W W Norton Company: 2441 books

“Ai is a truthteller picking her way through the burning rocks of racial and sexual lies.”—Joy Harjo Before her untimely death in 2010, Ai, known for her searing dramatic monologues, was hailed as “one of the most singular voices of her generation” (New York Times Book Review). Now...

"Palma's wonderfully readable translation comes close to perfection. I'm tempted to call it a miracle."—X. J. Kennedy Unlike every known translator before him, Michael Palma re-creates Dante's masterpiece in all its dimensions, without emphasizing some aspects over others, rendering...

"A faithful rendering that is simultaneously an original and gripping poem in its own right." —New York Times Book Review The national bestseller and winner of the Whitbread Award. Composed toward the end of the first millennium, Beowulf is the classic Northern epic of a hero’s...

From the nuts and bolts of craft to the sources of inspiration, this book is for anyone who wants to write poetry-and do it well. In this fortuitous collaboration, two spirited poets, themselves teachers of poetry, offer guidance to aspiring beginners and those who have already published. Brief...

"A version that has been long awaited, and likely to become the new standard."—Washington Post Ovid's epic poem—whose theme of change has resonated throughout the ages—is one of the most important texts of Western imagination, an inspiration from Dante's times to the present...

“Magnificent . . . poems to inspire [with] brief and brilliant, offhand notes about how to read them.”—Alan Cheuse, NPR Quick, joyful, and playfully astringent, with surprising comparisons and examples, this collection takes an unconventional approach to the art of poetry. Instead of...

The first anthology to map the full range of haiku in the English tradition. Haiku in English is an anthology of more than 800 brilliantly chosen poems that were originally written in English by over 200 poets from around the world. Although haiku originated as a Japanese art form, it has found...

This critically acclaimed sonnet sequence is the passionately intense story of a love affair between two women, from the electricity of their first acquaintance to the experience of their parting.

“Beasley uses humor and surprise like a scythe, cutting to the root of a matter.”—Washington Post In Count the Waves, Sandra Beasley turns her eclectic imagination to the heart's pursuits. A man and a woman sit at the same dinner table, an ocean of worry separating them. An iceberg sets...

A complete collection—over 300 poems—from one of this country's most influential poets. "These are poems which blaze and pulse on the page."—Adrienne Rich "The first declaration of a black, lesbian feminist identity took place in these poems, and set the terms—beautifully,...

“The most remarkable and affecting book of poetry I encountered this year.”—James Wood, The New Yorker In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad—the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen—in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended...

A musical, magical, resilient volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States. In these poems, the joys and struggles of the everyday are played against the grinding politics of being human. Beginning in a hotel room in the dark of a distant city, we travel through...

"A truly remarkable achievement." —Barry Unsworth In the tradition of Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf and Marie Borroff’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sheila Fisher’s The Selected Canterbury Tales is a vivid, lively, and readable translation of the most famous work of England’s...

“A bred-in-the-bones storyteller.”—Geraldine Brooks Canaan fills a vast canvas. Its points of reference are Richmond in the throes of Reconstruction; the trading floors of Wall Street, where men makes fortunes speculating on the war’s consequences; a Virginia plantation, where the ruin...