Outsiders: Poems About Rebels, Exiles, and Renegades

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar (Editor)

A collection of poems expressing the loneliness of those who feel alienated by either age, race, religion, language, sex, or disease, by such individuals as Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Philip Levine, and Gerald Stern

Genres: Poetry

323 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Laure-Anne Bosselaar grew up in Belgium, and moved to the United Statesin 1987. Fluent in four languages, she has also published poems in French and Flemish. She is the author of The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (with an introduction by Charles Simic), and of Small Gods of Grief, which won the Isabella Gardner Prize for Poetry for 2001. Her third book, A New Hunger, was selected as an ALA Notable Book in 2008.
Among other publications, her poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Washington Post, AGNI, Georgia Review and Harvard Review as well as in numerous anthologies. One of her poems won the National Poetry Contest, sponsored by I.E. magazine. She is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize.
Laure-Anne is the editor of four anthologies: Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars; Outsiders, Poems About Rebels Exiles and Renegades; Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City; and Never Before: Poems about First Experiences.
She and her husband, poet Kurt Brown, translated the work of Flemish poet Herman de Coninck: The Plural of Happiness (Field Translations Series).
She was awarded a Fellowship at the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, was a Writer in Residence at Hamilton College and at the Vermont Studio Center, and was awarded the McEver Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech in 2008. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and at the Low Residency MFA Program at Pine Manor College. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[David O'Nan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed many of these writings and poems. I do object to some of the imagery and language can be offensive.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outsiders is a diverse collection of poets, many well-known, others not so familiar. The issues written about are equally diverse. In whatever way you might think of yourself as being alone, a rebel, on the outside, you will find it here. The writing is grounded and accessible. Each poem in this anthology is strong.

[*Sklip* · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book for the poetry analysis unit in advanced english, and enjoyed it immensely. Of course, I got some weird looks from my friends and peers reading a book full of poems about outsiders, outcasts, exiles, and loners.

But I loved the poems because the emotions were so real and were portrayed amazingly