E L Doctorow

Poems for Life: a Special Collection of Poetry E L Doctorow

Brief Description: Responses from 50 notable people who received letters from fifth-grade students at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City posing the questions "What is your favorite poem?"Brief Description: A special collection of poetry as selected by Allen Ginsberg, Yo-Yo Ma, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom... Marc Notes: Previously published in 1995.; Responses from 50 notable people who received letters from fifth-grade students at The Nightingale-Bamford School in New York City posing the questions What is your favorite poem?. Publisher Marketing: What is your favorite poem? That is the question students from two fifth-grade classes at a New York grade school asked famous people to whom they had written. Their idea, the students explained, was to put together a book that would benefit the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. The students were also studying poems in class and wanted to know if anybody still, in fact, read and gained insight from poetry. Touched by this appeal to their hearts, minds, and memories, fifty celebrities responded to their inquiries, including Geraldine Ferraro, Allen Ginsberg, Rudi Giuliani, Peter Jennings, Angela Lansbury, Yo-Yo Ma, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Sawyer, Ally Sheedy, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tom Wolfe. The poems they offer range from John Donne to Langston Hughes, but their letters all express hope that the students--and readers of this wonderful gift book--will read and take inspiration from the poetry of past and present."Of all the words that have stuck to the ribs of my soul, poetry has been the most filling," writes Anna Quindlen in her introduction, and this beautiful, inspiring collection of poetry is the perfect expression of how poets can influence and shape our lives.

Contributor Bio:  Doctorow, E L Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author known for his works of historical fiction. Contributor Bio:  Ginsberg, Allen Allen Ginsberg was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as a winner of the National Book Award for Poetry. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1926, and died in New York City in 1997. Contributor Bio:  Mamet, David David Mamet 's Glengarry Glen Ross won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1984. He is also the author of Writing in Restaurants and On Directing Film, both available from Penguin. Contributor Bio:  Wolfe, Tom Tom Wolfe is the author of a dozen books, among them such contemporary classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities. His most recent bestseller is I Am Charlotte Simmons (Nov. 2004). A native of Richmond, Virginia, he earned his B. A. at Washington and Lee University and a Ph. D. in American Studies at Yale. He lives in New York City. Contributor Bio:  Oates, Joyce Carol Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Accursed. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Contributor Bio:  Quindlen, Anna Anna Quindlen is an award-winning columnist and novelist. She left journalism in 1995 to write fiction full time and has published three bestsellers. She lives in New York City.