Featured Ebooks
Welcome
Started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is celebrated every April in the United States. April was chosen presumably because the month is mentioned in major works by both Geoffrey Chaucer and T.S. Eliot.
Chaucer opens his Canterbury Tales with the following lines
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
Which translates to:
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
This proclamation of the sweetness of April was later rejected by T.S. Eliot, who wrote in "The Waste Land"
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
So whether you think it is beautiful or cruel, celebrate April with us, won't you, with a poetry ebook?
Contemporary Poetry Books
Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair
Still Can't Do My Daughter's Hair is the latest book by author William Evans, founder of Black Nerd Problems. Evans is a long-standing voice in the performance poetry scene, who has performed at venues across the country and been featured on numerous final stages, including the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam. Evans's commanding, confident style shines through in these poems, which explore masculinity, fatherhood, and family, and what it means to make a home as a black man in contemporary America.
Permutations of a Self
Permutations of a Self grapples with issues of belonging and connection, all from the perspective of someone who does a lot more observing and ruminating than living in the present. Most of the poems draw from Nguyen's imperfect memory of himself and others as it changes throughout time. In many ways, the poet feels like an outsider in his own family because he has gradually forgotten how to speak Vietnamese, his native language that he once knew so well.
Smash Poetry Journal
A Poetry Journal to Poem Your Days Away! Don't wait for inspiration to strike! Whether you're an aspiring or published poet, this book will help you get in a frame of mind to make creative writing a consistent part of your life. With prompts from Robert Lee Brewer's popular Writer's Digest blog, Poetic Asides, you'll find 125 ideas for writing poems along with the journaling space you need to respond to the prompt.
The Boy in the Labyrinth
In a long sequence of prose poems, questionnaires, and standardized tests, The Boy in the Labyrinth interrogates the language of autism and the language barriers between parents, their children, and the fractured medium of science and school. Structured as a Greek play, the book opens with a parents' earnest quest for answers, understanding, and doubt. Each section of the Three Act is highlighted by "Autism Spectrum Questionnaires" which are in dialogue with and in opposition to what the parent perceives to be their relationship with their child.
