Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Raw Shark Texts

by Steven Hall

The Raw Shark Texts , called “clever, playful . . . sharp and clear” by the Los Angeles Times and “a horror-dystopic-philosophical mash-up” by the New York Times Magazine , is a novel unlike any other. Eric Sanderson wakes up in a house one day with no idea who or where he is. Instructed by a mysterious note to visit a Dr. Randle, Eric learns that the agony of losing the love of his life in a scuba-diving... (more)

Transbluesency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (1961-1995)

Transbluesency: The Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (1961-1995)

by Amiri Baraka, Imamu Amiri Baraka

The first collection of selected poetry from perhaps the preeminent African American literary figure of our time. Baraka almost single-handedly changed both the nature and the form of post-World War II African-American literature, and this volume is an important contribution to Modernist literature.

Recyclopedia: Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge

Recyclopedia: Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge

by Harryette Romell Mullen

Three important poetry collections brought together under one cover by Harryette Mullen, author of Sleeping with the Dictionary if you turned down the media so I could write a book then you could look me up in your voluminous recyclopedia —from Muse & Drudge Recyclopedia shows the extraordinary development of Harryette Mullen’s career, in her books Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse &... (more)

The Salt Eaters (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Salt Eaters (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Toni Cade Bambara

Set in Claybourne, a small town somewhere in the South, THE SALT EATERS is the story of a community of black faith healers who, searching for the healing properties of salt, witness an event that will change their lives forever.

Tender Buttons (Dodo Press)

by Gertrude Stein

Before becoming the patron of Lost Generation artists, Gertrude Stein established her reputation as an innovative author whose style was closer to painting than literature. Stein’s strong influence on 20th-century literature is evident in this 1915 work of highly original prose rendered in thought-provoking experimental techniques.

Dada & Surrealism A&i (Art and Ideas)

by Matthew Gale

This introductory survey traces the origins and development of two revolutionary 20th-century art movements: Dada and Surrealism. It explores the full range of artistic production, including film, photography and painting. The art is situated within a context of ideas. Against the background of the slaughter of World War I, the Dadas embarked upon a total reconsideration of nationalism, materialism and the basis... (more)

Dictee

by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Dictee is the best-known work of the versatile and important artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951Ð1982). A classic work of autobiography that transcends the self, Dictee is the story of several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Demeter and Persephone, Cha's mother Hyung Soon Huo (a Korean born in Manchuria to first-generation Korean exiles), and Cha herself. The element that unites... (more)

Eeeee Eee Eeee

by Tao Lin

"Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass — from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious."— Miranda July Tao Lin’s book blog, reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com, has made him one of the most talked-about young writers on the scene today. His commentaries taking mainstream... (more)

Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays

by LeRoi Jones

Centered squarely on the Negro-white conflict, both Dutchman and The Slave are literally shocking plays--in ideas, in language, in honest anger. They illuminate as with a flash of lightning a deadly serious problem--and they bring an eloquent and exceptionally powerful voice to the American theatre. Dutchman opened in New York City on March 24, 1964, to perhaps the most excited acclaim ever accorded an... (more)

Plot (Grove Press Poetry Series)

by Claudia Rankine

Her third collection of poetry, Claudia Rankine's Plot is original and enchanting, and the language, as in her acclaimed The End of the Alphabet, never ceases to startle and confront. Plot is a postmodern dialogue about pregnancy and childbirth. Liv, the expectant mother, and her husband, Erland, find themselves propelled into one of our most basic plots -- boy loves girl, girl gets pregnant. Liv's respect for... (more)

Piece Logic (Carolina Wren Press Poetry Chapbook Series, #3)Erica Hunt

Piece Logic (Carolina Wren Press Poetry Chapbook Series, #3)

by Erica Hunt

"Core the questions, comma the nouns." The poems of Piece Logic buzz with a familiar terror as they expose the seams and piece the goods. As with Hunt's earlier books, Piece Logic eavesdrops with an unfailing ear on the sentences and corridors of power, but with a renewed sense of urgency: "The shoemaker's children have no shoes." Piece Logic was designed by Dave Wofford of Horse & Buggy Press. The covers,... (more)

Loose Sugar (Wesleyan Poetry)

by Brenda Hillman

An elaborate collection of poems that culminate in a meditation on the possibility of a native and feminine language,

Cascadia (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

by Brenda Hillman

These poems use the geography of California as metaphor for exploring fundamental pressures and issues of everyday life.

Transfigurations: Collected Poems

by Jay Wright

Onetime jazz musician, minor-league baseball player, member of the U.S. Army, theology and comparative literature student, and college professor, Wright has, since the early '70s, pursued a less institutionally affiliated life and become a major voice in American poetry. After he was chosen for a MacArthur Fellowship in 1986 and his Selected Poems was published a year later by Princeton University Press, Wright's... (more)

Antidotes for an Alibi

by Amy King

Antidotes for an Alibi by Amy King

I'm The Man Who Loves You

by Amy King

"Amy King's mercurial poems capture the instability of cultural, sexual, and poetic identity. In the circuitry of her illuminated, incongruous, but somehow perfectly apt details, ""the alien befits us."" With a nod to Gertrude Stein and Fernando Pessoa, as well as cameos by Frida Kahlo, Maya Deren, and Claude Cahun, Amy celebrates ""the roles"" of women even as she redefines them, telling us: ""I put on my... (more)

Armor and Flesh

by Mendi Lewis Obadike

Armor and Flesh is Mendi Lewis Obadike's first book. This book was awarded the 2004 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award. It is published by Lotus Press. The cover image for the book was painted by Iona Rozeal Brown.

case sensitive (New Series #14) (New Series)

case sensitive (New Series #14) (New Series)

by Kate Greenstreet

Greenstreet's narrative experiment conjures a character whose mentors, dreams, and reading habits (a biography of Marie Curie, a mystery novel on tape, the letters of Lorine Niedecker) help us know her. In _case sensitive_ she merges these with an introspective and intimate lyric voice to create poems of great originality and haunting language.

Genii over Salzburg (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

Genii over Salzburg (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))

by Carl R. Martin

In this, his second collection of poetry, Carl R. Martin seeks out essences of things, of thoughts, of broad sweeps of culture and language. In a work which resists classification, Martin's use of the permutations and gradations of meaning, the nuance created in artistic space by the tension inherent in the relation of thought and image, defies literal interpretation. His words mimic his technique,... (more)

The She Said Dialogues: Flesh MemoryAkilah Oliver

The She Said Dialogues: Flesh Memory

by Akilah Oliver

"From multiple and shifting subject positions, Akilah Oliver surveys the complex terrain of identity and sexuality with a concise intellectually engaged poetic language. As her sacred duty, she bares the naked truth of the double-edged poet's word. This bolder sister outsider brings the sound of her distinct dream to the fanfare for the next millennium" -- Harryette Mullen

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: avant-garde

by Steven Hall

by Amiri Baraka, Imamu Amiri Baraka

by Harryette Romell Mullen

by Toni Cade Bambara

by Gertrude Stein

by Matthew Gale

by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

by Tao Lin

by LeRoi Jones

by Claudia Rankine

by Erica Hunt

by Brenda Hillman

by Brenda Hillman

by Jay Wright

by Amy King

by Amy King

by Mendi Lewis Obadike

by Kate Greenstreet

by Carl R. Martin

by Akilah Oliver