While in life Frost (1874-1963) took on the persona of a gentlemen farmer, he emerges from these essays as a far darker and more complex figure. And certainly no poet could ask for better critics Continue reading »
An autumnal mood pervades these verses from the exiled Soviet poet and Nobel laureate. ``Life is the sum of trifling motions,'' observes Brodsky. In ironic, well-made lyrics he broods on being Continue reading »
Nobel laureate Brodsky completed work on this sobering and brilliant collection just a week before his death this past January. Over a third of the poems collected here were written in English, Continue reading »
Beginning when he ""first took up writing poems seriously,"" former U.S. poet laureate Joseph Brodsky, who died in 1996 at age 56, wrote a Christmas poem each year. Of the 18 Nativity Poems of Continue reading »
As much a brooding self-portrait as a lyric description of Venice, poet Brodsky's quirky, impressionistic essay describes his 17-year romance with a city of dreamlike beauty that banishes nightmares. Continue reading »
Art, especially literature, is ``a form of moral insurance'' that, if widely disseminated, could counteract the worst impulses of societies and governments, declares Brodsky in his eloquent 1987 Continue reading »
With chunks of chopped paper and expressionistic slashes of paint, Radunsky (Telephone; Hail to Mail) interprets a piece by the late U.S. poet laureate Brodsky about the ""discovery"" of America. Continue reading »
A writer of global scope and acclaim, a Nobel Prize winner and a former U.S. poet laureate, Brodsky (1940-96) first came to U.S. readers' attention as a young Russian poet. Exiled to Siberia in the Continue reading »
The grieving unnamed narrator of Mexican writer Navarro’s spellbinding U.S. debut ruminates on the effects of migration. She and her younger brother, Diego, are raised by their Continue reading »
Italian French writer Cagnati (Free Day), who died in 2007, dazzles and devastates in equal measure with this tragic 1976 novel of life in the French countryside. Marie, the Continue reading »
Pulitzer winner Erdrich (The Night Watchman) dives deep into the American psyche in this spectacular collection. The title story chronicles a young girl’s kinship with a Continue reading »
Haydu’s wonderful adult debut (after the middle grade fantasy One Jar of Magic) explores the interwoven lives of two families. After free-spirited Joni Dyer moves from Manhattan Continue reading »