Poetry to Make You Smile (Portable Poetry) - Tapa dura

Life is often too much of a serious business - that's why it's important that we find relief in humor and laughter that - literally - takes us out of ourselves. So, when you need to "lighten up," open the pages of this engaging, mood-enhancing collection of 100 poems chosen to make you smile. You'll find poems that amuse you, tease you, tickle your fancy, make you giggle, guffaw, and laugh out loud. And they all invite you to look at the world in a new way - so you can see the funny side, and get a different perspective from non-stop solemnity. Try it for yourself: find a quiet spot, turn the pages of this beautiful book, and let the bewitching power of poetry raise your spirits. These poems make you feel happy again through sheer alchemy. They have been chosen from the abundant resources of American and international writing. Favorite poets of the past such as Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Wallace Stevens stand alongside the newer voices of e.e. cummings, Robert Bly, Louise Gluck, W.S. Merwin, Pablo Neruda, Galway Kinnell, Jane Kenyon, Dorianne Laux, Robert Hass, James Wright, and others.

The introduction to this anthology was written by poet Jane O Wayne, whose book, A Strange Heart (Helicon Nine Editions, 1996), was selected by James Tate for the 1995 Marianne Moore Poetry Prize, and received the 1996 Society of Midland Authors Poetry Award. Her first book Looking Both Ways (University of Missouri Press, 1985) received the Devins Award for Poetry. Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as: Poetry, Iowa Review, The American Scholar, The Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Northwest, The Wisconsin Review, and anthologies such as: Music, Pictures, and Stories (Holt Rinehart Winston), Heart to Heart: Poems Inspired by 20th Century Art (Abrams), and The Invisible Ladder (Henry Holt). She has also taught Creative Writing at Webster University and Washington University in St. Louis.