Kiowa County Public Library District

Shortly after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, and a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home to her Mennonite family, who welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage, her desire as a young woman to leave her sheltered world behind, and...

With the grace and precision that have won her legions of admirers, Oliver talks of turtle eggs and house building, of her surprise at the powerful flight of swans, and of the "thousand unbreakable links between us and everything else.".

A memoir by an award-winning poet describes her retreats to a wilderness cabin to write in solitude and find answers to life's big questions, describing how a catastrophic fire forced her to reconcile her conflicting needs for isolation and community.

" In THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, Elizabeth Alexander--poet, mother, and wife--finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband, who was just 49. Reflecting with gratitude on the exquisite beauty of her married life that was, grappling with the subsequent void, and feeling a re-energized devotion to her two teenage sons, Alexander channels her poetic sensibilities into a rich, lucid prose that describes a very personal and...

A prismatic and lyrical narrative rich with the colors, sounds, smells, and textures of Miami, Richard Blanco's personal narrative is a resonant account of how he discovered his authentic self and ultimately, a deeper understanding of what it means to be American.

For many years, the great poet Von Humboldt Fleisher and Charlie Citrine, a young man inflamed with a love for literature, were the best of friends. At the time of his death, however, Humboldt is a failure, and Charlie's life has reached a low point: his career is at a standstill, and he's enmeshed in an acrimonious divorce, infatuated with a highly unsuitable young woman, and involved with a neurotic mafioso. And then Humboldt acts from beyond the...

Exploring the full range of writings by and about Whitman - not just his most famous work but also his earliest poems and stories, his conversations, letters, journals, newspaper writings, and daybooks - Reynolds gives us a full, rounded picture of the man, of his creative blending of disparate ideas and images, and his contradictory stances on race, class, and gender. Whitman's uniqueness is shown to spring primarily from his closeness to and absorption...

A biography of the American poet whose compassion led him to nurse soldiers during the Civil War, to give voice to the nation's grief at Lincoln's assassination, and to capture the true American spirit in verse.

Poet Laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life as the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate. In her second memoir, she invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic meditation, this book reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the...