Table of Contents
Foreword David Lehman xiii
Introduction Major Jackson xxi
Dilruba Ahmed, "Phase One" 1
Rosa Alcalá, "You & the Raw Bullets" 4
Margaret Atwood, "Update on Werewolves" 5
Catherine Barnett, "Central Park" 7
Joshua Bennett, "America Will Be" 9
Fleda Brown, "Afternoons at the Lake" 11
Sumita Chakraborty, "Essay on Joy" 13
Victoria Chang, "Six Obits" 15
Chen Chen, "I Invite My Parents to a Dinner Party" 22
Leonard Cohen, "Drank a Lot" 25
Laura Cronk, "Like a Cat" 28
Kate Daniels, "Metaphor-less" 30
Carl Dennis, "Armed Neighbor" 31
Toi Derricotte, "An apology to the reader" 33
Thomas Devaney, "Brilliant Corners" 34
Natalie Diaz, "Skin-Light" 36
Joanne Dominique Dwyer, "Decline in the Adoration of Jack-in-the-Pulpits" 39
Martín Espada, "I Now Pronounce You Dead" 41
Nausheen Eusuf, "The Analytic Hour" 42
Vievee Francis, "Canzone in Blue, Then Bluer" 44
Gabriela Garcia, "Guantanamera" 46
Amy Gerstler, "Update" 48
Camille Guthrie, "Virgil, Hey" 49
Yona Harvey, "Dark and Lovely After Take-Off (A Future)" 51
Robert Hass, "Dancing" 53
Terrance Hayes, "American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin" 57
Juan Felipe Herrera, "Roll Under the Waves" 58
Edward Hirsch, "Stranger by Night" 59
Jane Hirshfield, "Ledger" 60
James Hoch, "Sunflowers" 62
Bob Holman, "All Praise Cecil Taylor" 64
Garrett Hongo, "The Bathers, Cassis" 65
Ishion Hutchinson, "Sympathy of a Clear Day" 67
Didi Jackson, "The Burning Bush" 69
Major Jackson, "In Memory of Derek Alton Walcott" 70
Ilya Kaminsky, "from 'Last Will and Testament'" 75
Ruth Ellen Kocher, "We May No Longer Consider the End" 78
Deborah Landau, "Soft Targets" 79
Quraysh Ail Lansana, "Higher Calling" 81
Li-Young Lee, "The Undressing" 83
David Lehman, "It Could Happen to You" 96
Ada Limón, "Cannibal Woman" 98
Rebecca Lindenberg, "A Brief History of the Future Apocalypse" 100
Nabila Lovelace, "The S in 'I Loves You, Porgy'" 105
Clarence Major, "Hair" 106
Gail Mazur, "At Land's End" 108
Shane McCrae, "The President Visits the Storm" 110
Jeffrey McDaniel, "Bio from a Parallel World" 113
Campbell McGrath, "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool/The Founding of Brasilia (1950)" 115
Ange Mlinko, "Sleepwalking in Venice" 117
Kamilah Aisha Moon, "Fannie Lou Hamer" 123
Andrew Motion, "The Last of England" 126
Paul Muldoon, "Aubade" 128
John Murillo, "On Confessionalism" 130
Naomi Shihab Nye, 'You Are Your Own State Department" 133
Sharon Olds, "Rasputin Aria" 135
Michael Palmer, "Nord-Sud" 136
Morgan Parker, "The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady & The Dead & The Truth" 138
Willie Perdomo, "Head Crack Head Crack" 140
Carl Phillips, "Star Map with Action Figures" 142
Ishmael Reed, "Just Rollin' Along" 144
Paisley Rekdal, "Four Marys" 146
Sonia Sanchez, "Belly, Buttocks, and Straight Spines" 151
Nicole Santalucia, "#MeToo" 158
Philip Schultz, "The Women's March" 159
Lloyd Schwartz, "Vermeer's Pearl" 160
Alan Shapiro, "Encore" 163
Jane Shore, "Who Knows One" 165
Tracy K. Smith, "The Greatest Personal Privation" 169
A. E. Stallings, "Harm's Way" 172
Arthur Sze, "The White Orchard" 173
Natasha Trethewey, "Duty" 174
Ocean Vuong, "Partly True Poem Reflected in a Mirror" 176
David Wojahn, "Still Life: Stevens's Wallet on a Key West Hotel Dresser" 178
Kevin Young, "Hive" 180
Contributors' Notes and Comments 181
Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published 223
Acknowledgments 227
