of all times, a gentle verse for all the little ones.