Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, The Best American Poetry is the one indispensable volume for readers eager to follow what's new in poetry today. Sales continue to grow and plaudits keep coming in for this "high-voltage testament to the vitality of American poetry" (Booklist). Selected by prizewinning guest editor James Tate, the seventy-five best poems of the year were chosen from more than three dozen magazines and range from the comic to the cosmic, from the contemplative to the sublime. In addition to showcasing our leading bards -- such as John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, and Mark Strand -- the collection marks an auspicious debut for eye-opening younger poets. With comments from the poets themselves offering insights into their work, The Best American Poetry 1997 delivers the startling and imaginative writing that more and more people have come to expect from this prestigious series. "The daily routine of our lives can be good and even wonderful, but there is still a hunger in us for the mystery of the deep waters, and poetry can fulfill that hunger." So writes James Tate, editor of the 1997 edition of Best American Poetry. The poems that follow his essay bear out the claim. Including work by Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Mark Strand, and other first-rate poets, the 1997 collection again delights the reader with the variety and quality of poetry now being written. Here is a taste, from Mark Strand's contribution, "Morning, Noon and Night": "Whatever the starcharts told us to watch for or the maps / Said we would find, nothing prepared us for what we discovered. / We toiled in the shadowless depths of noon, / While an alien wind slept in the branches, and dead leaves / Turned to dust in the streets." This series consistently produces collections that are essential reading for poetry lovers. Chicago Tribune A truly memorable anthology. David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry , edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry . His books of poetry include The Morning Line , When a Woman Loves a Man , and The Daily Mirror. He has written such nonfiction books as Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York. Chapter 1 Back in the World I took a shortcut through blood to get back to you, but the house where I left you is empty now. You've packed up and moved on, leaving this old photograph of the two of us, taken before I left for Viet Nam. You've cut yourself out of it, torn your half in pieces and lain them on the mantel, where your knickknacks used to be: those godawful Hummels you'd been saving for years and a small glass vial you said contained your grandmother's tears. A thick film of dust comes off on my fingers, when I rub them across the years that came to separate us. In a corner of the living room, facing a wall, I find my last painting of you. In it, you lie, naked, on the old iron bed, your head hanging over the side, your hair, flowing to the floor like a wide black river. There, Max, the cat, is curled in a grey, purring blur, all fur and gooseberry green eyes that stare at me, as if accusing me of some indiscretion he doesn't dare mention. Suddenly, he meows loudly and rises as if he's been spooked, runs through the house, then swoops back to his place beside you, and beside the night table, on which I've painted a heart on a white plate, and a knife and fork on a red checkered napkin. You hate the painting. You say I'm perverse to paint you that way, and worse, an amateur. "Do you want to tear my heart out and eat it like those Aztecs used to do, so you can prove you don't need me?" you ask. "But I do need you," I say. "That's the point." "I don't get it," you say, as you dress for some party you claim you are going to, but I'm on to your game. It's your lover who's waiting for you. "I know who he is," I say, "but I don't know his name," then I run to the bathroom, grab a handful of Trojans and throw them at you, as you slam the door on me, before I can slam it on you. You don't come back, until you get word that I've enlisted in the army. I'm packing when you show up. "You heard," I say and you tell me that it's perverse of me too. "Who are you kidding, you, a soldier? And what's that?" you ask. I give you the small canvas I've just finished. "A sample of my new work," I say. "There's nothing on it," you say. "That's right," I tell you. "It's white like the plate, after I ate your heart." "Don't start," you say, "don't." We part with a brief kiss like two strangers who miss the act of pressing one mouth against another, yet resist, resist. We part on a day just like this, a day that seems as if it will never end, in an explosion that sends my body flying through the air in the white glare of morning, when without warning, I step on a landmine and regain consciousness to find I'm a notation on a doctor's c