Like a Beggar - Ellen Bass

nPaterson Poetry Prize Finalist, 2015Featured on NPR's The Writer's AlmanacEllen Bass's new poetry collection, Like a Beggar, pulses with sex, humor and compassion.--The New York TimesBass tries to convey everyday wonder on contemporary experiences of sex, work, aging, and war. Those who turn to poetry to become confidants for another's stories and secrets will not be disappointed.--Publishers WeeklyIn her fifth book of poetry, Bass addresses everything from Saturn's rings and Newton's law of gravitation to wasps and Pablo Neruda. Her words are nostalgic, vivid, and visceral.

Bass arrives at the truth of human carnality rooted in the extraordinary need and promise of the individual. Bass shows us that we are as radiant as we are ephemeral, that in transience glistens resilient history and the remarkable fluidity of connection. By the collection's end--following her musings on suicide and generosity, desire and repetition--it becomes lucidly clear that Bass is not only a poet but also a philosopher and a storyteller.--BooklistEllen Bass brings a deft touch as she continues her ongoing interrogations of crucial moral issues of our times, while simultaneously delighting in endearing human absurdities.

From the start of Like a Beggar, Bass asks her readers to relax, even though bad things are going to happen, because the bad gets mined for all manner of goodness.

• From Another Story: After dinner, we're drinking scotch at the kitchen table

nJanet and I just watched a NOVA special nand we're explaining to her mother nthe age and size of the universe-- nthe hundred billion stars in the hundred billion galaxies. nDotty lives at Dominican Oaks, making her way down the long hall. nHow about the sun?

she asks, a little farmshit in the endlessness. nI gather up a cantaloupe, a lime, a cherry, nand start revolving this salad around the chicken carcass. nThis is the best scotch I ever tasted, Dotty says, neven though we gave her the Maker's Mark nwhile we're drinking Glendronach...Ellen Bass's poetry includes Like A Beggar (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), which was named a Notable Book by the San Francisco Chronicle, and Mules of Love (BOA, 2002), which won the Lambda Literary Award.

She co-edited (with Florence Howe) the groundbreaking No More M