New Releases by John Tessitore

Stuck in an airport, waiting among strangers, missing connections, nursing a weak drink and a tired mind that has too much time to think...It''s just another a day in Terminal D, a stream-of-consciousness poem about the self persistent, the self unshakable, the paradox of one..."to be particular and also limitless." So here I am again, resident in familiars: departures follow arrivals until we stop for a while, take stock of our gains and losses, and then continue on.

The Dark Ways Mysterious examines the energies-creative, erotic, Promethean-that define what it means to be human, as well as what is dangerous and forbidden. A pastiche of voices and styles spanning the history of art and literature-from Genesis and Sappho to Robert Johnson and Nabokov-it is a poem of pieces that explores "the forbidden creativity/ of the fallen man! the pride/ and science of discovery!" My only plan is to steal the will of the gods for Man, to drink from the secret spring of fire, to build anew our love amidst the violence of a desire we may never express completely, and never possess, though we are bound to try.

On Self-Expression After the Revolution is a collection of poems and photographs set in New York City, among the winners and losers of the American Dream. By turns angry, determined, erotic...it is a humanistic cry, a plea for a new body politics, a song of resistance in the shadows and glare of corporate capitalism. I am aware of the irony, that I enter New York a refugee from my own dream.

Leaving home, getting lost, returning changed. My City of Yesterday reimagines a traditional narrative for modern times...echoes of Odysseus in the American suburbs. Its flawed hero is an ordinary, middle-aged man sinking "in chaos, in failure, in poetry," only to re-surface later, weakened but wiser. I read the signs the way the ancients read the constellations, always leading away from here.

Like all family albums, Sometimes I Still Pray is a collection of memories-stories, pictures, poems-captured for different reasons, in different ways, at different times in the writer''s life and in the lives of his family members...a record stretching across five generations, from immigrant Brooklyn in the early 1900s to suburban New England in the early 2000s. These were my only ties to a time before my memory, to days of tragedy, the origins of my story. All the back pages confirm that I was cursed to bridge the generations. Now I feed their remnants to the fire.

A time after search engines but before social media. After the Cold War but before the Endless War. After Grunge but before whatever happened after Grunge. The final days of the old media and the birth of the new, when "the stolen beat was the new arms race." For a minute there, it seemed like something was happening. A poem about hope and loss at the end of the millennium.

Body Songs is a collection of poems and photographs exploring themes of love, attraction, and erotic fulfillment. It is a celebration of intimacy in word and image-from courtly romance to kink, and everything in between.

Parchment: A Prayer Quartet is a collection of five poems, each a yearning for spiritual renewal in a troubled age. Inspired by (but not beholden to) the outcasts, beats, and mystics of the American past, it is an urgent, lyric and sometimes-ironic plea for better angels. To do this now is insanity, I know, a prayer for a prayer-less century (so far), but is it crazier than relying on the knowledge of history? Is it crazier than denying all progress? It it crazier than preferring the darkness of the past?

All the Lonely American Roads is a poem about starting over. What do we take with us? What is worth saving? What is important to us as people with complicated lives-families, jobs, desires? Which lessons from the past, which stories, which myths? An interrelated series of lyrics, fragments, songs, and dialogues, it is a portrait of a man, and a culture, trying to find a new way forward. I leave to find my love again. I will scatter myself as I go.

We Are Becoming Unbound is a long poem about living in transition...personal, cultural, and spiritual. A carnival of recurring images, literary and pop references, and personal revelations, it is the portrait of a man trying to find meaning in disorder, becoming unbound in order to become something better, freer, and, ultimately, whole. I scribbled my way through dozens of notebooks, for years, before I started to undo real damage, the violence of defining my character. So much easier to spill today and see what happens later.

I Sit At This Desk and Dream is a single poem in several sections. Each "note from a Sunday morning on Instagram" responds to an image on social media (a painting, a photo, an incantation). Individually, the notes are funny, sad, sexy, nostalgic. Together, they create a new self-portrait. I Sit At This Desk and Dream is a poem about seeing your life-past, present, perhaps future-scroll before your eyes.

Profiles over sixty United States authors representing different eras, cultures, and genres who have made their mark in history, including Benjamin Franklin, Emily Dickinson, and W.E.B. DuBois.

Describes the life and character of F. Scott Fitzgerald and how his writings had an impact on the Jazz Age.

Describes the life of author John Steinbeck, who penned "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Red Pony."

A biography of the Ghanaian statesman who was elected Secretary General of the United Nations in 1997.

A comprehensive biography of the only boxer crowned Heavyweight Champion of the World three times.

A biography of the acclaimed American writer whose childhood and adult experiences became common themes in his stories and novels.

Well written, clear explanations. A good overview of complex subjects. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.