Memoir Poetry

Sometimes the best way to understand what’s deep inside requires looking outward. Sometimes the best way to understand the world outside requires a deep dive within. And sometimes, those two things are so intertwined it’s difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends. The Forest of My Youth is a collection of poems and perspectives that probe some of the deepest, most profound and sometimes achingly painful thoughts and questions I’ve had since my spinal cord injury in 1993.

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion. In hypnotic prose that pulses with life and longing, The Uptown Local explores the fault lines of class, family, loss, and creativity.

A runaway waitress leaves her lover, grabs her dog, and hits the highway. Ali Liebegott maps her travels in a series of hilarious and heartbreaking letters to the girl she left behind, and some of the most exquisite poetry written about love, heartache, and madness.

The Weight of Whiteness is a memoir in poetry form of the author's awareness of her whiteness during the integration of Boston's public schools in the 1950s and during visits with her family in the segregated South. Deeply personal, the poems examine the author's thoughts and feelings as family and others react to her interracial marriage in 1966, the year before the US Supreme Court overturned as unconstitutional 16 states' laws prohibiting miscegenation.

Poetic Madman showcases and celebrates the creativity and the ability to express my innermost thoughts, ideas, emotions, philosophies, and raw experiences that come with having paranoid schizophrenic disorder. Poetic Madman is sure to open the minds of those who don't understand mental illness and hopefully help to dispel some of the stigmas. The purpose is to give the listener a different take on what they understand to be true about the illness. You may even identify with some of the experiences expressed throughout this work of art.

Looking Through You: Northern Chronicles, the sequel to renowned Belfast poet and author Gerald Dawe’s critically acclaimed In Another World: Van Morrison and Belfast, is the evocative record of the musical, literary and artistic influences that inspired and forged Dawe’s awakening as a poet, and his career in Irish literature. Taking its bearings from Belfast in the 1960s, The Beatles’ Rubber Soul album and the energising shock of reading the great American poets Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, Dawe’s engagingly lyrical style has produced an evocative and memorable record of the ...

A collection of short stories and poems, Such Pretty Pain is a beautiful invitation into the depths of our shared human experience. Drawing from real life moments that have caused the author much grief, the listener is asked to consider how they may carry their own invisible burdens and regrets. Reflections on violence, racism, trauma, and passed down pain are explored in a unique way. The transformation of harmful stigmas to liberating self expression is possible, and shared in this memoir.

Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman: The Lives and Careers of 19th Century America’s Most Famous Poets looks at the remarkable lives of the two, and the impact their famous works have had.

Will Massey let fate guide him in his life's journey, had misfortune change his charted course, and took opportunities as they presented themselves, all the while upholding the morals and values he learned as a child. Inspired by a sense of adventure, he recorded many of his life's experiences in prose and poetry with humour and a respect for others. When Bill Massey was old enough, he began a remarkable journey with his grandfather.

Genius or Lunatic goes deeper into the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic. There is so much confusion in there. So much contradiction. So much religiosity. And there is much desire to know, understand, and find the truth. Along the ride you will find yourself saying, "But in this poem didn't he just say this"? It will bring out emotions that you won't expect. This brings you into his pain and lets you experience it firsthand.

These are a collection of new poems and some poems taken from the vault of Timothy Paul Brown. As usual they express the trials and tribulations, the glory and the pain, the grandiosity and obsession, the paranoid deluded thinking that come with having a paranoid schizophrenic disability. There is so much intensity and passion exhibited in this work of art. The author will take you to places you have never been in mind and spirit. You will feel empathy and compassion probably some sympathy. But these poems are not meant to make its listeners feel sorry for the author.

An "unleashed love song" to her late grandmother, Nickole Brown's collection brings her brassy, bawdy, tough-as-new-rope grandmother to life. With hair teased to Jesus, mile-long false eyelashes, and a white Cadillac Eldorado with atomic-red leather seats, Fanny is not your typical granny rocking in a chair. Instead, think of a character that looks a lot like Eva Gabor in Green Acres, but darkened with a shadow of Flannery O'Connor.

An intimate portrait of Stephen Spender's extraordinary life written by Matthew Spender, shifting between memoir and biography, with new insights drawn from personal recollections and his father's copious unpublished archives. Stephen Spender's life was a vivid prism on the 20th century. Having met Auden and Isherwood at Oxford, he joined the early vocal critics of Hitler and participated in the Spanish Civil War.

Life is linear, memories aren’t. Cinder Block Houses is a collection of five short stories of growing up among the manzanita, pine, trailer parks and cinder block houses of Tuolumne County. Contains the stories: Beyond the Sky, Cat Box, Zodiac Sign: Ford Taurus, Baby Jesus Eyes and Uncle Jimmy’s Shotgun

An unbearable loss followed by a devastating divorce. The path to recovery starts here. The suicide of a child is the most terrible thing that can happen to parents. Many parental relationships fall apart due to the crushing weight of such a trauma. In her poignant poetic memoir, Devi Nina Bingham shares her journey following the loss of her daughter. Through Survivor Times Two: A Poetic Memoir of Suicide and Divorce, Bingham offers a candid and soul-cleansing reflection on the post-modern experience of grief. The book reminds the reader that they are carrying a tremendous load—or, in the...

From life in a suburban Western Pennsylvania steel town in the middle of the post-World War II baby boom, to contemplation in retirement, Though Oftentimes Better than Master of One is a collection of brief memoirs, recollections, and prose that is meant to be listened to in small portions, much like slowly sipping a cup of warm tea during a cold winter’s evening while relaxing in a reclining chair. These brief narratives describe events from the author’s youth, college years, career, and current day life in retirement.

Short stories about life’s humorous, happy, and dark moments. Some of the stories from my years in nursing, Steve's clumsiness, and my cooking disasters might make you spit out your coffee laughing. The stories of my pets will put a warm smile on your face, and the stories about life's darker moments might make you wipe a tear or two.

No Apologies is the inappropriate joke at dinner, the drunk uncle in the room shouting obscenities, and the ugly truth no one talks about in polite company. Part poetry, part fiction, part memoir, and all honesty, No Apologies is a compelling slice of human experience in all of its crass, hopeful, sincere, and tender glory. And it says it...with no apologies.

I am a proud father and a family man. A Scotsman. A Londoner. A countryside-townie. A patriot. A rebel and a gentleman. A child of the seventies. A graduate from the school of hard knocks. A cat and dog lover. An aficionado of music and books. I am an outsider. I am a maverick, often outspoken and sometimes controversial. I am a warrior and worrier. An overthinker. I am both a success and a failure. I am intensely prolific.

Pretending to Be Me is an intimate, acerbic, and occasionally scurrilous show about the poet, jazz aficionado, and Hull University librarian Philip Larkin. Larkin has moved home: surrounded by packing cases, playing selections from his favourite jazz LPs, and making himself cups of tea, and later whiskies, he reflects wryly on writing and life.