Celebrate National Poetry Month April is National Poetry Month, a celebration created by the American Academy of Poets. Inspire yourself to read and write more poetry with one of these books of verse!

	A Yes-Or-No Answer: Poems by Shore, Jane Format:  Hardcover (Cloth) Price:  $22.00 Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), 2008 Inventory Status: Usually Ships in 1-5 days In her acclaimed collections Happy Family and Music Minus One, Jane Shore traced her life from childhood to coming of age to parenthood. Now, in A Yes-or-No Answer, Shore etches the persistence of the past in a life that has moved into a mature new phase as a member of the baby boom generation. Recalling her Jewish childhood in New Jersey, living in the apartment above the family's clothing store, Shore lovingly imagines her parents, now gone, reunited with relatives over a Scrabble board in the afterlife. The poet's teenage daughter sorts through the "vintage" clothes of her mother's own hippie days. Cherished items left behind -- an address book, a piano, an easy chair, a favorite doll -- continue to haunt the living. The poems in A Yes-or-No Answer dignify memory through precise detail, with a voice that will resonate for a generation at a crossroads.
	Strong Is Your Hold [With CD] by Kinnell, Galway Format:  Trade Paperback Price:  $14.95 Published: Mariner Books, 2008 Inventory Status: Usually Ships in 1-5 days   See all editions of this title. Here in paperback for the first time is the celebrated eleventh book of poems by Galway Kinnell. The book's title derives from Walt Whitman's "Last Invocation": "Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, / Strong is your hold O love." In this striking collection, Kinnell gives us poems of intermingling with the natural world, love poems and evocations of sexuality, poems about his father, his children, poet friends, poet heroes, and mythic figures. Included also is "When the Towers Fell," his stunning requiem for those who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. The collection also affords the singular experience of hearing the poet read his own work, with an extraordinary audio recording included on CD.
	Mites to Mastodons: A Book of Animal Poems by Kumin, Maxine, Rosenberg, Liz, Zagarenski, Pamela Format:  Hardcover (Cloth) Price:  $16.00 Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), 2006 Inventory Status: Usually Ships in 1-5 days From as little as the snail to as big as the giraffe, from the thundering mastodon of long ago to the ordinary backyard squirrel of today, the animals in this book inspire our imagination. Here is a fascinating cornucopia that exudes a whimsical affection and respect for the creatures with whom we share our kingdom.
	How to Read a Poem by Eagleton, Terry Format:  Trade Paperback Price:  $21.95 Published: Blackwell Publishers, 2006 Inventory Status: Usually Ships in 1-5 days   See all editions of this title. Lucid, entertaining and full of insight, "How To Read A Poem" is designed to banish the intimidation that too often attends the subject of poetry, and in doing so to bring it into the personal possession of the students and the general reader. Offers a detailed examination of poetic form and its relation to content. Takes a wide range of poems from the Renaissance to the present day and submits them to brilliantly illuminating closes analysis. Discusses the work of major poets, including John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Keats, Christina Rossetti, Emily Dickinson, W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, W.H.Auden, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, and many more. Includes a helpful glossary of poetic terms.