Contents

Dedication

Introduction

HURTING: WHEN THINGS FALL APART

LOLA HASKINS: Love

DOROTHY PARKER: Fulfillment

ANNA AKHMATOVA: We Don't Know How to Say Goodbye

DEBORAH GARRISON: Worked Late on a Tuesday Night

EMILY DICKINSON: Crumbling Is Not an Instant's Act

ELIZABETH ASH VÉLEZ: Thursday, 11:00 A.M.

JANE KENYON: The Pear

MARGE PIERCY: Barbie Doll

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS: The Second Coming

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Hamlet II.ii. 270–279

DEBORAH GARRISON: Fight Song

ETHERIDGE KNIGHT: Feeling Fucked Up

STEPHEN CRANE: The Heart

HIDING: WHEN YOU SHUT DOWN

JANE HIRSHFIELD: Red Onion, Cherries, Boiling Potatoes, Milk—

PHILIP LARKIN: Wants

WANG WEI: Returning to My Cottage

GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE: Hotel

JANE KENYON: Summer: 6:00 A.M.

LARRY VÉLEZ: Plainsong

RICHARD EBERHART: In a Hard Intellectual Light

JANE HIRSHFIELD: A Room

DEREK WALCOTT: The Fist

BILLY COLLINS: Embrace

LOUISE GLÜCK: Mutable Earth

REELING: WHEN YOU GO WILD

VIRGIL: The Wave

ROBERT GRAVES: Down, Wanton, Down!

ANDREW MARVELL: To His Coy Mistress

CAROLYN CREEDON: The Nectarine Poem

CAROLYN CREEDON: Pub Poem

FRANK O'HARA: Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!)

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: Equinox

ROBERT HERRICK: Delight in Disorder

MARK DOTY: At the Gym

DEALING: WHEN YOU FACE FACTS

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA: The End and the Beginning

CLAUDE MCKAY: The Tropics in New York

PABLO NERUDA: Night on the Island

SHAWN M. DURRETT: Lures

JOYCE CAROL OATES: Waiting on Elvis, 1956

ROBERT HAYDEN: Those Winter Sundays

ANNA SWIR: She Does Not Remember

JOHNNY COLEY: The Dogs

KIM KONOPKA: The Layers Between Me

LOUISE GLÜCK: Purple Bathing Suit

JOHN MILTON: Excerpt from Paradise Lost

HEALING: WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF

MARIE PONSOT: Better

LINDA PASTAN: Petit Dejeuner

JANE HIRSHFIELD: Not-Yet

GALWAY KINNELL: The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students

LANGSTON HUGHES: Homecoming

LYN LIFSHIN: Navy Barbie

LUCILLE CLIFTON: why some people be mad at me sometimes

WALLACE STEVENS: The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: Danse Russe

JANE KENYON: The Suitor

DAVID GEWANTER: Chai 1924–2000

BELIEVING: WHEN YOU STAY STRONG

SADIE LISK HIGHSMITH: Sadie's Poem

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: To a Poor Old Woman

ELIZABETH BISHOP: Filling Station

JAMES WRIGHT: A Blessing

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS: Pied Beauty

SHARON OLDS: The Pope's Penis

GREGORY DJANIKIAN: Immigrant Picnic

LYNNE MCMAHON: We Take Our Children to Ireland

HANS OSTROM: Emily Dickinson and Elivis Presely in Heaven

STERLING A. BROWN: Sister Lou

GRACE PALEY: Here

Afterword

Biographies of Contributors

Acknowledgments

About the Editors