Topical Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
MARY CORNELIA HARTSHORNE (c. 1910-)
—-Fallen Leaves
—-Hills of Doon
—-Wind in Mexico
CHARLES HENRI FORD (1910-2002)
—-Plaint
—-Flag of Ecstasy
—-Pastoral for Pavlik
CHARLES OLSON (1910-1970)
—-Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele
—-Maximus, to himself
—-Cole's Island
ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911-1979)
—-The Fish
—-The Man-Moth
—-At the Fishhouses
—-Filling Station
—-Questions of Travel
—-The Armadillo
—-In the Waiting Room
—-Pink Dog
—-Crusoe in England
—-One Art
WILLIAM EVERSON (1912-1994)
—-The Making of the Cross
—-A Canticle to the Waterbirds
TILLIE LERNER OLSEN (1912-2007)
—-I Want You Women Up North To Know
ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980)
—-Middle Passage
—-Runagate Runagate
—-A Letter from Phillis Wheatley
—-Those Winter Sundays
—-Night, Death, Mississippi
—-Aunt Jemima of the Ocean Waves
—-from Elegies for Paradise Valley
—-No. 1
—-The Dogwood Trees
—-O Daedalus, Fly Away Home
WELDON KEES (1914-1955)
—-June 1940
—-Travels in North America
RANDALL JARRELL (1914-1965)
—-The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
—-A Front
—-Losses
—-Second Air Force
—-Protocols
JAPANESE AMERICAN CONCENTRATION CAMP HAIKU (1942-1944)
—-Shiho Okamoto (Being arrested—)
—-Sadayo Taniguchi (Hand-cuffed and taken away)
—-Kyotaro Komuro (Lingering summer heat—)
—-Taro Katay, (Shouldering)
—-Komuro (Passed guard tower)
—-Okamoto (In the shade of summer sun)
—-Shonan Suzuki (Withered grass on ground)
—-Hakuro Wada (Young grass red and shriveled)
—-Hyakuissei Okamoto (Dandelion has bloomed)
—-Shizuku Uyemaruko (On certain days)
—-Wada (Released seagull)
—-Ryokuin Matsui (Sprinkling water outside)
—-Komuro (Want to be with children)
—-Wada (Even the croaking of frogs)
—-Hangetsu Tsunekawa (Sentry at main gate)
—-Shokoshi Saga (Thin shadow of tule reed)
—-Tokuji Hirai (Looking at summer moon)
—-Suzuki (Moon shadows on internment camp)
—-Hirai (Early moon has set)
—-Suiko Matsushita (Rain shower from mountain)
—-Kyokusui (Thorns of the iron fence)
—-Neiji Ozawa (Desert rain falling)
—-Senbinshi Takaoka (Frosty morning)
—-Oshio (Stepping through snow)
—-Jyosha Yamada (Black clouds instantly shroud)
—-Takaoka (Winter wind)
—-Hekisamei Matsuda (Doll without a head)
—-Sei Sagara (Suddenly awakened)
—-Hyakuissei Okamoto (Jeep patrolling slowly)
—-Shizuku Uyemaruko (Grieving within)
—-Okamoto (In the sage brush)
—-Matsushita (Oh shells—)
JOHN BERRYMAN (1914-1972)
—-from The Dream Songs
—-1 Huffy Henry
—-4 Filling her compact & delicious body
—-5 Henry sats
—-14 Life, friends
—-22 Of 1826
—-29 There sat down, once
—-40 I'm scared a lonely
—-45 He stared at ruin
—-46 I am, outside
—-55 Peter's not friendly
—-76 Henry's Confession
—-382 At Henry's bier
—-384 The marker slants
WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914-1993)
—-Traveling Through the Dark
—-At the Bomb Testing Site
—-At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
—-The Indian Cave Jerry Ramsey Found
DUDLEY RANDALL (1914-2000)
—-Ballad of Birmingham
—-A Different Image
JOY DAVIDMAN (1915-1960)
—-This Woman
—-For The Nazis
MARGARET WALKER (1915-1998)
—-For My People
RUTH STONE (1915-2011)
—-In an Iridescent Time
—-I Have Three Daughters
—-Pokeberries
—-American Milk
—-From the Arboretum
—-Drought in the Lower Fields
—-Some Things You'll Need to Know/ Before You Join the Union
THOMAS McGRATH (1916-1990)
—-Deep South
—-Crash Report
—-First Book of Genesis According to the Diplomats
—-Ars Poetica: Or: Who Lives in the Ivory Tower?
—-A Little Song About Charity
—-Against the False Magicians
—-After the Beat Generation
—-Ode for the American Dead in Asia
—-Poem at the Winter Solstice
ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977)
—-Inauguration Day: January 1953
—-A Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich
—-Commander Lowell
—-"To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage"
—-Man and Wife
—-Memories of West Street and Lepke
—-Skunk Hour
—-For the Union Dead
—-The Mouth of the Hudson
—-July in Washington
—-The March I
—-The March II
—-Central Park
—-Epilogue
GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917-2000)
—-A song in the front yard
—-Of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery
—-Gay Chaps at the Bar
—-We Real Cool
—-The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
—-The Blackstone Rangers
—-Malcolm X
—-Young Afrikans
—-The Boy Died in My Alley
—-To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals
—-To the Diaspora
WILLIAM BRONK (1918-1999)
—-At Tikal
—-The Mayan Glyphs Unread
—-I Thought It Was Harry
—-Where It Ends
—-Left Alone
ROBERT DUNCAN (1919-1988)
—-Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
—-My Mother Would Be a Falconress
—-The Torso (Passages 18)
—-Up Rising (Passages 25)
BARBARA GUEST (1920-2006)
—-from Quilts
———"Couch of Space"
—-Words
—-Twilight Polka Dots
AARON KRAMER (1921-1997)
—-Denmark Vesey
RICHARD WILBUR (b. 1921)
—-The Pardon
—-A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra
—-Beasts
—-Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
—-Advice to a Prophet
—-Children of Darkness
MONA VAN DUYN (1921-2004)
—-Toward a Definition of Marriage
JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969)
—-The Perfect Love of Mind Essence
—- Haiku
JAMES DICKEY (1923-1997)
—-The Sheep Child
—-Falling
DENISE LEVERTOV (1923-1997)
—-The Ache of Marriage
—-Olga Poems
—-What Were They Like?
—-Life at War
ANTHONY HECHT (1923-2004)
—-A Hill
—-"More Light! More Light!"
—-The Book of Yolek
BOB KAUFMAN (1925-1986)
—-The Biggest Fisherman
—-Crootey Songo
—-No More Jazz at Alcatraz
—-from Jail Poems, Nos. 1-3
MAXINE KUMIN (b. 1925)
—-Voices from Kansas
—-Saga
—-Oblivion
—-Pantoum, With Swan
—-With William Meredith in Bulgaria
DONALD JUSTICE (1925-2004)
—-An Old Fashioned Devil
—-The Wall
—-Early Poems
—-Presences
—-Absences
PAUL BLACKBURN (1926-1971)
—-At the Crossroad
—-At the Well
FRANK O'HARA (1926-1966)
—-from Alma
—-Poem (The eager note on my door)
—-A Step Away From Them
—-The Day Lady Died
—-Why I Am Not a Painter
—-A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island
—-On Seeing Larry Rivers' Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Museum of Modern Art
—-Thinking of James Dean
JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995)
—-An Urban Convalescence
—-The Broken Home
—-Willowware Cup
—-Lost in Translation
ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997)
—-Love Poem on Theme By Whitman
—-Howl
—-A Supermarket in California
—-Who to Be Kind To
—-Rain-wet asphalt heat, garbage curbed cans overflowing
—-Father Death Blues
—-Sphincter
ROBERT CREELEY (1926-2005)
—-After Lorca
—-I Know a Man
—-The Flower
—-For Love
—-America
—-Age
ROBERT BLY (b. 1926)
—-Counting Small-Boned Bodies
—-Hearing Gary Snyder Read
A.R. AMMONS (1926-2001)
—-Corsons Inlet
—-Gravelly Run
—-Coon Song
JAMES WRIGHT (1927-1980)
—-Saint Judas
—-Beginning
—-Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
—-Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
—-A Blessing
—-A Centenary Ode: Inscribed to Little Crow, Leader of the Sioux Rebellion in Minnesota, 1862
JOHN ASHBERY (b. 1927)
—-"They Dream Only of America"
—-Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
—-Mixed Feelings
—-Street Musicians
—-Syringa
—-Daffy Duck in Hollywood
—-Paradoxes and Oxymorons
—-The Problem of Anxiety
—-Dull Mauve
—-A Kind of Chill
—-Spooks Run Wild
—-Marine Shadow
—-Words to That Effect
GALWAY KINNELL (b. 1927)
—-The Porcupine
—-The Bear
—-The Vow
W.S. MERWIN (b. 1927)
—-The Drunk in the Furnace
—-It Is March
—-Caesar
—-The Room
—-December Among the Vanished
—-For the Anniversary of My Death
—-When The War Is Over
—-The Asians Dying
—-For a Coming Extinction
—-Looking For Mushrooms at Sunrise
—-The Gardens of Zuni
—-Beginning
—-The Horse
—-Sun and Rain
—-Berryman
—-Daylight
—-The Name of the Air
—-Far Along in the Story
—-Worn Words
ANNE SEXTON (1928-1974)
—-Her Kind
—-The Truth the Dead Know
—-And One for My Dame
—-Jesus Asleep
—-Jesus Raises up the Harlot
—-The Room of My Life
PHILIP LEVINE (b. 1928)
—-For Fran
—-The Horse
—-Animals Are Passing From Our Lives
—-Belle Isle, 1949
—-They Feed They Lion
—-Francisco, I'll Bring You Red Carnations
—-Fear and Fame
—-On the Meeting of García Lorca and Hart Crane
ADRIENNE RICH (1929-2012)
—-Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
—-From Shooting Script
—-Trying to Talk With a Man
—-Diving into the Wreck
—-Twenty-One Love Poems
—-Power
—-from An Atlas of the Difficult World
———XIII. (Dedications) I know you are reading this poem
—-Behind the Motel
—-Hotel
DEREK WALCOTT (b. 1930)
—-A Far Cry from Africa
—-Laventille
—-The Fortunate Traveller
—-from Omeros
———Book One, Chapter 1
GARY SYNDER (b. 1930)
—-Riprap
—-Beneath My Hand and Eye the Distant Hills. Your Body
—-I Went Into the Maverick Bar
—-Straight-Creek—Great Burn
—-Axe Handles
GREGORY CORSO (1930-2001)
—-Marriage
—-Bomb
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT (1931-1991)
—-Haiku 1, 4, 9
—-Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane
—-The Idea of Ancestry
—-A Poem for Myself
—-For Malcolm, a Year After
—-Television Speaks
—-For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide
SYLVIA PLATH (1932-1963)
—-The Colossus
—-The Bee Meeting
—-The Arrival of the Bee Box
—-Stings
—-The Swarm
—-Wintering
—-Daddy
—-Ariel
—-Lady Lazarus
HENRY DUMAS (1934-1968)
—-Son of Msippi
—-Kef 24
—-Kef 16
—-Fish
—-Knees of a Natural Man
—-Low Down Dog Blues
—-Black Star Line
—-Peas
—-Yams
AMIRI BARAKA (Leroi Jones) (b. 1934)
—-SOS
—-Black Art
—-When We'll Worship Jesus
N. SCOTT MOMADAY (b. 1934)
—-Plainview: 3
—-Buteo Regalis
—-Crows in a Winter Composition
—-Carriers of the Dream Wheel
—-Rings of Bone
—-The Stalker
—- from The Colors of Night
———Purple
—-The Burning
—-December 29, 1890
—-The Shield That Came Back
—-The Snow Mare
—-To an Aged Bear
—-A Benign Self-Portrait
MARK STRAND (b. 1934)
—-The Prediction
—-Where Are the Waters of Childhood?
AUDRE LORDE (1934-1992)
—-From Coal
—-Sisters in Arms
—-Outlines
—-Call
KATHLEEN FRASER (b. 1935)
—-In Commemoration of the Visit of Foreign Commercial Representatives to Japan, 1947
CHARLES WRIGHT (b. 1935)
—-Spider Crystal Ascension
—-Clear Night
—-Homage to Paul Cézanne
MARY OLIVER (b. 1935)
—-Morning Walk
—-At Great Pond
—-Black Snake This Time
JAYNE CORTEZ (1936-2012)
—-I Am New York City
—-Do You Think
LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936-2010)
—-I Am Accused of Tending To the Past
—-At the cemetery, Walnut grove plantation, South Carolina, 1989
—-Reply
—-The Message of Crazy Horse
—-Poem to My Uterus
—-To My Last Period
—-Brothers
SUSAN HOWE (b. 1937)
—-From Articulation of Sound Forms in Time:
—-The Falls Fight
—-Hope Atherton's Wanderings
MICHAEL S. HARPER (b. 1938)
—-Song: I Want a Witness
—-Blue Ruth: America
—-Brother John
—-American History
—-We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper
—-Reuben, Reuben
—-Deathwatch
—-Dear John, Dear Coltrane
ISHMAEL REED (b. 1938)
—-I am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra
—-Oakland Blues
LAWSON FUSAO INADA (b. 1938)
—- Listening Images
ROBERT PINSKY (b. 1940)
—-Dying
—-The Unseen
—-Shirt
—-Veni, Creator Spiritus
WELTON SMITH (1940-2006)
—-Malcolm
WILLIAM HEYEN (b. 1940)
—-Riddle
—-from Crazy Horse in Stillness:
—-Forces
—-White & Gold
—-One World
—-Bone & Velvet
—-Mother
—-The Count
—-Surveyors
—-Rot
—-V
—-Resolve, 1876
—-Treaty
—-Snowbirds
—-The Slowing
—-The Paper It's Written On
—-The Tooth
—-Wakan Tanka
—-Disequilibrium
—-Eclipse
JUDY GRAHN (b. 1940)
—-I Have Come to Claim Marilyn Monroe's Body
—-Vietnamese Woman Speaking to an American Soldier
—-Carol
—-Plainsong
—-The Woman Whose Head is On Fire
CAROLYN M. RODGERS (1941-2010)
—-How I Got Ovah
—-And When the Revolution Came
—-Mama's God
ROBERT HASS (b. 1941)
—-Rusia En 1931
—-A Story About the Body
—-Forty Something
—-Sonnet
LYN HEJINIAN (b. 1941)
—-from My Life
—-A pause, a rose, Something on paper
—-from The Distance
—-Nos. III, XIX, XXIV, XXX, XXXII, XXXVII
SHARON OLDS (b. 1942)
—-The Pope's Penis
—-Ideographs
—-Photograph of the Girl
—-Things That Are Worse Than Death
—-The Waiting
—-His Father's Cadaver
—-Known to Be Left
—-Left-Wife Goose
LOUISE GLÜCK (b. 1943)
—-The Drowned Children
—-Vespers (You thought we didn't know)
—-Vespers (More than you love me, very possibly)
—-The Wild Iris
—-from Meadowlands:
—-Penelope's Song
—-Quiet Evening
—-Parable of the King
—-Parable of the Hostages
—-Circe's Power
—-Circe's Grief
—-Reunion
—-Telemachus' Burden
—-Before the Storm
—-A Village Life
MICHAEL PALMER (b. 1943)
—-Song of the Round Man
—-All those words
—-I Have Answers to All of Your Questions
—-Fifth Prose
—-Autobiography
PAUL VIOLI (1944-2011)
—-Index
—-Tanka
—-A Moveable Snack
THOMAS JAMES (1946-1974)
—-Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh XXI Dynasty
—-Dissecting a Pig
RON SILLIMAN (b. 1946)
—-from Ketjak
—-from Sunset Debris
—-The Chinese Notebook
—-from Toner
ADRIAN C. LOUIS (b. 1946)
—-Dust World
—-Wakinyan
—-Without Words
—-Coyote Night
—-How Verdell and Dr. Zhivago Disassembled the Soviet Union
—-Wanbli Gleska Win
—-Looking for Judas
—-A Colossal American Copulation
—-Petroglyphs of Serena
—-Jesus Finds His Ghost Shirt
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA (b. 1947)
—-Tu Do Street
—-Prisoners
—-Communiqué
—-The Dog Act
—-The Nazi Doll
—-Fog Galleon
—-Work
Ai (1947-2010)
—-The Root Eater
—-Twenty-Year Marriage
—-The German Army, Russia, 1943
—-The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer
WENDY ROSE (b. 1948)
—-Truganinny
TIMOTHY STEELE (b. 1948)
—-Daybreak, Benedict Canyon
—-April 27, 1937
ALBERT GOLDBARTH (b. 1948)
—-Swan
—-Coinages: A Fairy Tale
—-1400
C. D. WRIGHT (b. 1949)
—-Obedience of the Corpse
—-from Just Whistle:
—-THE BODY, ALIVE, NOT DEAD BUT DORMANT
—-BECAUSE CONDITIONS ARE IDEAL FOR CROWING
—-AND NOTHING
—-THE CORPSE WAS IN THE BED
—-ON THE MORN OF
—-A PARTITION SEPARATES IT FROM OTHER BODIES
—-OVER EVERYTHING
—-Song of the Gourd
—-From Cooling Time:
—-Only the crossing counts
—-Until words turn to moss
—-What Would Oppen Say,
—-DEAR DYING TOWN
JESSICA HAGEDORN (b. 1949)
—-Ming the Merciless
CHARLES BERNSTEIN (b. 1950)
—-You
—-from Foreign Body Sensation
—-The Kiwi Bird in the Kiwi Tree
—-Riddle of the Fat Faced Man
—-The Boy Soprano
JORIE GRAHAM (b. 1950)
—-History
—-From the New World
RAY A. YOUNG BEAR (b. 1950)
—-In Viewpoint: Poem for 14 Catfish and The Town of Tama, Iowa
—-It is the Fish-faced Boy Who Struggles
CAROLYN FORCHÉ (b. 1950)
—-The Colonel
—-The Museum of Stones
—-The Lightkeeper
—-Morning on the Island
ANDREW HUDGINS (b. 1951)
—-At Chancellorsville: The Battle of the Wilderness
—-The Summer of the Drought
—-He Imagines His Wife Dead
GARRETT KAORU HONGO (b. 1951)
—-Ancestral Graves, Kahuku
—-Kubota to Miguel Hernandez in Heaven, Leupp, Arizona, 1942
RITA DOVE (b. 1952)
—-Parsley
—-Receiving the Stigmata
JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA (b. 1952)
—-Mi Tío Baca El Poeta De Socorro
—-The Painters
ALBERTO RÍOS (b. 1952)
—-Madre Sofía
—-What Happened to Me
ANITA ENDREZZE (b. 1952)
—-Return of the Wolves
—-Birdwatching at Fan Lake
—-La Morena and Her Beehive Hairdo
ANA CASTILLO (b. 1953)
—-Seduced by Natassja Kinski
—-Hummingbird Heart
MARK DOTY (b. 1953)
—-Homo Will Not Inherit
—-The Embrace
HARRYETTE MULLEN (b. 1953)
—-from Trimmings
—-from S*PeRM**K*T
LOUISE ERDRICH (b. 1954)
—-Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
—-Dear John Wayne
—-The Fence
LORNA DEE CERVANTES (b. 1954)
—-Refugee Ship
—-Poema para los Californios Muertos
—-Starfish
SANDRA CISNEROS (b. 1954)
—-Little Clown, My Heart
THYLIAS MOSS (b. 1954)
—-Fullness
—-There Will Be Animals
—-The Lynching
—-Interpretation of a Poem by Frost
—-Ambition
—-Crystals
PATRICIA SMITH (b. 1955)
—-Blond White Women
—-Skinhead
—-From Blood Dazzler:
—-from Tankas
—-(Never has there been)
—-(Go, they said. Go. Go.)
—-Man on the TV Say
—-Company's Coming
—-Voodoo II: Money
—-Voodoo V: Enemy Be Gone
—-from What to Tweak
—-(Stifle the Stinking, shut down the cameras)
—-Back Home
—-Motown Crown
MARILYN CHIN (b. 1955)
—-How I Got That Name
—-Altar
JANICE N. HARRINGTON (b. 1956)
—-Falling
—-If She Had Lived
SESSHU FOSTER (b. 1957)
—-We're caffeinated by rain inside concrete underpasses
—-You'll be fucked up
—-Look and look again, will he glance up all of a sudden
—-I'm always grateful no one hears this terrible racket
—-The Japanese man would not appear riding a horse
—-Life Magazine, December, 1941
—-I try to pee, but I can't
—-Game 83
LI-YOUNG LEE (b. 1957)
—-Persimmons
—-Little Father
MARTíN ESPADA (b. 1957)
—-Bully
—-Revolutionary Spanish Lesson
—-Niggerlips
—-The New Bathroom Policy at English High School
—-Fidel in Ohio
—-Federico's Ghost
—-The Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry Stomp
—-Imagine the Angels Of Bread
—-Blues for the Soldiers Who Told You
—-The Trouble Ball
—-Hard-Handed Men of Athens
—-The Right Foot of Juan de Onate
ATSURO RILEY (b. 1960)
—-From Romey's Order
—-Picture
—-Skillet
—-Bell
—-Roses
CLAUDIA RANKINE (b. 1963)
—-from Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
—-pp. 7, 23, 47-48, 71, 82-83, 113
D. A. POWELL (b. 1963)
—-[the cocktail hour finally arrives: whether ending a day at the office]
—-[dogs and boys can treat you like trash. And dogs do love trash]
—-[came a voice in my gullet: rise up and feast. thunderous]
HEID E. ERDRICH (b. 1963)
—-True Myth
—-The Theft Outright
—-Some Elsie
NATASHA TRETHEWAY (b. 1966)
—-Native Ground
—-Providence
—-Believer
—-Liturgy
SHERMAN ALEXIE (b. 1966)
—-Indian Boy Love Song (#2)
—-from The Native American Broadcasting System: Evolution
—-Scalp Dance by Spokane Indians
—-How to Write the Great American Indian Novel
—-Tourists
RICHARD SIKEN (b. 1967)
—-Visible World
—-A Primer for the Small Weird Loves
GRAPHIC INTERPRETATIONS:
CHARLES HENRI FORD
—-Serenade to Leonor
—-28
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
—-We Real Cool
ALLEN GINSBERG
—-Kraj Majales
—-Moloch
—-Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake
William Everson
—-A Canticle to the Waterbirds
DAVID IGNATOW
—-The Form Falls in On Itself
W. S. MERWIN
—-When The War is Over
GARY SNYDER
—-O Mother Gaia
RICHARD WILBUR
—-A Difference
Index of Poem Titles
Index of Poets
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