Poetry

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller What Kind of Woman returns with a collection of erasure poems created from notes she received from followers, supporters and detractors--an artform that reclaims the vitriol from online trolls and inspires readers to transform what is ugly or painful in their own lives into something beautiful.

"I'm sure you could benefit from jumping on a treadmill"

"Women WANT a male leader . . . It's honest to god the basic human playbook"

These are some of the thousands of messages that Kate Baer has received online. Like countless other writers--particularly women--with profiles on the internet, as Kate's online presence grew, so did the darker messages crowding her inbox. These missives from strangers have ranged from "advice" and opinions to outright harassment.

At first, these messages resulted in an immediate delete and block. Until, on a whim, Kate decided to transform the cruelty into art, using it to create fresh and intriguing poems. These pieces, along with ones made from notes of gratitude and love, as well as from the words of public figures, have become some of her most beloved work.

I Hope This Finds You Well is drawn from those works: a book of poetry birthed in the darkness of the internet that offers light and hope. By cleverly building on the harsh negativity and hate women often receive--and combining it with heartwarming messages of support, gratitude, and connection, Kate Baer offers us a lesson in empowerment, showing how we too can turn bitterness into beauty.

A darkly humorous new collection of poems by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Wideawake Field and Amity and Prosperity

In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary -- widely used in schools around the world -- was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these "lost words" included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions -- the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual -- became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world.

Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a "spell book" that will conjure back twenty of these lost words, and the beings they name, from acorn to wren. By the magic of word and paint, they sought to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike, and to celebrate the wonder and importance of everyday nature. The Lost Words is that book -- a work that has already cast its extraordinary spell on hundreds of thousands of people and begun a grass-roots movement to re-wild childhood across Britain, Europe, and North America.

A Mind of Winter collects thirty-two of the most moving poems on the experience of winter. Illustrated throughout with elegant period woodcuts by Thomas Nason, the poems range from the great classics-James Russell Lowell's The First Snow Fall and John Greenleaf Whittier's Snow-Bound-to the more contemporary, free form, and diverse-Rafael Campo's Begging for Change in Winter and Gertrude Schnackenberg's The Paperweight.

While all the poets focus on the experience of winter as their theme, each provides us with an illuminating glimpse of winter's subtle forms. Marge Piercy is grateful on New Year's Day for all she has been given; Mary Oliver observes the cruel Darwinian reality of nature; Peter Davison muses on the irony of a snowless New England; and Robert Frost is surprised by joy while out for a walk on a winter's day. Each reminds us, in the words of Wallace Stevens, that one must have a mind of winter/to regard the frost and the boughs/of the pine-trees crusted with snow . . .

Contributors include: Rosanna Warren, Emily Dickinson, Richard Wilbur, Angelina Weld Grimké, Amy Lowell, Charles Simic, Peter Davison, Mary Oliver, Sylvia Plath, Marge Piercy, James Merrill, and Maxine Kumin.