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A house on a leaf is a precarious and fanciful construction, yet it gracefully covers the leaves of Richard Chess's third book of poetry, Third Temple. Painted by Edita Pollaková, a child caught in the dislocation and catastrophe of the Holocaust, this watercolor preserves an audacious, innocent vision of structure and renewal against all odds. It is just such structure and renewal that Chess's poems seek as they sing, shout, whisper, accuse, tease, twist, and mourn. Animal sacrifice and blood libel, the Zohar and Solomon ibn Gabirol and Tevye set them going. Languages, too, for some of the poems include Hebrew as they sing of the scattering of kingdoms, the dispelling of names, and the "aleph bet" of being. No ordinary temple, this book. Let it challenge and delight you with language lessons that won't leave.

H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is almost as famous for his letters as for his supernatural fiction. Of the estimated one hundred thousand letters that he wrote, one hundred and fifty-nine of them collected for the first time in this volume were written to Robert H. Barlow (1918-1951) . . . . Barlow was only a teenager, living with his family in DeLand, Florida, when the famous writer began corresponding with him. He was enthusiastic for all things related to weird fiction, the pulp magazines and the people who wrote for them, and the emerging community of active fans. Like other fans of the period, Barlow published a fanzine, wrote stories and poems, and even tried his hand at printing. The equally precocious Lovecraft encouraged all of these endeavors. The reader will find references to familiar names like Weird Tales, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Harry Houdini. Lovecraft's letters to Barlow record much about that vanished time and prove to be among the liveliest of all his published correspondence . . . . While the letters in this volume touch mainly on literary matters, they also record Lovecraft's love of Florida. He visited the state several times twice as Barlow's guest and was enthralled by the vistas of live oaks and Spanish moss. He occasionally felt homesick for Florida when he was at home in Rhode Island, and he never yearned more to be in the Sunshine State than during cold New England winters. There was no doubt where he wished to be when he addressed a letter to Barlow, during the depths of one winter, as "O Floridian More Fortunate than you can Realise". . . . In addition to letters, the reader will find an insightful introduction by the editors providing details and anecdotes about the friendship between Lovecraft and Barlow. The book is further enriched by Barlow's poignant memoir of Lovecraft in Florida, a glossary of notable people mentioned in the letters, autobiographical pieces by Barlow, and an invaluable index.

A black hole is a region of space-time exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing-not even particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light-can escape from inside it. In Black Hole Factory, poet Eric Smith writes his way into and out of such holes with a commitment to the history and craftsmanship of the well-shaped poem. He compresses experience, intellect, and feeling within concentrated stanzas of compelling density, but his use of tradition, rhyme, and meter also become sources of surprise and innovation in his hands. The book has poems that communicate impressive control, intellect, and wit-poems that cultivate ironic self-awareness and detachment on the part of both poet and reader. And then there are breakthrough moments giving up both irony and control in which poet and reader experience a kind of gravitational collapse powerful enough to deform and reshape space-time. In the end, he has shaped a profound and accomplished manuscript of deep personal engagement graced by moving, open flights of lyricism.

In Love Nailed to the Doorpost, Richard Chess offers poems and lyrical prose inspired and informed equally by the pleasures and pressures of everyday life and by sacred and secular texts ranging from Torah to Basho to Robert Creeley. This new work transports us from the biblical past to the present, from creation stories to stories of brotherly struggle to meditations on married and family love. Love--that's the the thing, whether spontaneously arising or commanded, as it is, the commandment to love inscribed on parchment, rolled up and tucked into a small case, a mezuzah, and nailed to the doorpost of the house. You shall love: the challenges of fulfilling that commandment, and the joy and transformation one experiences when on does: that's what Chess's powerful new work explores.

These poems search for compatibility between contemporary consciousness and a rich, ancient liturgical tradition. Specifically, they explore the deep feelings of joy and regret, shame and hope associated with the Days of Awe, the Jewish High Holidays, beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and concluding with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Tekiah refers to the sound of the shofar, the ceremonial ram's horn that is blown to commemorate the beginning of creation. The sound also recalls the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, the destruction of the Temple, and the binding of Isaac, and anticipates as well the reunification of the Jews of the Diaspora. Finally, and perhaps most important, it serves as an entreaty to the Jewish people to perform teshuvah, to return to God.