Offering a wide variety of creative prompts that will engage any writer, Writing Success Through Poetry provides timesaving lessons to help teachers create a writers' workshop in the classroom. The author, a published poet and children's book author, provides 25 original poems as prompts for students to use as inspiration for their own poetry and prose. The book offers practical, pointed questions to facilitate Socratic-style discussions and explorations of literary concepts found within the poems. Writing Success Through Poetry uses methods to instill young writers with a mental checklist for self-evaluation of their writing, as well as a profound respect for the power of poetic writing in every genre. Book jacket.

The "World" in Robert Lee Brewer's Solving the World's Problems is a slippery world ... where chaos always hovers near, where we are (and should be) "splashing around in dark puddles." And one feels a bit dizzy reading these poems because (while always clear, always full of meaning) they come at reality slantwise so that nothing is quite the same and the reader comes away with a new way of looking at the ordinary objects and events of life. The poems are brim-full of surprises and delights, twists in the language, double-meanings of words, leaps of thought and imagination, interesting line-breaks. There are love and relationship poems, dream poems, poems of life in the modern world. And always the sense (as he writes) of "pulling the world closer to me/leaves falling to the ground/ birds flying south." I read these once, twice with great enjoyment. I will go back to them often. -Patricia Fargnoli, former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Then, Something

37 different poetic forms (complete with definitions, examples, guidelines, and a place for students to write their own) show the power of language and how to use it! Written by a master teacher, author, educator, and poet, this is the how-to poetry book ??????

Westcott's musical and elegant work is clear-eyed and breathtaking in its approach to the fragilities of the self and the planet she inhabits.

Here are the ideas, experiments, and inspiration to unfold your imagination and get your writing to flow off the page! This is the everything-you-need guide to spark new poems and unstick old stories, including lists of big, small, gross-out, and favorite words; adventurous and zany prompts to leap from; dares and double dares to help you mash up truths and lies into outrageous paragraphs; and letters of encouragement written directly to you from famous authors, including: Annie Barrows, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lemony Snicket, C. M. Mayo, Elizabeth Singer Hunt, Moira Egan, Gary Soto, Lucille Clifton, Avi, Betsy Franco, Carol Edgarian, Karen Cushman, Patricia Polacco, Prartho Sereno, Lewis Buzbee, and C. B. Follett. This is your journal for inward-bound adventures—use it to write, brainstorm, explore, imagine—and even rip!

A Shepherd to Fools is the second of Drew Mendelson’s trilogy of Vietnam War novels that began with Song Ba To and will conclude with Poke the Dragon. Shepherd: It is the ragged end of the Vietnam war. With the debacle of a failing South Vietnamese invasion of Northern Laos as background, A Shepherd to Fools tells the harrowing tale of a covert Hatchet Team of US soldiers and Montagnard mercenaries. They are ordered to find and capture or kill a band of American deserters, called Longshadows, before the world learns of their paralyzing rebellion. An earlier attempt to capture them failed disastrously, the facts of it buried. Captain Hugh Englander commands the Hatchet Team. He is a humorless bastard, sneering and discourteous to every regular army soldier. He cares little for the welfare of his own men and nothing for the lives of the deserters. The conflict between him and Captain David Weisman, the artillery officer assigned to the mission for artillery support, threatens to tear the team apart. Deep in the Laotian jungle, the team is caught in a final, horrific battle facing an enemy armed with Sarin nerve gas, the “worst of the worst” of the war’s clandestine weapons.

An abandoned town named for the classical lesbian leads to questions about history and settlement. Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, you come to a road sign: Entering Sappho. Nothing remains of the town, just trash at the side of the highway and thick, wet bush. Can Sappho’s breathless eroticism tell us anything about settlement—about why we’re here in front of this sign? Mixing historical documents, oral histories, and experimental translations of the original lesbian poet’s works, this book combines documentary and speculation, surveying a century in reverse. This town is one of many with a classical name. Take it as a symbol: perhaps in a place that no longer exists, another kind of future might be possible.

Teach Yourself Books.

Insights and Observations of a Canadian Immigrant. This inaugural poetic journey unapologetically delves into the heart of the most challenging issues facing our world today. Plunge into this thought-provoking exploration of political intrigue as Brian Sankarsingh takes on the traumatizing and divisive topics of systemic racism, colonialism, and Black Lives Matter. This book of poetry provides discerning insights into the struggles faced by the most vulnerable people in Canadian society. The trials and tribulations of Black people, people of colour, immigrants, and people suffering from mental health and addiction all find their voices here....