Washoe County Library System

"Considered by Eliot himself to be his finest work, Four Quartets is a rich composition that expands the spiritual vision introduced in “The Waste Land.” Here, in four linked poems (“Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding”), spiritual, philosophical, and personal themes emerge through symbolic allusions and literary and religious references from both Eastern and Western thought. It is the culminating...

Sing a Song of Seasons is a lavishly illustrated collection of 366 nature poems one for every day of the year. Filled with familiar favorites and new discoveries written by a wide variety of poets, including William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, John Updike, Langston Hughes, N. M. Bodecker, Okamoto Kanoko, and many more, this is the perfect book for children (and grown-ups!) to share at the beginning or the end of the day.

"The author of At the Pond and In the Woods takes readers to the most remote regions of our planet in this beautifully illustrated poetic ode to the creatures that inhabit the North and South poles. The stark, cold landscapes of Earth’s poles may seem inhospitable, but their snowy hollows and glacial waters hide an astounding variety of creatures, from the tiny, fascinating tardigrade to the mysterious giant squid, from the fleet-footed Arctic...

Be Holding is a love song to legendary basketball player Julius Erving--known as Dr. J--who dominated courts in the 1970s and '80s as a small forward for the Philadelphia '76ers. But this book-length poem is more than just an ode to a magnificent athlete.Through a kind of lyric research, or lyric meditation, Ross Gay connects Dr. J's famously impossible move from the 1980 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers to pick-up basketball and the flying...

"it was never going to be okay is a collection of poetry and prose exploring the intimacies of understanding intergenerational trauma, Indigeneity and queerness, while addressing Urban Indigenous Diaspora and breaking down the limitations of sexual understanding as a trans woman. As a way to move from the linear timeline of healing and coming to terms with how trauma does not exist in subsequent happenings, it was never going to be okay tries to breakdown...

"Performance poet Sophia Thakur offers a powerful new collection touching on intergenerational relationships, finding your voice, and what it means to be a woman. In her heartfelt second poetry collection, Sophia Thakur takes us on an emotionally charged journey through the lives of women in the past and considers what it means to be a woman today. Exploring topics such as identity, race, politics, mental health, and self-love, she weaves together...

"Spectacular vertical panoramas illustrating life underground accompany 15 funny, fascinating poems that explore dirt and the many creatures that make their homes underground. Spiders, earthworms, ants, chipmunks and more crawl across the pages, between stretching roots and buried stones. Chipmunk, for such a little squirt you sure do move a lot of dirt, you sure do dig your tunnels deep, you sure do find some nuts to keep, you sure do know your...

"A powerful collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia's Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class and its failures for those rendered invisible by it"-- "A powerful collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia’s Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class and its failures for those rendered invisible by it. As a former...

"A classic in the Bukowski poetry canon, Love Is a Dog from Hell is a raw, lyrical, exploration of the exigencies, heartbreaks, and limits of love. A book that captures the Dirty Old Man of American letters at his fiercest and most vulnerable, on a subject that hits home with all of us. Charles Bukowski was a man of intense emotions, someone an editor once called a “passionate madman.” Alternating between tough and gentle, sensitive and gritty,...

"A striking and playful anthology of fiction and poetry that removes queer monsters from the subtext and places them front and centre The fiction and poetry of Queer Little Nightmares reimagines monsters old and new through a queer lens, subverting the horror gaze to celebrate ideas and identities canonically feared in monster lit. Throughout history, monsters have appeared in popular culture as stand-ins for the non-conforming, the marginalized of...