What do you do with a musical cat who becomes a national sensation? Find out in this humorous read-aloud picture book debut illustrated by beloved artist Steven Kellogg.Mary Jane Lemon knows that her cat is special—and she finds out exactly how special when one day, after mistakenly eating a bag of French cheese, unusual tweets and toots come out of—not his mouth—but you know where! It turns out that, depending on what he eats, Marty’s rump spews music of ...

BJ Ward, an award-winning poet whose poetry and essays have been featured on National Public Radio and in publications such as The Sun Magazine, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, and the New York Times, has brought together in one volume the fruits of his labor spanning over twenty years. Winner of the 2014 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, this rich collection of thoughtful and often ironic reflections reveals both the reverence and irreverence of human e...

Learn all about Mary Washington in this story by best-selling author, Jean Fritz!Everyone has a mother. Even George Washington. But Mary Washington is nothing like you'd think! She hates to dress up. And she always thinks she knows what's best for George. After all, she's his mother!

"In a stunning debut, Melmed combines standard fairy tale devices (a wish granted by magic; a series of trials to prove worthiness; virtue rewarded, etc.) in a wholly original story featuring the most fetching cast of little ones since the Dionne quintuplets. Melmed's writing is flawless..." --- Publisher's WeeklyThe moon presents a childless couple with twelve tiny babies, which they care for with tenderness and love. In the end they are rewarded with their hearts desire - a real ...

Playfulness, spare elegance, and wit epitomize the poetry of Billy Collins.With his distinct voice and accessible language, America’s two-term Poet Laureate has opened the door to poetry for countless people for whom it might otherwise remain closed.Like the present book’s title, Collins’s poems are filled with mischief, humor, and irony, “Poetry speaks to all people, it is said, but here I would like to address / only those in my own time zone”–but also with quiet observation, int...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the two-term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins comes his first volume of new and selected poems in twelve years.“America’s favorite poet.”—The Wall Street Journal**Aimless Love combines fifty new poems with generous selections from his four most recent books—Nine Horses, The Trouble with Poetry, Ballistics, and Horoscopes for the Dead. Collins’s unmistakable voice, which brings to...

A stunning collection of poems that John Updike wrote during the last seven years of his life and put together only weeks before he died for this, his final book.The opening sequence, “Endpoint,”is made up of a series of connected poems written on the occasions of his recent birthdays and culminates in his confrontation with his final illness. He looks back on the boy that he was, on the family, the small town, the people, and the circumstances that fed his love of...

This generous selection of Mona Van Duyn’s distinguished, award-winning work spans four decades. Beginning with her classic Valentines to the Wide World (1959), encompassing the intimate voice of Bedtime Stories (1972) and the moving Letters from a Father (1982), crowned by the life-spanning Firefall (1993), Selected Poems reacquaints us with a poet whose ear is keenly tuned to the music of nature and human conversation. In lively and varied for...

"Inseminating the Elephant [is] a collection of poems, often laced with humor, that examines popular culture, the limits of the human body, and the tragicomic aspects of everyday experience."-Pulitzer Prize finalist citation"These poems are tough and witty."-The New Yorker"Whoever told you poetry isn't for everyone hasn't read Lucia Perillo."-Time Out New YorkA 2009 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Inseminating the Elephant delivers hard-...

My musicI fill up my flute with notesThen I start singingAnd this musicMakes a bird out of me.

From the congestion of Los Angeles to the sands of San Diego; from the heights of New York to the desert sun of Las Vegas; from the cafes of Paris to the streets of Amsterdampoetry drumming to the maddening beat of a primitive, personal war-dance. Order and chaos; the way between young and old: straining to perfectabsorbing the world; absolving all sin. Eroticism-savagery-bloodlust: both frightening and beautiful.

Thomas Lux selected this debut collection as winner of BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry Prize. In his foreword he writes, "I was immediately struck by the boldness of imagination, the strange cadences, and wild music of these poems. We should be glad that young poets like Keetje Kuipers are making their voices heard not by tearing up the old language but by making the old language new."Keetje Kuipers, a native of the Northwest, earned her BA at Swarthmore College and M...