A galaxy of writers epitomizes the state of American poetry at the century's close.

The early American legal system permeated the lives of colonists and reflected their sense of what was right and wrong, honorable and dishonorable, moral and immoral. In a compelling book full of the extraordinary stories of ordinary people, Elaine Forman Crane reveals the ways in which early Americans clashed with or conformed to the social norms established by the law. As trials throughout the country reveal, alleged malefactors such as witches, wife beaters, and whores, as well as debtors, rapists, and fornicators, were as much a part of the social landscape as farmers, merchants, and ministers. Ordinary people "made" law by establishing and enforcing informal rules of conduct. Codified by a handshake or over a mug of ale, such agreements became custom and custom became "law." Furthermore, by submitting to formal laws initiated from above, common folk legitimized a government that depended on popular consent to rule with authority. In this book we meet Marretie Joris, a New Amsterdam entrepreneur who sues Gabriel de Haes for calling her a whore; peer cautiously at Christian Stevenson, a Bermudian witch as bad "as any in the world;" and learn that Hannah Dyre feared to be alone with her husband--and subsequently died after a beating. We travel with Comfort Taylor as she crosses Narragansett Bay with Cuff, an enslaved ferry captain, whom she accuses of attempted rape, and watch as Samuel Banister pulls the trigger of a gun that kills the sheriff's deputy who tried to evict Banister from his home. And finally, we consider the promiscuous Marylanders Thomas Harris and Ann Goldsborough, who parented four illegitimate children, ran afoul of inheritance laws, and resolved matters only with the assistance of a ghost. Through the six trials she skillfully reconstructs here, Crane offers a surprising new look at how early American society defined and punished aberrant behavior, even as it defined itself through its legal system.

"From deeply personal perspectives, two dozen established writers ponder the mystery of their art and such fundamentals as: What is a genuine writing impulse? Why does good writing work? How is writing learned? What is the role of craft and technique? Who is meant to be a writer? How is close reading related to good writing? The volume is peppered with critical perspectives and practical advice, yet its special richness and inspiration lie in the wonderment and deep love for the act of writing expressed by each contributor. Each essay is a joy to read, blending storytelling, literary anecdotes gathered from a lifetime of avid reading, and the kind of shoptalk exchanged between colleagues. Writers will find here camaraderie and encouragement, teachers of writing will hear practical testimony to what works, and readers will come away with a renewed awe for the spell cast by good writing"--From back cover.

A stellar collection celebrates the vitality of American poetry at the turn of the new century. Collier is director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference which encourages the most promising new and young writers in America. 59 illustrations.

Newbery Honor Book National Book Award finalist Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Flora Stieglitz Straus Award Beautiful verse explores agricultural scientist George Washington Carver's life and many achievements, from his work as a botanist and inventor to his unsung gifts as a painter, musician, and teacher. George Washington Carver was determined to help the people he loved. Born a slave in Missouri, he left home in search of an education, eventually earning his master's degree. When Booker T. Washington invited Carver to start the agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute, Carver truly found his calling. He spent the rest of his life seeking solutions to the poverty among landless Black farmers by developing new uses for soil-replenishing crops such as peanuts, cowpeas, and sweet potatoes. This STEAM biography reveals Carver's complex and profoundly devout life.

This book aims to gather a selection that represents the diversity and richness of American poetry written by poets who share a sophistication that promises to evolve, with continued effort and risk, a new and powerful poetic idiom.

Spirit Cabinet is an ambitious work, seamlessly mixing autobiography with subjects ranging from pop music to ancient Egypt, from Stalin's reading habits to Shackleton's ill-fated Antarctic expedition. Formally inventive, elegiac and redemptive, aesthetically and emotionally risky, this is Wojahn's most ingenious and compelling collection.

A stirring, brilliantly crafted collection, Linda Gregerson's third volume of poetry examines mortality in all its beauty and horror. Fluently rendered in Gregerson's distinctive three-line stanzas, these poems explore subjects from autism to genealogy to ecology. Their occasions are diverse -- a barn fire, a wounded deer, a child's determined struggle with a bicycle -- but their instinct is always to wrest from the impure world a vernacular of praise.

The dial, The little review, and the dialogics of the modernist "new" -- The new American poetry revisisted again -- New, newer, and the newest American poetries -- Poetry anthologies and the idea of the "mainstream" -- Serial form in George Oppen and Robert Creeley -- Place, space, and "new syntax" in Oppen's Seascape: needle's eye -- Macro, micro, material : Rachel Blau DuPlessis's Drafts and the post-objectivist serial poem -- Drafts and fragments : Rachel Blau DuPlessis's (counter-)Poudian project -- "Drawings with words" : Susan Howe's visual feminist poetics -- Authority, marginality, England, and Ireland in the work of Susan Howe -- Bruce Andrews, writing, and "poetry" -- "What about all this writing?" : Williams and alternative poetics -- Language writing, digital poetics, and transitional materialities.