One of the best things going in modern American literature.

Foreword by David Lehman

Introduction by Robert Hass

Nin Andrews, "Notes for a Sermon on the Mount"

Rae Armantrout, "The Plan"

John Ashbery, "Crossroads in the Past"

Angela Ball, "Jazz"

Mary Jo Bang, "Crossed-Over, Fiend-Snitched, X-ed Out"

Cal Bedient, "When the Gods Put on Meter"

Elizabeth Bishop, "Vague Poem"

Robert Bly, "The French Generals"

Lee Ann Brown, "Sonnet Around Stephanie"

Michael Burkard, "Notes About My Face"

Trent Busch, "Heartland"

Amina Calil, "Blouse of Felt"

Anne Carson, "Longing, a documentary"

Joshua Clover, "Ceriserie"

Billy Collins, "Snow Day"

Robert Creeley, "En Famille"

Lydia Davis, "A Mown Lawn"

R. Erica Doyle, "Ma Ramon"

Christopher Edgar, "The Cloud of Unknowing"

Thomas Sayers Ellis, "T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M."

Amy England, "The Art of the Snake Story"

Alan Feldman, "Contemporary American Poetry"

James Galvin, "Little Dantesque"

Louise Glück, "Time"

Jewelle Gomez, "My Chakabuku Mama: a comic tale"

Jorie Graham, "Gulls"

Linda Gregerson, "Waterborne"

Linda Gregg, "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On"

Allen Grossman, "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist"

Donald Hall, "Her Garden"

Anthony Hecht, "Sarabande on Attaining the Age

of Seventy-Seven"

Lyn Hejinian, "Nights"

Brenda Hillman, "The Formation of Soils"

Jane Hirshfield, "In Praise of Coldness"

John Hollander, "What the Lovers in the Old Songs Thought"

Richard Howard, "After "

Fanny Howe, "Doubt"

Olena Kalytiak Davis, "Sweet Reader, Flanneled and Tulled"

Shirley Kaufman, "The Emperor of China"

Galway Kinnell, "The Quick and the Dead"

David Kirby, "Dear Derrida"

Carolyn Kizer, "The Ashes"

Kenneth Koch, "To World War Two"

Noelle Kocot, "Consolations Before an Affair, Upper West Side"

John Koethe, "Songs of the Valley"

Yusef Komunyakaa, "Seven Deadly Sins"

Mark Levine, "Wedding Day"

Sarah Manguso, "The Rider"

J. D. McClatchy, "Tattoos"

Colleen J. McElroy, "Mae West Chats It Up with Bessie Smith"

Heather McHugh, "My One"

Harryette Mullen, "Music for Homemade Instruments"

Carol Muske Dukes, "Our Kitty"

Alice Notley, "Where Leftover Misery Goes"

Sharon Olds, "His Costume"

Kathleen Ossip, "The Nature of Things"

Grace Paley, "Here"

Michael Palmer, "Untitled (February )"

John Peck, "A Metal Denser Than, and Liquid"

Lucia Perillo, "The Ghost Shirt"

Carl Phillips, "The Clearing"

Robert Pinsky, "Jersey Rain"

Claudia Rankine, "A short narrative of breasts and womb

in service of Plot entitled"

Adrienne Rich, "Architect"

James Richardson, "Vectors: Forty-five Aphorisms and

Ten-second Essays"

Rachel Rose, "What We Heard About the Japanese" and

"What the Japanese Perhaps Heard"

Mary Ruefle, "Furtherness"

James Schuyler, "Along Overgrown Paths"

Charles Simic, "Night Picnic"

Susan Stewart, "Apple"

Larissa Szporluk, "Meteor"

James Tate, "The Diagnosis"

Bernard Welt, "I stopped writing poetry..."

Dean Young, "Sources of the Delaware"

Rachel Zucker, "In Your Version of Heaven I Am Younger"

Contributors' Notes and Comments

Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published

Acknowledgments