Best Selling Books by Robert Bly

The 25th anniversary edition of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, with a new afterword by the author--which offers a new vision of what it is to be a man In this timeless and deeply learned classic, poet and translator Robert Bly offers nothing less than a new vision of what it means to be a man. Bly''s vision is based on his ongoing work with men, as well as on reflections on his own life. He addresses the devastating effects of remote fathers and mourns the disappearance of male initiation rites in our culture. Finding rich meaning in ancient stories and legends, Bly uses the Grimm fairy tale "Iron John"-in which a mentor or "Wild Man" guides a young man through eight stages of male growth-to remind us of ways of knowing long forgotten, images of deep and vigorous masculinity centered in feeling and protective of the young. At once down-to-earth and elevated, combining the grandeur of myth with the practical and often painful lessons of our own histories, Iron John is an astonishing work that will continue to guide and inspire men-and women-for years to come.

Anthology of the poetry of Robert Bly covering the past three decades with accompanying commentary.

The National Book Award–winning poet examines how the enduring narratives of fairy tales capture the essence of human nature. Fairy tales have remarkable power to touch the human spirit—and they are uniquely capable of retaining that power through time and across borders. Celebrated poet and bestselling author Robert Bly has spent decades investigating the origins and meanings of these deceptively simple stories. In More Than True, Bly looks at six tales that have long captivated him, from “The Six Swans” to “The Frog Prince.” Drawing on his own creative vision, and the work of a range of thinkers from Kirkegaard and Yeats to Freud and Jung, Bly brings new meaning and illumination to these timeless tales. Along with illustrations of each story, the book features some of Bly’s unpublished poetry, which peppers his lyric prose and offers a look inside the mind of an American master of letters in the twilight of his singular career.

Striking and moving poems that are rooted deep in the earth

"Morning Poems is a sensational collection — Robert Bly''s best in many years. Inspired by the example of William Stafford, Bly decided to embark on the project of writing a daily poem: Every morning he would stay in bed until he had completed the day''s work. These ''little adventures/In Morning longing,'' as he calls them, address classic poetic subjects (childhood, the seasons, death and heaven) in a way that capitalizes fully on the pun in the book''s title. These are morning poems, full of the delight and mystery of waking in a new day, and they also do their share of mourning, elegizing the deceases and capturing the ''moment of sorror before creation.'' Some of the poems are dialogues where unconventional speakers include mice, maple trees, bundles of grain, the body, the ''oldest mind'' and the soul. A particularly moving sequence involves Bly''s imaginative transactions with a great and unlikely precursor, Wallace Stevens. The whole is a fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating authors." — David Lehman

Readers have found Robert Bly’s ghazals startling and new; they merge wildness with a beautiful formality. The ghazal form is well-known in Islamic culture, but only now finding its way into the literary culture of the West. Each stanza of three lines amounts to a finished poem. “God crouches at night over a single pistachio. / The vastness of the Wind River Range in Wyoming / Has no more grandeur than the waist of a child.” The ghazal’s compacted energy is astounding. In a period when much American poetry is retreating into prosaic recordings of daily events, these poems do the opposite. My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy is Robert Bly’s second book of ghazals. The poems have become more intricate and personal than they were in The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, and the leaps even more bold. This book includes the already famous poem against the Iraq War, “Call and Answer”: “Tell me why it is we don1t lift our voices these days / And cry over what is happening.” The poems are intimate and yet reach out toward the world: the paintings of Robert Motherwell, the intensity of Flamenco singers, the sadness of the gnostics, the delight of high spirits and wit. This book reestablishes Bly''s position as one of the greatest poets of our era. After many years of free verse in American poetry, years which have been very fertile, the inventive ghazal helps the imagination to luxuriate in a form once more. We are seeing a poetry emerge that is recovering many of the great intensities that modern art and poetry has aimed at and achieved in earlier generations.

Acclaimed poet and translator Robert Bly here assembles a unique cross–cultural anthology that illuminates the idea of a larger–than–human consciousness operating in the universe. The book''s 150 poems come from around the world and many eras: from the ecstatic Sufi poet Rumi to contemporary voices like Kenneth Rexroth, Denise Levertov, Charles Simic, and Mary Oliver. Brilliant introductory essays trace our shifting attitudes toward the natural world, from the "old position" of dominating or denigrating nature, to the growing sympathy expressed by the Romantics and American poets like Whitman and Dickinson. Bly''s translations of Neruda, Rilke, and others, along with superb examples of non–Western verse such as Eskimo and Zuni songs, complete this important, provocative anthology.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Iron John comes the first complete collection of his moving and evocative prose poems. In each of these brief pieces, Bly brings natural life and human life together with his inimitable gift of language, gently reflecting on the human condition and modern life.

Robert Bly, renowned poet and author of the ground-breaking bestseller Iron John, mingles essay and verse to explore the Shadow -- the dark side of the human personality -- and the importance of confronting it.

A stunning collection of poems by Mirabai, the fifteenth-century female Indian ecstatic poet. Like Coleman Barks''s translations of Rumi, this collection of poems by Mirabai will appeal to anyone interested in spiritual poetry.

Where have all the grownups gone? In answering that question with the same freewheeling erudition and intuitive brilliance that made Iron John a national bestseller, poet, storyteller and translator Robert Bly tells us that we live in a "sibling society, " in which adults have regressed into adolescence and adolescents refuse to grow up.

"The original Swedish publication of Airmail: brev 1964-1990 was compiled and edited by Torbj''orn Schmidt and published in 2001 by Albert Bonniers F''orlag"--T.p. verso.

Gratitude to Old Teachers...has been issued in a first edition of 1,500 copies.

Presents the history of hot dogs, frankfurters, and weiners and recipes using them.

"Bly''s imaginative prose poems radiate witty delight." — Library Journal A brilliant collection spanning half a century, from one of America''s most powerful poets. Robert Bly had many roles in his illustrious career. He was a chronicler and mentor of young poets, was a leader of the antiwar movement, founded the men''s movement, and wrote the bestselling book Iron John, which brought the men''s movement to the attention of the world. Throughout these activities, Bly continued to deepen his own poetry, a vigorous voice in a period of more academic wordsmiths. Here he has presented his favorite poems of the last decades-timeless classics from Silence in the Snowy Fields, The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and Loving a Woman in Two Worlds. A complete section of marvelous new poems rounds out this collection, which offers a chance to reread, in a fresh setting, a lifetime of work dedicated to fresh perspectives.

Expert tips and 300 sample letters make business and personal correspondence a snap. When trying to close a sale, answer a complaint, or offer thanks, a well-crafted letter can make all the difference. Packed with practical advice and 300 easy-to-adapt sample letters, this all-purpose guide shows readers how to write letters that get results -at work and at home. Covering the nuts-and-bolts of letter writing as well as the secrets of high-impact prose, the book delivers proven recipes for attention-grabbing introductions, persuasive arguments, memorable phrases, and closing clinchers. Best of all, it offers guidance on business and personal letters for every circumstance, from job hunting, selling, fundraising, and asking favors to giving a reprimand, responding to criticism, expressing sympathy, and declining gracefully. It''s the only reference anyone will ever need to write the perfect letter, whatever the occasion.

Leaping Poetry is Robert Bly''s testament to the singular importance of the artistic leap that bridges the gap between conscious and unconscious thought in any great work of art; the process that Bly refers to as "riding on dragons." Originally published in 1972 in Bly''s literary journal The Seventies, Leaping Poetry is part anthology and part commentary, wherein Bly seeks to rejuvenate modern Western poetry through his revelations of "leaping" as found in the works of poets from around the world, including Federico Garcia Lorca, Chu Yuan, Tomas Transtromer, and Allen Ginsberg, among others, while also outlining the basic principles that shape his own poetry. Bly seeks the use of quick, free association of the known and the unknown-the innate animal and rational cognition-which, he maintains, have been kept apart in the development of Western religious, intellectual, and literary thought.

A collection of eighteen interviews, nine poems, and three essays that profile the life and career of poet Robert Bly.

Gathering more than sixty years of poetry, Collected Poems showcases the brilliant career of a "great American transcendentalist" (New York Times). An extraordinary culmination for Robert Bly’s lifelong intellectual adventure, Collected Poems presents the full magnitude of his body of work for the first time. Bly has long been the voice of transcendentalism and meditative mysticism for his generation; every stage of his work is warmed by his devotion to the art of poetry and his affection for the varied worlds that inspire him. Influenced by Emerson and Thoreau alongside spiritual traditions from Sufism to Gnosticism, he is a poet moved by mysteries, speaking the language of images. Collected Poems gathers the fourteen volumes of his impressive oeuvre into one place, including his imagistic debut, Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962); the clear-eyed truth-telling of his National Book Award–winning collection, The Light Around the Body (1967); the masterful prose poems of The Morning Glory (1975); and the fiercely introspective, uniquely American ghazals of his latest collection, Talking into the Ear of a Donkey (2011). A monumental poetic achievement, Collected Poems makes clear why poets and lovers of poetry have long looked to Robert Bly for emotional authenticity, moral authority, and artistic inspiration.

Originally published in 1976 and having sold more than 75,000 copies to date, Kabir is a classic. Now, we are proud to publish a revised, beautifully designed hardcover edition that includes 10 new translations. A weaver by trade but a poet-singer by calling, Kabir lived in fifteenth-century India. His philosophy incorporated the beliefs and practices of both Muslims and Hindus. Not only did Kabir influence these religious traditions, he was one of the major inspirations behind Sikhism as well. The power of Kabir''s words come from his passion--and also from his humor. He is at once irreverent toward authority and amazed by divinity. He demands that readers live for themselves. In the tradition of ecstatic poetry, Kabir writes of bodily delights and of choices made by the heart, not the mind. Columbia University professor of religion John Stratton Hawley''s new introduction places Kabir''s work firmly into modern times, explaining the value of Bly''s work with these poems. As our contemporary world struggles with political turmoil caused by religious beliefs, the poems of Kabir seem as relevant today as when they were first written.

“The poems of The Night Abraham Called to the Stars mark the ripening of a new current in Bly’s career: Now in his mid-70s, he is writing with tremendous energy and clarity and force, and producing some of the best work of his long career.” — The Nation A volume of poetry with an emphasis on spirituality from the National Book Award winner. Drawing on the profound influence that Islamic poetry, such as Rumi''s, has had on his work, Robert Bly transmutes the remarkable ghazal form into a stunning series of poems. In this form, the poet can change the landscape in each stanza, ranging from a love poem to wisdom literature to a complaint about the poet''s private life. A cultured form with many references to other poems and poets, ghazal poetry challenges and involves the reader. In this volume, Bly''s poetry resonates with deep spirituality while sounding the major themes of modern life. Merging wildness and a beautiful formality, this collection assures the reputation of one of the major poets of our era.

From 1950 through the present, this collection of monumental work from the voice of transcendentalism and meditative mysticism for his generation celebrates the uncanny beauty of the everyday.