"One of the most original American writers, Edgar Allan Poe shaped the development of both the detective story and the science-fiction story. Some of his poems--"The Raven," "The Bells," "Annabel Lee"--Remain among the most popular in American literature. Poe's tales of the macabre still thrill readers of all ages. Here are familiar favorites like "The Purloined Letter." "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," together...

From multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg comes a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life.

Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the so-called "ghetto prose" that would make him a commercial success. He finally succumbs to temptation after seeing the Oberlin-educated author of We's Lives in da Ghetto during her appearance on a talk show, firing back with a parody called My Pafology, which he submits to his startled agent under the gangsta pseudonym...

Following the success of his National Book Award nomination, Alberto Ríos' new book is filled with magic, marvel, and emotional truth. Set along the elusive southern border, his poems trace the lives and loves of an elderly couple through their childhood and courtship to marriage, maturity, old age, and death. Like the best of storytellers, Ríos charms his readers, making us care deeply-even love-these people we read. From "The Chair She Sits In":...

Walking Uphill at Noon showcases Yenser's mastery of prosody and love of play. Including free verse as well as established and newly invented forms, Yenser's collection is organized into four parts that each explore the author's life and interests: part 1 focuses on neighborhood observations; part 2 delves into travel at home and abroad; part 3 consists of a "walking log" that muses on current events; and part 4 explores magic, mysteries, and sleights...

"Seminal moments, rites of passage, crystalline vignettes--a memoir about growing up brown at the U.S./Mexico border"-- Solis's memoir about growing up brown at the U.S./Mexico border. As he examines seminal moments and rites of passage, Solis looks at them as a series of paintings, capturing events survived thanks to the intercession of the Divine. The result is a kind of flash-fiction account of his life: not so much autobiography as an "poetic...

"The Lichtenberg Figures, winner of the Hayden Carruth Award for Emerging Poets, is a sonnet sequence that interrogates the relationships between language and memory, violence and form. The book takes its title from the fernlike patterns that sometimes appear (and quickly fade) in the aftermath of a lightning strike." "Lerner's poems mimic and explore the complex juxtapositions of contemporary culture through permutation, repetition, and collage....

"A funny, over-the-top new spin on the classic Christmas poem! A hysterical new version of "The Night Before Christmas"! David Ercolini's over-the-top illustrations will have readers saying, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Creatures of all shapes and all sizes will be stirring with laughter in this overly decked out, Christmas-splendored illustrated picture book! Ercolini breathes new life into an unrivaled classic with his vibrant illustrations featuring fun, accessible...

Kay Ryan is the sixteenth Poet Laureate of the United States. Here is the poet's own selection of more than two hundred poems, offering both longtime followers and new readers a stunning retrospective of her earlier work as well as a generous selection of powerful new poems.

"Quincy Troupe writes poetry in great waves. The words are just notes. It's the music you make with them that matters. He's not a wordsmith, he's a shaman conjuring long repetitive lines, cadences of looking across the sea towards Africa and haunted by the legacy of slavery and racism, or of remembering fellow conjurers, poets and musical artists, celebrating, always celebrating, but never only that. In the fifty-page, incantatory poem, "Ghost Voices,"...