In this, his ninth book of poetry, lyric master X. J. Kennedy regales his readers with engaging rhythm fittingly signaled by the book's title, which echoes Duke Ellington's jazz classic "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)." Kennedy's poems, infused with verve and surprise, are by turns irresistibly funny and sharply insightful about life in America. Some poems are personal recollections of childhood and growing up, as in "My Mother Consigns to the Flames My Trove of Comic Books." "Thomas Hardy's Obsequies" tells the bizarre true account of the literary giant's burial. Other poems portray memorable characters, from Jane Austen ("Jane Austen Drives to Alton in Her Donkey Trap") to a giant land tortoise ("Lonesome George") to a slow-witted man hired to cook for a nudist colony ("Pudge Wescott"). Kennedy is a storyteller of the first order, relating tales of travel to far-reaching places, from the Galapagos Islands and Tiananmen Square to the hectic back streets of Bamako, Mali. This wise and clever book is rounded out with adept translations of work by Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, and others.

"X. J. Kennedy's well-known travels between the realms of the comic and the serious qualify him for dual citizenship in the world of poetry. Here, the playful is on full display in verse not just 'light' but bright and delightful."-Billy Collins Peeping Tom's Cabin is the first full-length collection of light verse for adults composed by one of America's most celebrated poets. An uncompromising formalist, Kennedy uses a broad range of longstanding poetic forms, including limerick, nursery rhyme, ballad, rhymed epitaph, and clerihew. This collection includes many poems previously published in poetry and popular journals, including The Sewanee Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and Poetry. These poems honor and skewer all classes of citizen, regardless of their revered place in society. Parents, lovers, poetry critics, students, and especially notable literary figures receive Kennedy's astute comic attention. "To Someone Who Insisted I Look Up Someone" I rang them up while touring Timbuktu, Those bosom chums to whom you're known as "Who?" X. J. Kennedy has published six collections of verse, including Nude Descending a Staircase, which received the Lamont Award from the Academy of American Poets. His newest collection, The Lords of Misrule, received the 2004 Poets' Prize. Kennedy has also authored eighteen children's books and several textbooks on fiction and poetry. Other recognitions include the Los Angeles Book Award for Poetry, the Aiken-Taylor Award, and Guggenheim and National Arts Council fellowships. Kennedy was also given the first Michael Braude Award for light verse by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

The Penn Greek Drama Series presents original literary translations of the entire corpus of classical Greek drama: tragedies, comedies, and satyr plays. It is the only contemporary series of all the surviving work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Menander.

From street hockey to baguette duels, award-winning poet X.J. Kennedy captures what it means to be a kid in a city full of zany characters and urban adventures waiting to happen. Philippe Beha's whimsical illustrations add delight to these lighthearted rhymes. These poems are set in cities around the world from London to Toronto to New York. Funny and poignant, these stories should amuse and delight children and teachers alike.

Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Art. The ABLE MUSE ANTHOLOGY celebrates Able Muse's journey through its first decade and beyond by showcasing the best of the published poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, book reviews, art and photography, including a foreword by Timothy Steele. This anthology has received high praise and acclaim from Dana Gioia, David Mason, Charles Martin, Catharine Savage-Brosman, X. J. Kennedy, Catharine Savage Brosman and others.

Philip Appleman-award-winning poet, novelist, scholar, editor, social critic, and Darwin expert-turns his hand to humorous and sometimes irreverent verse in this, his eighth book of poetry. Appleman's poetry, exquisitely formed, is a delightful and accomplished romp through such lofty themes as sex, religion, and aging that gleefully skewers established thinking. X. J. Kennedy writes in the foreword: "Appleman is a master of the sonnet, the terse rhymed epigram, and even that fiendishly ingenious form, the double dactyl. To watch him sling words is to be richly regaled." from A Simple Explanation for Everything When Puritans filled all New England with dread, Hunting down women whose thoughts they abhorred, They strung up the witches until they were dead. Why did they kill? They killed for the Lord.

For more than half a century, readers and listeners have taken special pleasure in the poetry of X. J. Kennedy. "In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus" is an ample gathering of his best work: memorable songs, startling lyrics, poems that tell poignant stories, character studies that vie with those of Edwin Arlington Robinson. A master of verbal music, Kennedy has long been praised for his wit and humor; as this collection reveals, many of his poems also reach surprising depths and heights. Donald Hall comments, "many of Kennedy's poems are wit itself. His wit is his way of understanding. No one else writing is capable of the effects in which Kennedy specializes." This book skims the cream from several slim volumes and six past collections including the prize-winning "Nude Descending a Staircase", "Cross Ties", and "The Lords of Misrule". It restores to print over fifty poems unavailable for decades and adds more than two dozen new poems collected for the first time. Kennedy has long occupied a unique place in American poetry; "In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus" now offers the first comprehensive collection to span his entire career.