Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Holloway dreams of being a world-class BMXer, but she is held back by the tough reality of a parent in prison. Evan Placey's play Holloway Jones was commissioned by Synergy Theatre Project, toured schools and the Unicorn Theatre in 2011, and won the 2012 Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People.
A mind-blowing collection of poems about love, life, and a long-overdue introduction to the unique worldview of Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi. Ikhda captures the intensity and wildness of love, sex, motherhood and family ties through her heady and sensual poems and character sketches. She flexes and chivvies the English language into hitherto undreamt-of places, dipping occasionally into French and Italian, and presents it all back to the reader in compelling, undeniably truthful nuggets, with exquisite tenderness and humanity. Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi has worked in television, advertising and as a scriptwriter on a sitcom in Indonesia. She performed her poetry for the first time in 2011, at Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris. She now lives in Naples, where she is enjoying her new role as mother to her little boy Corentin.Show book
A celebration of hope. An encounter with grace. A restoration of the heart. A healing of wounds. An anthem of freedom. This illustrated collection of poetry and prose invites you to stumble into the sunlight and delight in the wild and boundless grace you've been given. Popular Instagram poet and bestselling author Morgan Harper Nichols gives you the ultimate love letter to your mind, heart, soul, and body, reminding you:There is a purpose in every seasonNo matter how you want to race through this day or run away from this place, you are invited to live fully—right here, right nowLight will always find you, even when the sun sets and you sit awaiting the dawnYou are always blooming in the way you were meant to All Along You Were Blooming is perfect for self-gifting for your own affirmation or giving to others on Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, birthdays, and other holidays and milestone days. In each small moment, whether in the light or the dark, you can make room for becoming, for breathing, for stumbling, and for simply being—for there is grace, today and every day. Follow Morgan on Instagram @morganharpernicols (along with her millions of followers), and look for more beautiful, thought-provoking poetry in her other collections:How Far You Have ComeYou Are Only Just BeginningShow book
Poet, teacher, essayist, anthologist, songwriter and singer, Naomi Shihab Nye is one of the country's most acclaimed writers. Her voice is generous; her vision true; her subjects ordinary people, and ordinary situations which, when rendered through her language, become remarkable. In this, her fourth full collection of poetry, we see with new eyes-a grandmother's scarf, an alarm clock, a man carrying his son on his shoulders. Narrated by the author.Valentine for Ernest MannYou can’t order a poem like you order a taco.Walk up to the counter and say, "I’ll take two"and expect it to handed back to youon a shiny plate.Still, I like you spirit.Anyone who says, "Here’s my address,write me a poem," deserves something in reply.So I’ll tell a secret instead:poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,they are sleeping. They are the shadowsdrifting across our ceilings the momentbefore we wake up. What we have to dois live in a way that lets us find them.Once I knew a man who gave his wifetwo skunks for a valentine.He couldn’t understand why she was crying."I thought they had such beautiful eyes."And he was serious. He was a serious manwho lived in a serious way. Nothing was uglyjust because the world said so. He reallyliked those skunks. So, he re-invented themas valentines and they became beautiful.At least, to him. And the poems that had been hidingin the eyes of skunks for centuriescrawled out and curled up at his feet.Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give uswe find poems. Check your garage, the odd sockin your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.And let me know.Show book
This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for December 2011.Show book
Wise and funny, touching and true, What We’re Teaching Our Sons is for anyone who has ever wondered how to be a grown up. We’re teaching our sons about money; about heartbreak, and mountains, and philosophy. We’re teaching them about the big bang and the abominable snowman and what happens when you get struck by lightning. We’re teaching them about the toughness of single mothers, and the importance of having friends who’ve known you longer than you’ve known yourself, and the difference between zombies and vampires. We’re teaching them about sex, although everyone would be a lot happier if the subject had never come up… Meet the married Dads, the divorced Dads, the widowed Dads and the gay Dads; the gamblers, the firemen, the bankers, the nurses, the soldiers and the milkmen. They’re trying to guide their sons through the foothills of childhood into the bewildering uplands of adulthood. But it’s hard to know if they’re doing it right. Or what their sons’ mothers think… Wise and funny, touching and true, What We’re Teaching Our Sons is for anyone who has ever wondered how to be a grown up. Booth's collection of essays on fatherhood and family life is a literary gem. The themes of parenting and relationships are explored in depth, making it a top choice for readers interested in these topics.Show book
With echoes of Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, an extraordinary debut collection from a prize-winning poet that chronicles a Black woman’s journey through disability, the byzantine healthcare system, life-giving, taking, and sacrifice. With breathtaking lyricism and a vulnerability that pierces the heart, April Gibson journeys through the emotional abysses, the daily pleasures, the frustrations, and the joys of being a Black woman living with chronic illness. Gibson offers a unique perspective on “the body,” viewing disability and healthcare through both feminist and socio-economic lenses filtered by race and faith. Through gorgeous sensory language that migrates memories, from carefree innocence to the ravages formed in its absence, Gibson bears witness to grief, courage, and resistance to redefine herself on her own terms. Gibson presents her body as a “looking glass” that re-envisions illness, womanhood, motherhood, religious relics and collective loss through her physicality, through her lamenting, through her unearthing, reckoning and rebirth. Not only do we see her, but see the “we” in her. The Span of a Small Forever is both testimony and transformation—heart-shattering in its honesty, it ultimately offers us transcendent beauty, nourishment, and the strength we need to go on in our lives.Show book
