Too many amazing poems end up overlooked by the academy and excluded from the canon, remaining largely unknown to the poetry-reading public.  Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer’ s Dark Horses joyfully rediscovers dozens of these poems, recognizes their power, and illuminates their significance.    Seventy-five established American poets including Billy Collins, John Ashbery, Linda Bierds, Carl Phillips, C. K. Williams, Wanda Coleman, Miller Williams, and Dana Gioia have each selected one unjustly neglected poem, most never previously anthologized, and written a concise commentary to accompany it. Selections include forgotten gems by well known poets as well as poems by writers who have fallen into obscurity. Dark Horses also acts as a primer on how to creatively read a poem and a documentary of the bonds between a poem and its reader.

"Poets Katz (The Garden Room) and Prufer (Fallen from a Chariot; The New Young American Poets), both editors of the journal Pleiades, asked over five dozen poets (ranging from some of America's most well-known, like Billy Collins and John Ashbery, to rising talents, like D.A. Powell and Susan Wheeler) to each pick one obscure or underappreciated poem and to write an accompanying explanation of their choice. The resulting anthology gathers a host of surprising poems — works by Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Man Ray and Laura (Riding) Jackson all find their way here — along with passionate prose. Carol Muske-Dukes picked the tragically lush Thomas James ('...here is my new mouth,/ Chiseled with care') and Mary Jo Bang introduces a youthful Sylvia Plath ('I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead'). In one of the anthology's most moving moments, Stanley Plumly movingly revisits Elizabeth Bishop's 'Poem,' which he calls 'more 'personal' and less 'finished' than what this inveterate writer is commonly committed to.' While the curatorial process — which involves so many other people — ensures that few readers will like every poem, it also guarantees that most will find new favorites." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Too many amazing poems end up overlooked by the academy and excluded from the canon, remaining largely unknown to the poetry-reading public. Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer's Dark Horses joyfully rediscovers dozens of these poems, recognizes their power, and illuminates their significance.

Seventy-five established American poets including Billy Collins, John Ashbery, Linda Bierds, Carl Phillips, C. K. Williams, Wanda Coleman, Miller Williams, and Dana Gioia have each selected one unjustly neglected poem, most never previously anthologized, and written a concise commentary to accompany it. Selections include forgotten gems by well known poets as well as poems by writers who have fallen into obscurity. Dark Horses also acts as a primer on how to creatively read a poem and a documentary of the bonds between a poem and its reader.