The Traveler's Vade Mecum [Paperback]

The original Traveler's Vade Mecum, published in 1853, contained thousands of telegrams. Ross chose telegrams as titles for poems solicited from dozens of poets, including Bollingen Prize winner Frank Bidart and former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins to create a digital-age compendium of old-world poetics. Here are lyric poems, language poems, prose poems, found poems, haikus, pantoums, ekphrases, epistolary poems, acrostics, sonnets and mirror sonnets. Demonstrating the range of what poetry can do, this book provides a fascinating glimpse into the habits and social aspects of 19th century America--and shows how we have evolved 163 years later.
 

“Essential reading for poetry lovers and experimenters, The Travelers’s Vade Mecumdramatically and wittily expands the notion of the literary prompt.”
—Billy Collins, United States Poet Laureate
 

“Helen Klein Ross connects poets of today to a clever telegraphic idea from yesterday, and in doing so re-introduces readers to A. C. Baldwin, a 19th century consumer advocate whose vision and persistence impacted the world in unexpected ways.”
—Ralph Nader, Father of modern American consumer movement, author, Founder of American Museum of Tort Law
 

 “In an inspired rediscovery of A. C. Baldwin’sThe Traveler’s Vade Mecum, Helen Klein Ross and her poets have magically transformed an obscure 19th century invention into lyrical gold.”
—Arthur Molella, Director Emeritus, Smithsonian National Museum of American History