Synopses & Reviews
From the selected works of such celebrated and beloved poets as W. H. Auden, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, and William Shakespeare, to anthologies on Jazz and Blues and Beat Poets, to collections on the timeless themes of love and marriage, friendship and motherhood, the Everymans Library Pocket Poets set has it all. Theres something for everyone to enjoy in this 75-volume set, from
Animal Poems to
Zen Poems. Each book comes in an elegant 256-page pocket-sized hardcover edition (4 1/8" x 6 1/4"), with full-cloth covers, lovely illustrated and jewel-tone jackets, silk ribbon markers, and gold stamping. Perfect for your home library, or as a gift for any occasion.
This set includes one each of the following titles:
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry edited by Peter Washington
Animal Poems edited by John Hollander
Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova
Auden: Poems by W. H. Auden
Baudelaire: Poems by Charles Baudelaire
Beat Poets edited by Carmela Ciuraru
Blake: Poems by William Blake
Blues Poems edited by Kevin Young
Browning: Poems by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Byron: Poems by Lord Byron, G. Gordon
Chinese Erotic Poems edited by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping
Christmas Poems edited by Peter Washington
Coleridge: Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Comic Poems edited by Peter Washington
Conversation Pieces by Kurt Brown
The Dance edited by Emily Fragos
Dickinson: Poems by Emily Dickinson
Doggerel edited by Carmela Ciuraru
Donne: Poems by John Donne
Eliot: Poems by T. S. Eliot
Emerson: Poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emily Bronte: Poems by Emily Bronte
Erotic Poems edited by Peter Washington
Eugene Onegin and Other Poems by Alexander Pushkin
Fatherhood edited by Carmela Ciuraru
Friendship Poems edited by Peter Washington
Frost: Poems by Robert Frost
Garden Poems edited by John Hollander
The Great Cat edited by Emily Fragos
Haiku edited by Peter Washington
Hardy: Poems by Thomas Hardy
Herbert: Poems by George Herbert
Hopkins: Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Hughes: Poems by Langston Hughes
Indian Love Poems edited by Meena Alexander
Jazz Poems edited by Kevin Young
Keats: Poems by John Keats
Kipling: Poems by Rudyard Kipling
Letters by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Love Letters edited by Peter Washington
Love Poems edited by Peter Washington
Love Songs and Sonnets edited by Peter Washington
Love Speaks Its Name by J. D. McClatchy
Lullabies and Poems for Children edited by Diana Secker Larson
Marriage Poems edited by John Hollander
Marvell: Poems by Andrew Marvell
Milton: Poems by John Milton
Motherhood edited by Carmela Ciuraru
On Wings of Song by J. D. McClatchy
Persian Poets edited by Peter Washington
Plath: Poems by Sylvia Plath
Poe: Poems by Edgar Allen Poe
Poems Bewitched and Haunted edited by John Hollander
Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Poems by Robert Burns
Poems of Mourning edited by Peter Washington
Poems of New York edited by Elizabeth Schmidt
Poems of Sleep and Dreams edited by Peter Washington
Poems of the American West edited by Robert Mezey
Poems of the Sea by J. D. McClatchy
Prayers edited by Peter Washington
Rilke: Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
Rimbaud: Poems by Arthur Rimbaud
The Roman Poets edited by Peter Washington
Rossetti: Poems by Christina Rossetti
Shakespeare: Poems by William Shakespeart
Shelley: Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Solitude edited by Carmela Ciuraru
Sonnets edited by John Hollander
Stevens: Poems by Wallace Stevens
Tennyson: Poems by Lord Alfred Tennyson
War Poems edited by Peter Washington
Whitman: Poems by Walt Whitman
Wordsworth: Poems by William Wordsworth
Zen Poems edited by Peter Harris
Everymans Library continues to maintain its original commitment to publishing the most significant world literature in editions that reflect a tradition of fine bookmaking. Everymans Library pursues the highest standards, utilizing modern prepress, printing, and binding technologies to produce classically designed books printed on acid-free natural-cream-colored text paper and including Smyth-sewn, signatures, full-cloth cases with two-color case stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, and European-style half-round spines.
Synopsis
Born in African American work songs, field hollers, and the powerful legacy of the spirituals, the blues traveled the country from the Mississippi delta to “Sweet Home Chicago,” forming the backbone of American music. In this anthology-the first devoted exclusively to blues poems-a wide array of poets pay tribute to the form and offer testimony to its lasting power.
The blues have left an indelible mark on the work of a diverse range of poets: from “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes and “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden, to “Blues on Yellow” by Marilyn Chin and “Reservation Blues” by Sherman Alexie. Here are blues-influenced and blues-inflected poems from, among others, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan, Richard Wright, Nikki Giovanni, Charles Wright, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Cornelius Eady. And here, too, are classic song lyrics-poems in their own right-from Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Ma Rainey, and Muddy Waters.
The rich emotional palette of the blues is fully represented here in verse that pays tribute to the heart and humor of the music, and in poems that swing with its history and hard-bitten hope.
Synopsis
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Table of Contents
ForewordSTANDARDS (Blues Poems before World War II)
LANGSTON HUGHES The Weary Blues
LANGSTON HUGHES Morning After
LANGSTON HUGHES Beale Street Love
LANGSTON HUGHES Song for a Dark Girl
LANGSTON HUGHES Midwinter Blues
LANGSTON HUGHES Too Blue
LANGSTON HUGHES Note on Commercial Theatre 26
FENTON JOHNSON Tired
CLAUDE MCKAY The Harlem Dancer
NANCY CUNARD Memory Blues
COUNTEE CULLEN Colored Blues Singer
STERLING BROWN Ma Rainey
STERLING BROWN Choices
NICOLÁS GUILLÉN High Brown
MELVIN B. TOLSON Sootie Joe
MAXWELL BODENHEIM Street-level Jazz
W. H. AUDEN Blues
W. H. AUDEN Funeral Blues
MURIEL RUKEYSER George Robinson: Blues
LEOPOLD SENGHOR Ndéssé, or “Blues”
OWEN DODSON Guitar
CHARLES EDWARD SMITH Blues Stanzas
RICHARD WRIGHT AND LANGSTON HUGHES Red Clay Blues
RICHARD WRIGHT The FB Eye Blues
VINCENT MCHUGH Dicty Blues
WARING CUNEY Down-home Boy
WARING CUNEY Carry Me Back
WARING CUNEY Let Me Tell You Blues Singers Something
GWENDOLYN BROOKS Queen of the Blues
SOME SONGS
W. C. HANDY St. Louis Blues
MAMIE SMITH Crazy Blues
MA RAINEY See See Rider Blues
BESSIE SMITH Empty Bed Blues
BESSIE SMITH Backwater Blues
BESSIE SMITH Gimme a Pigfoot
IDA COX Wild Women Dont Have the Blues
RICHARD M. JONES Trouble in Mind
BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed
SON HOUSE Death Letter Blues
ROBERT JOHNSON Kindhearted Woman Blues
ROBERT JOHNSON Hellhound on My Trail
ROBERT JOHNSON Love in Vain
JIMMY RUSHING Sent for You Yesterday
LEADBELLY Good Morning Blues
MUDDY WATERS Hoochie Coochie Man
BIG MAMA THORNTON Hound Dog
FORM
JAYNE CORTEZ You Know
AMIRI BARAKA Look for You Yesterday, Here You Come Today
SONIA SANCHEZ Blues
SONIA SANCHEZ Blues Haikus
SONIA SANCHEZ Set. No. 2
NIKKI GIOVANNI Master Charge Blues
MARGARET WALKER Inflation Blues
QUINCY TROUPE Woke Up Crying the Blues
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER Letter: Blues
A. VAN JORDAN Cheating Woman Blues Haiku
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT Feeling Fucked/Up
FACING OFF
JAMES C. MORRIS The Blues
KENNETH REXROTH Married Blues
KENNETH PATCHEN Lonesome Boy Blues
HENRY DUMAS Concentration Camp Blues
HENRY DUMAS Outer Space Blues
DEREK WALCOTT Blues
SHERMAN ALEXIE Reservation Blues
GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT Bilingual Blues
MARILYN CHIN Blues on Yellow
CARL PHILLIPS Blue
GAYL JONES Deep Song
CALVIN FORBES Soledad
CALVIN FORBES Some Pieces
DARRELL BURTON Broom Song
ALLEN GINSBERG Sickness Blues
SANDRA MCPHERSON Bad Mother Blues
AFAA M. WEAVER Rambling
JUNE JORDAN Uncle Bull-boy
TRACIE MORRIS Get Away 1928
SEAN HILL Joe Chappels Foot Log Bottom Blues 1952
ALAN DUGAN Swing Shift Blues
BILLY COLLINS The Blues
FIGURES
SHERLEY ANNE WILLIAMS Any Womans Blues
CORNELIUS EADY Im a Fool to Love You
CORNELIUS EADY Muddy Waters & the Chicago Blues
CORNELIUS EADY Leadbelly
KEVIN YOUNG Langston Hughes
WILLIE PERDOMO Song for Langston
STERLING PLUMPP Muddy Waters
HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS Big Mama Thornton
CHARLES WRIGHT Poem Almost Wholly in My Own Manner
JOHN BERRYMAN Dream Song [no. 40]
DAVID WOJAHN John Berryman Listening to Robert Johnsons King of the Delta Blues, January 1972
FORREST HAMER Arrival
DAVID RIVARD Not Guilty
ALFRED ENCARNACION Bulosan Listens to a Recording of Robert Johnson
FREIGHT
AL YOUNG The Blues Dont Change
G. E. PATTERSON Cinderella
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Annabelle
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA For You, Sweetheart, Ill Sell Plutonium Reactors
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Woman, I Got the Blues
CATHERINE BOWMAN Hard-Luck Resume
THOMAS MCGRATH Gone Away Blues
ROBERT CREELEY Broken Back Blues
JOSEPH BRODSKY Blues
WILLIAM MATTHEWS Narcissus Blues
RAYMOND R. PATTERSON Special Pain Blues
TOI DERRICOTTE Blackbottom
MAJOR JACKSON How to Listen
JANE COOPER Wandas Blues
ALBERT MURRAY From Aubades
NATASHA TRETHEWEY At the Station
JEFF FALLIS Nosferatu Blues
CHARLES SIMIC Bed Music
JOHN YAU Domestic Bliss
BOB KAUFMAN Blues for Hal Waters
BOB KAUFMAN Heavy Water Blues
WANDA COLEMAN Heavy Daughter Blues
TERRANCE HAYES The Things-No-One-Knows Blues
ANTHONY WALTON The Encyclopedia of Rhythm and Blues
FINALE (For Bessie Smith)
ALVIN AUBERT Bessie
ROBERT HAYDEN Homage to the Empress of the Blues
JACKIE KAY Twelve Bar Bessie
MYRON OHIGGINS Blues for Bessie
WARING CUNEY Bessie Smith
COLLEEN J. MCELROY Mae West Chats It Up with Bessie Smith
MICHAEL S. HARPER Last Affair: Bessies Blues Song
List of Authors
Acknowledgments