From short, acerbic lyrics to hilarious prose poems about nutty German professors and Dracula’s teenage girlfriend, readers laugh out loud at simple turns of phrase before they are jerked sober by startling insights into the way we live—and Koertge knows how we live.

Nothing in American culture is safe from the scythe of his irony—not Joan Crawford, not Superman, nor Frank Sinatra. He lampoons our literary heroes and historical giants with the gentlest touch, and we find ourselves grinning before we realize that Koertge is redefining what we thought we knew. His poems are alternately funny or poignantly sad because they are always true, and that truth lingers long after the reading is over.

In Geography of the Forehead, Ron Koertge offers us nearly sixty poems, each a brilliant testament to the human condition. “Though he has been writing his influential and highly original poems for many years,” Charles Harper Webb declares, “he is still something of a secret: a poet of dazzling wit, and surprising sweetness. With this collection, however, the secret is out.”

In this work of sporting and social history we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon (1870–1908), the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century and details for the first time his Carnival appearance, perhaps the most significant bout involving a Black fighter until Jack Johnson began his reign in 1908. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.

George Dixon reveals the story of a man trapped between the white world he served and the Black world that worshipped him. By ceding control to a manipulative white promoter, Dixon was steered through the white power structure of Gilded Age prizefighting, becoming world famous and one of North America’s richest Black men. Unable to hold on to his wealth, however, and battered by his vices, a depleted Dixon was abandoned by his white supporters just as the rising tide of Jim Crow limited both his prospects and the freedom of Blacks nationwide.

This collection of letters bears witness to the Civil War of the common soldiers and junior officers of the Army of Tennessee. Brothers Alex and Tom Spence described to their family in detail not only the many battles in which they served, but the hardship of campaigning (they marched literally thousands of miles), the pride of serving in battle-proven units, and the pain of losing comrades to bullets and disease. The Spences were a wealthy family who owned land, slaves, and the main hotel in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. With their successful careers and extensive property, they were among Clark County's most prominent families when the shadow of secession fell across Arkansas. Four years later, Arkansas would be ravaged by war, and Tom and Alex Spence would lie in soldiers' graves, far from home. Mark Christ has assembled their powerful letters from a collection in the Old State House Museum, weaving in other letters from their extended family and friends, brief but thorough introductions to each chapter, and evocative photographs. The story moves chronologically from the outset of war to the final letter from Alex's grieving fiancée.

2014 finalist, Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize

From the late 1800s to the early 1950s, painted wall signs were a major mode of advertisement for both national companies and local businesses across America. Many of these artistic messages, now faded, peeling, and partially covered, still peek out from the storefronts, barns, alleyways, warehouses, theaters, and even stagecoach stops they once decorated.

Photographer Jeff Holder and author Cynthia Haas explore this often overlooked art form in Arkansas and show us signs that appear mysteriously in the rain, signs that are curiously painted in remote places, images and words now only half decipherable. From Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, and Grapette Soda to Kis-Me-Gum, Uneeda Biscuit, and Snowdrift Flour, the logos and slogans are at once familiar and enigmatic. Archival photographs reference the time
when these brightly colored messages covered the facades of downtown buildings. Of particular interest in this book are the profiles of three “wall dogs,” or sign painters, who remember the difficulties and joys of their unusual profession.

Ghost Signs of Arkansas ties us to a gentler past, a time when Main Street was the center of a community’s life, before mass media forced grand-scale advertising from brick walls to the television screen. In documenting a fading but valuable traditional art form, this book fills a gap in both the cultural fabric of Arkansas towns and the history of American art.

“The cross-section of poets with varying poetics and styles gathered here is only one of the many admirable achievements of this volume.”
—Claudia Rankine in the New York Times

The Golden Shovel Anthology celebrates the life and work of poet and civil rights icon Gwendolyn Brooks through a dynamic new poetic form, the Golden Shovel, created by National Book Award–winner Terrance Hayes.

An array of writers—including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the National Book Award, as well as a couple of National Poets Laureate—have written poems for this exciting new anthology: Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Danez Smith, Nikki Giovanni, Sharon Olds, Tracy K. Smith, Mark Doty, Sharon Draper, Richard Powers, and Julia Glass are just a few of the contributing poets.

This second edition includes Golden Shovel poems by two winners and six runners-up from an international student poetry competition judged by Nora Brooks Blakely, Gwendolyn Brooks’s daughter. The poems by these eight talented high school students add to Ms. Brooks’s legacy and contribute to the depth and breadth of this anthology.

“Throughout this anthology, more than 60 other well-known Brooks poems can be read the same way, with lines from ‘The Mother’ and ‘The Bean Eaters’ tripping down the right-hand side of the page. The anthology ends with ‘Non-Brooks Golden Shovels’ and ‘Variations and Expansions on the Form.’ The cross-section of poets with varying poetics and styles gathered here is only one of the many admirable achievements of this volume.”
—Claudia Rankine, The New York Times, August 2017

“The editors, including tireless poetry advocate Kahn, of this unique, new addition to the Gwendolyn Brooks legacy put together a richly diverse set of poets working with the most unusual and fertile new poetic form created in recent years. National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes invented the Golden Shovel, which he illuminates in his stirring foreword, writing, “Because where do poems come from if not other poems?” In a Golden Shovel poem, the last words in each line are taken from a Brooks poem. A veritable who’s who of contemporary poets tried their hands at this encoded homage, including Billy Collins, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Joy Harjo, Billy Lombardo, Sharon Olds, Alberto Ríos, Tracy K. Smith, and Timothy Yu. Beautifully introduced by Patricia Smith, this is a beguiling and mind-expanding anthology shaped by formal expertise and deep appreciation for the complexity and resonance of Brooks’ work and profoundly nurturing influence. In all, a substantial and dynamic contribution to American literature.”

—Booklist, May 2017

"Gwendolyn Brooks was the first black writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry back in 1950. A new book honors her work in using a form called the golden shovel, developed by poet Terrance Hayes. In The Golden Shovel Anthology, poets select a line from a poem of Brooks’s and use it as the closing line or lines in a poem of their own. The result is an expansive and extraordinary assemblage edited by poets Peter Kahn, Ravi Shankar, and Patricia Smith.”

—Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe, March 2017

The Golden Shovel Anthology celebrates the life and work of poet and civil rights icon Gwendolyn Brooks through a dynamic new poetic form, the Golden Shovel, created by National Book Award–winner Terrance Hayes.

The last words of each line in a Golden Shovel poem are, in order, words from a line or lines taken from a Brooks poem. The poems are, in a way, secretly encoded to enable both a horizontal reading of the new poem and vertical reading down the right-hand margin of Brooks’s original. An array of writers—including Pulitzer Prize winners, T. S. Eliot Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and National Poet Laureates—have written poems for this exciting new anthology: Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Nikki Giovani, Sharon Olds, Tracy K. Smith, Mark Doty, Sharon Draper, and Julia Glass are just a few of the contributing poets.

The poems found here will inspire a diversity of readers, teachers, and writers of poetry while at the same time providing remarkable access for newcomers, making it ideal for classrooms. The Golden Shovel Anthology will also honor Brooks with publication in 2017, the centenary of her birth.

Updated to include a biography of the three latest governors, one of whom is United States president Bill Clinton, this new edition includes fascinating individual profiles of the state's forty-three consecutive leaders since 1836. From Conway to Tucker, the biographical sketches are filled with valuable personal and political data detailing each governor's origin, family, education, occupation, and accomplishments and failures while in and out of office. By examining the issues confronting Arkansas's governors, the contributors have provided a provocative portrait of the state's political leadership and have explored a whole range of social and economic questions.

Over the years, Thomas Hauser has earned recognition as one of the most respected boxing writers in America and the definitive chronicler of the contemporary boxing scene. The Greatest Sport of All is Hauser’s portrait of 2006, another remarkable year in boxing. The book includes an inside look at great fighters, great fights, and the powers behind the throne. There are revealing portraits of Oscar De La Hoya, Jermain Taylor, Bernard Hopkins, and Don King; a look back at giants like Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali; and more.

On football weekends in the United States, thousands of fans gather in the parking lots outside of stadiums, where they park their trucks, let down the gates, and begin a pregame ritual of drinking and grilling.

Tailgating, which began in the early 1900s as a quaint picnic lunch outside of the stadium, has evolved into a massive public social event with complex menus, extravagant creative fare, and state-of-art grilling equipment. Unlike traditional notions of the home kitchen, the blacktop is a highly masculine culinary environment in which men and the food they cook are often the star attractions.

Gridiron Gourmet examines tailgating as shown in television, film, advertising, and cookbooks, and takes a close look at the experiences of those tailgaters who are as serious about their brisket as they are about cheering on their favorite team, demonstrating how and why the gendered performances on the football field are often matched by the intensity of the masculine displays in front of grills, smokers, and deep fryers.

Until recently, this localized violence was largely ignored, scholars focusing instead on large-scale operations of the war—the decisions and actions of generals and presidents. But as Daniel Sutherland reminds us, the impact of battles and elections cannot be properly understood without an examination of the struggle for survival on the home front, of lives lived in the atmosphere created by war. Sutherland gathers eleven essays by such noted Civil War scholars as Michael Fellman, Donald Frazier, Noel Fisher, and B. F. Cooling, each one exploring the Confederacy's internal war in a different state. All help to broaden our view of the complexity of war and to provide us with a clear picture of war's consequences, its impact on communities, homes, and families. This strong collection of essays delves deeply into what Daniel Sutherland calls "the desperate side of war," enriching our understanding of a turbulent and divisive period in American history.

Donald Harington, best known for his fifteen novels, was also a prolific writer of essays, articles, and book reviews.

The Guestroom Novelist: A Donald Harington Miscellany gathers a career-spanning and eclectic selection of nonfiction by the Arkansawyer novelist Donald Harington that reveals how a life of devastating losses and disappointments inspired what the Boston Globe called the “quirkiest, most original body of work in contemporary US letters.”

This extensive collection of interviews and other works of prose—many of which are previously unpublished—offers glimpses into Harington’s life, loves, and favorite obsessions, replays his minor (and not so minor) dramas with literary critics, and reveals the complicated and sometimes contentious relationship between his work of the writers he most admired. The Guestroom Novelist, which takes its title from an essay that serves as a love letter to his fellow underappreciated writers, paints a rich portrait of the artist as a young, middle-aged, and fiercely funny old man, as well as comic, sentimentalist, philosopher, and critic, paying testimony to the writer’s magnificent ability to transform the seemingly crude stuff of our material existence into enduring art.

Tracing the origins and history of Missouri Confederate units that served during the Civil War is nearly as difficult as comprehending the diverse politics that produced them. Deeply torn by the issues that caused the conflict, some Missourians chose sides enthusiastically, others reluctantly, while a number had to choose out of sheer necessity, for fence straddling held no sway in the state after the fighting began. The several thousand that sided with the Confederacy formed a variety of military organizations, some earning reputations for hard fighting exceeded by few other states, North or South. Unfortunately, the records of Missouri's Confederate units have not been adequately preserved—officially or otherwise—until now. James E. McGhee is a highly respected and widely published authority on the Civil War in Missouri; the scope of this book is startling, the depth of detail gratifying, its reliability undeniable, and the unit narratives highly readable. McGhee presents accounts of the sixty-nine artillery, cavalry, and infantry units in the state, as well as their precedent units and those that failed to complete their organization. Relying heavily on primary sources, such as rosters, official reports, order books, letters, diaries, and memoirs, he weaves diverse materials into concise narratives of each of Missouri's Confederate organizations. He lists the field-grade officers for battalions and regiments, companies and company commanders, and places of origin for each company when known. In addition to listing all the commanding officers in each unit, he includes a bibliography germane to the unit, while a supplemental bibliography provides the other sources used in preparing this unique and comprehensive resource.

Winner, 2022 Miller Williams Poetry Prize

J. Bailey Hutchinson’s Gut is the dazzling debut of a born storyteller. In Hutchinson’s poems, which explore the substance of personal history, family attains the mysterious stature of folklore, while the vast worlds of nature and of the imagination abound with extraordinary creatures that likewise elude full understanding. For the voracious consciousness at work here, inheritance—what it means to be from a particular place and a particular people, no matter how one might strain against that—lies at the very heart of things.

The first of William Gilmore Simms's Border Romance series, this is a vividly accurate and entertaining account of two very different societies in frontier Georgia during the height of the gold-rush era.