Books with title Ice Cream Poems: Reflections on Life with Ice Cream

Ice cream, ice cream, who wants ice cream? Hundreds of poets not only said a resounding "yes," but wrote about it. And from those hundreds, I accepted the 125 poems you will find here from 27 different states plus Australia, France, Iraq, Spain, and Tunisia. The poems are as various as the flavors of ice cream: long poems, short poems, and in addition to traditional free-verse narratives and lyrics: experimental poems, poems in forms such as sestinas, sapphics, sonnets, prose poems. When I accepted the job of editing, I wondered if I'd be bored by so many poems about ice cream; I wondered whether there would be hundreds of poems about The Good Humor Man or Dairy Queen. But I needn't have worried, I was never bored. The Good Humor Man and Dairy Queen poems were there, of course, but I was amazed by the wide variety of subjects: light humorous poems, sweet poems, lusty poems, dark poems, poems about childhood memories, a poem about Obama's first date, and a poem with Paul Newman in it. I am pleased with this final collection of ice cream poems. I think readers will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed reading and selecting them.--Patricia Fargnoli, Editor, author of Hallowed (Tupelo Press, 2017)

Coffee Poems contains 167 richly-roasted, verbally aromatic poems by poets from 34 states, 5 provinces, and 12 countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, France, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and the United States.Included among the 139 poets who give voice to these poems are Ellen Bass, Margo Berdeshevsky, Joel Brouwer, Barbara Crooker, Kwame Dawes, Stephen Dobyns, Martín Espada, Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Alicia Ostriker, Francesca Pellegrino, Alberto Álvaro Ríos, Care Santos, Vivian Shipley, Michael Waters, and Cecilia Woloch.Whether central to the poem or sitting on a side table, a mere accessory; whether a prop in an internal conversation with a you absent these 25 years or a desperately needed substance without which there is no facing the day, a cup of coffee inhabits each of these poems...Breathe in the scent and may it keep you awake.