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Books by WSU alumni and friends
Poetry
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And Howls for Us to Follow: A Book of Poems
By Kenny Rose Butts
Reader review: “Reading these poems provides liberation for the spirit, power for the mind and hope, the essential fuel for motivation. This is literature that one can enjoy reading time and again, each survey presenting more information than the last and uncovering useful information that can be applied to one’s own experience of life.”


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Down Along the Sunset
By Benner Cummings
In this book of poems Benner Cummings pays homage to the romance of surfing. Based upon his years as surfing and swimming coach at San Clemente High School, the poems celebrate the beauty, grace, daring, and freedom inherent in the pursuit of surfing.
Read a review from WSM


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Famous
by Kathleen Flenniken '83
From the publisher: She “became famous, finally, to herself,” Kathleen Flenniken writes. This is the kind of fame at the heart of most lives and at the center of Flenniken’s first collection, the winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Here “a little voice sings / from the back of the auditorium / of my throat. Aren’t all of us / waiting to be discovered?” The poet’s answer is sometimes grave, sometimes comic, but always tuned to the incidental music of daily life.
Read a review from WSM


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Hiding from Salesmen
By Scott Poole '92, '95
If one has a sense of humor—preferably of the absurd as well—it’s hard not to like most of the 43 poems that comprise this book.
Read a review from WSM


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In Praise of Fertile Land
Ed. by Claudia Mauro
There aren’t many anthologies that juxtapose poems by the likes of Robert Frost with those of elementary school kids. In Praise of Fertile Land does, and it works.
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The Actual Moon, the Actual Stars
By Chris Forhan '82
From the publisher: Chris Forhan was raised in Seattle and educated at Washington State University (B.A.), the University of New Hampshire (M.A.), and the University of Virginia (M.F.A.). His first book, Forgive Us Our Happiness, won the Bakeless Prize. He has also published two chapbooks, x and Crumbs of Bread. His poetry has won a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, New England Review, Parnassus, and other magazines. He teaches at Auburn University and in the Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program. He lives in Auburn, Alabama.
Read a review from WSM


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The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems
By Sherman Alexie '94
Kirkus Reviews: A terrific second novel by the talented young Native American author whose highly praised fiction (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, 1993; Reservation Blues, 1995) has already moved him on to the short list of the country's best young writers. . . . It's a rich, panoramic portrayal of contemporary Seattle that uses the form of the mystery to tell some uncomfortable home truths about Indian-white relations, and indeed racism in all its forms. . . . Both a splendidly constructed and wonderfully readable thriller—and a haunting, challenging articulation of the plight and the pride of contemporary Native Americans.


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Walt Whitman, The Viking Portable Edition
Ed. by Malcolm Cowley
Recommended by Bob Scarfo, landscape architecture professor in Spokane. Whitman is one of the few individuals who see the urban environment and the country in a positive and constructive manner. His visceral interpretation of life is full of hope and appreciation.


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