In A Memory of the Future, critically acclaimed poet Elizabeth Spires reflects on selfhood and the search for a core identity. Inspired by the tradition of poetic interest in Zen, Spires explores the noisy space of the mind, interrogating the necessary divide between the social persona that navigates the world and the artist's secret self. With vivid, careful attention to the minute details of everyday moments, A Memory of the Future observes, questions and meditates on the ordinary, attempting to make sense of the boundaries of existence. As the poems move from Zen reflections outward into the identifiable worlds of Manhattan, Maine and Maryland's Eastern shore, houses, both real and imagined, become metaphorical extensions of the self and psyche. These poems ask the unanswerable questions that become more pressing in the second half of life. How are we changed by the passage of time? How does memory define and shape us? As Spires reminds us, any memory of the future will become, paradoxically, a memory of the past and of forgetting.

"Spinning, I can't stop spinning, so stay a minute, and I, Arachne, will spin a story for you . . ."
In this singular collection, the heroes and heroines of fifteen Greek and Roman tales give their own dramatic accounts of events. From the magnificent spinner Arachne, who learns that a mortal should never challenge a god, to the god Pan, who prefers Earth to Mount Olympus, to the beautiful, self-indulgent Pandora and the gold-stricken Midas--the reader becomes a confidant to the tellers of these sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, always engaging tales of wonder, woe, romantic love, and jealousy. Mordicai Gerstein's energetic, whimsical illustrations combine with Elizabeth Spires's playful renditions for a totally fresh take on familiar and not-so-familiar myths.

In A Memory of the Future, critically acclaimed poet Elizabeth Spires reflects on selfhood and the search for a core identity. Inspired by the tradition of poetic interest in Zen, Spires explores the noisy space of the mind, interrogating the necessary divide between the social persona that navigates the world and the artist's secret self. With vivid, careful attention to the minute details of everyday moments, A Memory of the Future observes, questions, and meditates on the ordinary, attempting to make sense of the boundaries of existence. As the poems move from Zen reflections outward into the identifiable worlds of Manhattan, Maine, and Maryland's Eastern shore, houses, both real and imagined, become metaphorical extensions of the self and psyche. These poems ask the unanswerable questions that become more pressing in the second half of life. How are we changed by the passage of time? How does memory define and shape us? As Spires reminds us, any memory of the future will become, paradoxically, a memory of the past, and of forgetting.

A mouse's-eye-view of Emily Dickinson
When a mouse named Emmaline takes up residence behind the wainscoting of Emily Dickinson's bedroom, she wonders what it is that keeps Emily scribbling at her writing table throughout the day and into the night. Emmaline sneaks a look, and finds that it's poetry! Inspired, Emmaline writes her own first poem and secretly deposits it on Emily's desk. Emily answers with another poem, and a lively exchange begins. In this charming and fanciful introduction to Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Spires demonstrates the power of poetry to express our deepest feelings, while Claire A. Nivola's delicate pencil drawings capture the intricacies of life in Emily's world. Included are eight of Dickinson's most loved poems, with seven corresponding poems by Emmaline that are sure to bring out the poet in any child.

In Elizabeth Spires's sixth collection of poetry, the pilgrim soul, in its various guises, meditates on its own slow becoming, finding humble companions in creatures as unlikely as a lowly snail, a prehistoric coelacanth, or a tiny Japanese netsuke of a badger disguised as a monk. For Spires, life is both a pilgrimage and a deepening birth, death, and transformation all part of a seamless continuum. Possessed of a calm, crystalline sense of eternity, her poems invite fellow travelers to sit for a little while and be cleansed of the dust of existence."

Opening with a powerful sequence of poems about her mother's death, Elizabeth Spires writes about the life-and-death matters of midlife: the separation of parent from child, the loss of family and friends, the evolving nature of our closest friendships. These poems find hope in the seasonal and spiritual moment when "the green blade rises."

Winner of a 1996 Whiting Award. In her fourth collection of poems Elizabeth Spires addresses the elemental subjects of life and of literature: birth, death, creation, and intimations of immortality. The first section focuses on the experiences of conception, pregnancy, and childbirth from the points of view of both mother and child. The second section offers a reversal and reply in which the poems move out into a divided and divisive world. These poems are distinguished by an immaculate lyricism, a pristine sense for the natural world and the rhythms of language.

Josephine Jacobsen, born in 1908, had her first poem published when she was just ten years old. Though Jacobsen has been writing and publishing for almost eighty years, she remained outside the literary world until she was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1971. She has since been honored numerous times, receiving such prestigious awards as the annual Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
"The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criticism and Occasional Prose" joins recent collections of Jacobsen's poetry and short stories, bringing together for the first time the highlights of this distinguished poet's long and varied career as a literary critic, lecturer, and reviewer. Of special interest are two lectures delivered at the Library of Congress while she was Consultant in Poetry there, and a rich assortment of never before collected op-ed and travel pieces from the "Baltimore Sun," The volume also includes critical pieces on Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, Robert Lowell, A.R. Ammons, Samuel Beckett, and J.D. Salinger; an unpublished lecture, "The Admiring Bog," on the perils of poetic celebrity; and an extended interview with John Wheatcroft. The book is edited and introduced by the poet Elizabeth Spires, and concludes with three recent, uncollected poems of Jacobsen's.
Josephine Jacobsen is author of "In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems" ( 1995), a nominee for the National Book Award, and "What Goes Without Saying Collected Short Stories" (1996.) She continues to live and write in Baltimore. Elizabeth Spires is a writer-in-residence, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland, and the author of four collections of poetry.

In Elizabeth Spires's sixth collection of poetry, the pilgrim soul, in its various guises, meditates on its own slow becoming, finding humble companions in creatures as unlikely as a lowly snail, a prehistoric coelacanth, or a tiny Japanese netsuke of a badger disguised as a monk. For Spires, life is both a pilgrimage and a deepening birth, death, and transformation all part of a seamless continuum. Possessed of a calm, crystalline sense of eternity, her poems invite fellow travelers to sit for a little while and be cleansed of the dust of existence."