In his second collection of poems, Stephen Cushman explores, appraises, and celebrates many different forms of connections -- domestic, social, historical, and religious. With an easygoing voice, an engaging humor, and a sure understanding of his craft, he addresses subjects from marriage and travel to urbanism and the Civil War, illustrating the rewards of a sensitive regard for the junctions in everyday life and language.

Invoking "all the lessons they ever taught me / about ordination in the ordinary, " he reflects on members of his family, affirming attachments of marriage and blood....

Nation of Letters evokes the wisdom and artistic literary expression inherent in the American experience at its best. The editors have produced an anthology of manageable size and affordable length, one that can comfortably be carried to the classroom.

Beginning with Twain and Howells, the 127 selections include poetry, fiction, and essays, and span the decades through the poems of Ginsburg and Plath.

War destroys, but it also inspires, stimulates, and creates. It is, in this way, a muse, and a powerful one at that. The American Civil War was a particularly prolific muse--unleashing with its violent realities a torrent of language, from soldiers' intimate letters and diaries to everyday newspaper accounts, great speeches, and enduring literary works. In Belligerent Muse, Stephen Cushman considers the Civil War writings of five of the most significant and best known narrators of the conflict: Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, William Tecumseh Sherman, Ambrose Bierce, and Joshua Lawrence...

Hothead by Stephen Cushman is a complicated book-length poem broken by haikus. Cushman's primary subjects are sound, rhythm, words, and language and their place in an increasingly perplexing world. Deeply engaging and carefully crafted, Hothead rewards thoughtful attention.