"Part of the Bargain," winner of the Hayden Carruth Award and selected from nearly 1,000 entries, is both a cabinet of curiosities and a sweep of philosophical idylls. Hightower's poems range in style and subject, with soliloquies, laments, eccentric ponderings, and contemplations of appetite and art. <P>From "Door to the Terrace" <P>"You withdraw from me like a match<BR> From a final cigarette and dance every<BR> Abandonment. The strains of music<BR> That accompany you float away with you." <P>The book's epigraph evokes a Faustian contract, which is echoed in the tensions between urban and rural, light and dark, moral and amoral action. Hightower's influences-Sappho, Virgil, Blake, and Wilde-make their presence known as he reflects upon life in urban America after growing up in rural Texas, about coming of age as a gay man, about art and artists, poetry and painting. <P>From "Spending the Night" <P>"Now, in another part of the country, <BR> I hear it called "staying over." <BR> Back then, a couple of years<BR> was a gaping difference. <BR> The ornately carved door<BR> covering the strings of an upright<BR> melded into the headboard<BR> of the bed . . ." <P>"Part of the Bargain" also explores the imperceptible reconciliations that one makes as an individual, a part of a community, and as a conscientious heir to a culture. Valences of sexuality, nationality, literality all swirl together and perform a balancing act as the poet aspires to pull back the curtain of "the ineffable pageantry" of our multilayered lives. <P>Scott Hightower is the author of two books of poems, "Tin Can Tourist" and "Natural Trouble." His writings have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including"Salmagundi," "The Yale Review," and "The Paris Review." He teaches at Fordham University and New York University and is a contributing editor to "The Journal." He lives in New York City.

Scott Hightower is the author of two books of poetry. He teaches at Fordham University and is a contributing editor to The Journal. He lives in New York City.