poetry Archives - Page 8 of 28 - Evanston Public Library

Claire Kissinger's Best Reads of 2014

December 16, 2014

claire My name is Claire Kissinger, and I’ve lived in Evanston for the past three years. I am a senior at Northwestern majoring in Art History and minoring in Gender & Sexuality Studies, and I work at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art as the Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow and as a Student Docent. I love working at the Block Museum because it allows me to learn and talk about art with both professionals in the field (artists, curators, preparators, scholars) as well as our patrons who come from a variety of backgrounds. In my free time, I love to drink coffee, dance, visit museums, and watch movies.

1) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1970)

I loved reading One Hundred Years this summer. The book features an INCREDIBLY extended and unique family and the changes the family undergoes over many years as their community evolves. My favorite part of reading the book is that it was entirely unpredictable and fantastical, with characters constantly coming in and out of the narrative, always with ridiculous stories.

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Andalib Khelghati's Best Reads of 2014

December 13, 2014

mr khelghati My name is Andalib Khelghati. I was born in West Africa and grew up in a home where we spoke French, English and Farsi. I work at Dewey Elementary school and am proud of all our Dewey Tigers. My favorite hobby is learning about new places, languages and traveling. I believe reading is a powerful tool for unlocking life’s hidden secrets.

1) Command Authority by Tom Clancy (2013)

This fast-paced thriller brings together action and politics for a novel that is a true page turner. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to get completely engrossed in classic Clancy.

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An Interview with Joshua Corey

September 30, 2014

Five years ago Evanston poet Joshua Corey began to experience an unusual sensation. After publishing three celebrated poetry collections, the Lake Forest College professor suddenly felt the “uncharacteristic itch to write some prose.” Readers everywhere should be thankful he scratched that itch because the result was Corey’s fantastic first novel Beautiful Soul: An American Elegy. Described as “an impressive postmodern noir debut,” Beautiful Soul “centers around Ruth, a bored and frustrated young mother in the Chicago suburbs haunted by the letters she receives from her own mother, who has been dead for several years.” On Thursday, October 2nd, you can hear Mr. Corey read from Beautiful Soul when he visits EPL’s 1st Floor Community Meeting Room at 7 p.m. along with local authors Patrick Creevy and Dennis Byrne. In anticipation of his visit, we recently spoke with him via email about the evolution of Beautiful Soul, poetry vs. prose, mother-daughter relationships, hardboiled detective novels, and his latest John Ashbery-approved poetry collection.

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Poet's WWI Diaries Available Online

August 1, 2014

Diaries and notebooks of poet Siegfried Sassoon will be published online by the Cambridge University Library. The 23 diaries and two journals are being made public to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of World War I. Writing in a “leather-bound notebook from a fly-speck village in northern France” Sassoon wrote “My inner life is far more real than the hideous realism of this land, the war -zone.” Cambridge University librarian Anne Jarvis calls the archive “a collection of towering importance, not just to historians, but to anyone seeking to understand the horror, bravery and futility of the First World War as experienced by those on the front lines and in the trenches.” Read more in these articles from the NYT and NPR. And check the EPL catalog for works by and about this celebrated war poet.

Laura

Poetry 365

June 26, 2014

This month for Poetry 365 we’re featuring Vijay Seshadri’s remarkable new book 3 Sections. Winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, this third collection from the regular New Yorker essayist and book critic employs a wide array of poetic forms to examine modern consumer culture, age-old angst, and Seshardri’s South Asian Heritage. Favorably compared to the work of Robert Frost by way of John Ashbery, these expertly-crafted poems show why Time Out New York named Seshadri “one of the most respected poets working in America today.” So don’t miss this terrific new book, sample a poem below, and make sure to stop back next month for Poetry 365.

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America's New Poet Laureate

June 16, 2014

The Library of Congress announced that 78-year-old Charles Wright will be named the next poet laureate this week. A retired professor at the University of Virginia, he has already won almost all prizes in the poetry world, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bollingen Prize and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Upon learning of his new post, he told NPR: “I’ll probably stay here at home and think about things.” Librarian of Congress James Billington chose Mr. Wright for his poetry’s “combination of literary elegance and genuine humility”, saying his work offers “an infinite array of beautiful words reflected with constant freshness.” Ancient of Days is from Caribou his latest collection of poetry published in March:

This is an old man’s poetry, written by someone who’s spent his life
Looking for one truth.
Sorry, pal, there isn’t one.

Read more of his poetry in these articles from the NYTimes and NPR. And check the EPL catalog for his works.

Laura

Goodbye, National Poetry Month!

April 30, 2014

Time sure flies when you’re having fun. It’s hard to believe another National Poetry Month is already drawing to a close, but for one last hurrah, don’t miss this great clip of actor Bill Murray reading a pair of Wallace Stevens’ poems. Enjoy, and make sure to keep coming back to Off the Shelf for Poetry 365 – a great way to scratch your poetry itch all year long.

National Poetry Month: April 30th

Classic Ballroom Dances by Charles Simic

Grandmothers who wring the necks
Of chickens; old nuns
With names like Theresa, Marianne,
Who pull schoolboys by the ear;

The intricate steps of pickpockets
Working the crowd of the curious
At the scene of an accident; the slow shuffle
Of the evangelist with a sandwich board;

The hesitation of the early-morning customer
Peeking through the window grille
Of a pawnshop; the weave of a little kid
Who is walking to school with eyes closed;

And the ancient lovers, cheek to cheek,
On the dance floor of the Union Hall,
Where they also hold charity raffles
On rainy Monday nights of an eternal November.

dancing

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Adult Services Librarian)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 29th

April 29, 2014

From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen

We shall not always plant while others reap
The golden increment of bursting fruit,
Not always countenance, abject and mute,
That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap;
Not everlastingly while others sleep
Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute,
Not always bend to some more subtle brute;
We were not made to eternally weep.
The night whose sable breast relieves the stark,
White stars is no less lovely being dark,
And there are buds that cannot bloom at all
In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall;
So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds,
And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

jatropha-seed-sprout1

This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Head of Adult Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 28th

April 28, 2014

Black Dog Goes to Art Colony by Maggie Anderson

I like it here. I like it here. They do things in packs,
At night they pile together on the floor.
I lie down on the leather jackets and boots
and the skinny ties I sink my teeth into and shake.
Tonight, as usual, they are listening to someone talk.
I track the smells: linseed oil and mink oil,
bag balm, gasoline and tar, cigarettes.
Tall thin man smell, cologne and sweat.
Great big woman smell, plastic, powder and pastries.
That woman’s still talking and now they’ve got a fire going,
smoke and pine and burning sap, and sulfur.
It’s the fire makes them want to drowse and pet a dog.
I move to one side, then the other, to catch the petters
with soft hands, rough hands, shirt cuffs, sweaters.
The guy with the pickup truck takes me with him to the dump,
otherwise I don’t have too many duties here.
I’ve found my place to settle among the brass studs
and the leather, the elbows and knees where
I’m waiting for the shoe to drop, for the talk to stop,
for them to whistle and clap for me,
to call my name, good dog, good dog.

My dog --- Buddy IN HDR! 1 exposure --- thus the grain.

This poem was selected by Laura H. (Adult Services Librarian)