Noel Coward, “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party,” copyright © 1945 by the Estate of Noel Coward. Reproduced by kind permission of Graham Payn, Esq.
Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the Truth But Tell It Slant,” “If I can stop one Heart from breaking,” and “I never saw a Moor.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Excerpt from “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets, copyright © 1943 by T. S. Eliot and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace & Company.
Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Gift Outright,” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. Copyright © 1942, 1951 by Robert Frost. Copyright © 1970 by Lesley Frost Ballantine. Copyright © 1923 by Henry Holt & Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt & Co., Inc.
Langston Hughes, “Stars” and “To Be Somebody,” from Selected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright © 1947, 1950 by Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Christopher Logue, “Come to the Edge” from Ode to the Dodo, Poems 1953–78, copyright © 1981, published by Jonathan Cape. Used by permission.
Edward Markham, “Outwitted,” reprinted by kind permission of Ayer Company Publishers.
Motele, “From Tomorrow On,” reprinted by kind permission of The Jewish Publication Society.
Andrea Musher, “In Black Earth, Wisconsin,” reprinted by kind permission of the author.
Frank O’Hara, “A Step Away from Them,” copyright © 1964 by Frank O’Hara. Reprinted by permission of City lights Books.
Mary Oliver, “Wild Ceese,” from Dream Work by Mary Oliver, copyright © 1986 by Mary Oliver. Used by permission.
Marge Piercy, “The Low Road,” from The Moon Is Always Female. Copyright © 1980 by Marge Piercy. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Anna Quindlen, “Poetry Emotion,” Copyright © 1994 by The New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.
Siegfried Sassoon, “Does It Matter,” copyright © 1918 by E.P Dutton, copyright renewed 1946 by Siegfried Sassoon, from Collected Poems of Siegfried Sassoon by Siegfried Sassoon. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc.
James Tate, “Man with Wooden Leg Escapes Prison,” from Absences by James Tate, copyright © 1971 by James Tate. By permission of Little, Brown and Company.
Alice Walker, “On Stripping Bark from Myself,” from Goodnight, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning, copyright © 1979 by Alice Walker. Used by permission of Doubleday Publishers, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell.
William Carlos Williams, “The Yachts,” from Collected Poems, 1909–1939, Volume I, copyright © 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
James Wright, “A Blessing,” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 1971 by James Wright, Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission of University Press of New England.