Death the barber

'The alphabet of the trees is fading in the song of the leaves' Filled with bright, unforgettable images, the deceptively simple work of William Carlos Williams revolutionized American verse, and made him one of the greatest twentieth-century poets. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.