In a country where much of the prominent poetry seeks to affirm the fleeting present and its changing values, John Peck's poetry comes as an important, if unlikely, gift. Peck's verse deals the cards of the fragmentary, ideogramic, juxtapositional, a...

Jennifer Clarvoe's second book, "Counter-Amores", wrestles with and against love. The poems in the title series talk back to Ovid's Amores, and, in talking back, take charge, take delight, and take revenge. They suggest that we discover what we love...

Cyprian Norwid, born in 1821 near Warsaw, is one of the most innovative and idiosyncratic figures in Polish literature. His unique poetry is now recognized as among Poland's finest. Adam Czerniawski's selection from all phases of the poet's work beau...

"Nonsense", wrote Mervyn Peake, "can take you by the hand and lead you nowhere. It's magic". Peake (1911-1968) is one of the great English nonsense poets, in the tradition of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. His verses lead the reader into places where...

Here are the letters between Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the great German-speaking poet Paul Celan (1920-1970). Their correspondence lasted from 1954 until Celan's death by suicide. Sachs died the da...

"Certain Windows" is Dan Burt's second chapbook collection. It includes poems, sequences and the title prose, a vivid memoir evoking a harsh formative world. Among others, the poet's father comes alive here and in the poems, a powerful, hard and symp...

Peter McCarey's first full collection, comprising work from his five pamphlets, is an exhilarating journey on the U-bahns and runways of language: "In a matter of hours / they can take you anywhere". Collected Contraptions opens with water, rain and...

Poems vivifying nature have gripped people for centuries. From ancient Biblical times through to the present day, poetry has continuously drawn us to the natural world. In this thought-provoking book, John Felstiner explores the rich legacy of poems...

Gaspara Stampa (1523-1554) is one of the finest female poets ever to write in Italian. Although she was lauded for her singing during her lifetime, her success and critical reputation as a poet emerged only after her verse was republished in the earl...

John Ashbery's "Collected Poems 1956-1987" contains the complete text of the poet's first twelve books, from "Some Trees" (1956), selected for publication by W. H. Auden, to "April Galleons" (1987), and including "The Vermont Notebook" (1975) with th...