The year 2011 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of New Directions, and what better way to celebrate than to dive into the diversity of its poets reveling in the wonders and joys of nature. Arranged chronologically by each poet s birth, Birds, Beasts, and Seas showcases the work of over one hundred and twenty poets from the U.S. and abroad, culled from the New Directions library. Beginning with ancient Chinese, Greek, Roman, Inuit, Japanese, Indian, and Persian poets, then dipping into the Troubadours and the Renaissance, the collection gradually blossoms into a constellation of poets from...

In this lyrical autobiography of growing up from the birth of the People s Republic, through the chaotic years of the Great Leap Forward, and on into the Cultural Revolution Bei Dao uses his extraordinary gifts as a poet and storyteller to create another Beijing, a beautiful memory palace of endless alleyways and corridors, where personal narrative mixes with the momentous history he lived through. At the center of the book are his parents and siblings, and their everyday life together through famine and festival.Open Up, City Gate is told in an episodic, fluid style that moves back and forth...