Poetry doesn't matter to most people, observes Jay Parini at the opening of this book. Undeterred, he commences a deeply felt meditation on poetry, its language and meaning, and its power to open minds and transform lives. By the end of the book, Par...

Each poem in Catalan writer Ernest Farres's "Edward Hopper" is based on a painting by the American artist. Creating a narrative that follows a subject from small-town origins to big-city life, from youth to age, the story is Hopper's, yet it also bel...