Dazzling in its range, exhilarating in its immediacy and grace, a collection that gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past forty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations. From Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich, to Robert Haas and Louise Glück, this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings. Other poets include: Sylvia Plath James Merrill Amy clampitt Jorie Graham W. S. Merwin Charles Simic Allen Ginsberg Frank O'Hara Anne Sexton Robert Creeley Sharon Olds Mary Oliver Robert Pinsky Mark Strand Denise Levertov Richard Wilbur May Swenson Michael Palmer Mark Doty Yusef Komunyakaa Dazzling in its range, exhilarating in its immediacy and grace, this collection gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past forty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations. From Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich, to Robert Haas and Louise Gluck, this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings. its range, exhilarating in its immediacy and grace, this collection gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past forty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations. From Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich, to Robert Haas and Louise Gluck, this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings. J. D. McCLATCHY is the author of seven previous collections of poetry and of three collections of prose. He has also edited numerous books, including The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry , and has written a number of opera libretti that have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, La Scala, and elsewhere. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, where he served as president from 2009 to 2012. McClatchy teaches at Yale University and is editor of The Yale Review. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION  A NOTE ON THE SECOND EDITION, 2003  ROBERT LOWELL   The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket  Memories of West Street and Lepke  Man and Wife  Skunk Hour  The Mouth of the Hudson  For the Union Dead  Waking Early Sunday Morning  History  The Nihilist as Hero  Reading Myself  Obit  Fishnet  Dolphin  Epilogue  ELIZABETH BISHOP  The Bight  Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance  At the Fishhouses  The Shampoo  Brazil, January 1, 1502  Under the Window: Ouro Prêto  The Armadillo  Filling Station  In the Waiting Room  One Art  Poem  THEODORE ROETHKE  Cuttings  Root Cellar  The Shape of the Fire  The Waking  I Knew a Woman  In a Dark Time   JOHN BERRYMAN  The Moon and the Night and the Men  from  The Dream Songs (1, 4, 5, 14, 29, 46, 76, 77, 143, 257, 384)  RANDALL JARRELL  90 North  Eighth Air Force  The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner  The Woman at the Washington Zoo  Cinderella  Next Day  Well Water  ROBERT PENN WARREN  Masts at Dawn  Birth of Love  Rattlesnake Country  Evening Hawk  CHARLES OLSON  The Kingfishers  J. V. CUNNINGHAM  For My Contemporaries  To My Wife  from ACentury of Epigrams (29, 53, 55, 62, 76)  ROBERT HAYDEN  Night, Death, Mississippi  Frederick Douglass  Middle Passage  JEAN GARRIGUE  Amsterdam Letter  Cracked Looking Glass  After Reading  The Country of the Pointed Firs  MAY SWENSON  Teleology  Unconscious Came a Beauty  Stone Gullets  Staying at Ed’s Place  Strawberrying  ROBERT DUNCAN  APoem Beginning with a Line by Pindar  Styx  WILLIAM MEREDITH The Illiterate  Thoughts on One’s Head  Consequences  Country Stars  The Jain Bird Hospital in Delhi  HOWARD NEMEROV Storm Windows Writing Money The Dependencies Learning the Trees  Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry  The War in the Air  RICHARD WILBUR  ABaroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra  Looking into History  Love Calls Us to the Things of This World  Mind  Advice to a Prophet  Walking to Sleep  Hamlen Brook  MONA VAN DUYN  Homework   Into Mexico  The Twins  AView  The Stream HOWARD MOSS  The Pruned Tree  The Wars  Ménage à Trois  Elegy for My Sister  Rules of Sleep  Einstein’s Bathrobe  JAMES DICKEY  The Heaven of Animals  The Hospital Window  The Sheep Child  The Strength of Fields  ANTHONY HECHT  AHill  Third Avenue in Sunlight  “More Light! More Light!”  Peripeteia  The Feast of Stephen  JAMES SCHUYLER  The Crystal Lithium  Shimmer  Korean Mums  DENISE LEVERTOV  Clouds  The Ache of Marriage  Intrusion  Seeing for a Moment  Prisoners  RICHARD HUGO  Graves at Elkhorn  The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir  Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg  The River Now  EDGAR BOWE