Poets of the New Century

by Weingarten, Roger

• ISBN13: 9781567921786
• ISBN10: 1567921787
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: David R Godine Pub

Summary

Innovative, unified by the vision of the editors, and unabashedly provocative, Poets of the New Century presents a comprehensive selection of the best and most exciting poetry being written today; it is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the current and future trends of American verse. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Roger Weingarten is the author of eight volumes of poetry, co-editor of four poetry anthologies including New American Poets of the '90s (Godine, 1991) and editor of the Invisible Cities Press Poetry series. His poems and essays have appeared in magazines and journals including American Poetry Review, Poetry, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The New Republic. He has been a fellow of the Ingram Merrill Foundation, The Dana Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He founded and teaches in the MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Union Institute Richard M. Higgerson received his BA in English from the University of Vermont and his MFA in Modern Poetry and Creative Writing from Vermont College of Norwich University. He has poems forthcoming in Prague Revue and Manthology: Poems of the Male Experience published by Invisible Cities Press. He lives in South Pomfret, Vermont with his wife and two daughters

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xvii
Twilight	p. 1
Twice Removed	p. 1
Months Later	p. 2
Untitled	p. 3
Why We Fear the Amish	p. 3
Midnight at the Third Street Sculpture Garden	p. 4
Sisters in Perpetual Motion	p. 5
Rustic Portrait	p. 6
Interlude: Still Still	p. 7
Whether or Not There Are Apples	p. 8
Elegy for Lessons	p. 9
Dark Yellow Poem	p. 11
The Chair	p. 12
Nights at The Cedar	p. 14
All I Can Say	p. 14
Burning the Fields	p. 15
The Lacemaker's Condenser	p. 17
The Suicide of Clover Adams: 1885	p. 18
The Vietnam Birthday Lottery, 1970	p. 19
Piano Tuning	p. 21
X-ray Vision	p. 22
Smoking	p. 22
The Cockroaches of Tuol Sleng Museum	p. 23
Gloomy Sunday	p. 25
Haldol	p. 26
Crack	p. 26
Genius	p. 27
The Country	p. 28
Absence	p. 29
Velocity	p. 29
Today	p. 31
A Place Made of Starlight	p. 31
For Jude the Obscure	p. 33
Brothers' Keepers	p. 33
To My Hypocrite Reader	p. 34
God Comes in a Dream to Cure a Suppliant	p. 35
Gratitude	p. 36
Fashion Shoot, Frijoles Canyon	p. 37
Memorial Day	p. 38
Moths	p. 39
Red Lead, 1978	p. 40
After the Sea Parts, My Daughter Walks Among Gravestones	p. 41
Like a Simile	p. 42
Joyland	p. 42
Heat	p. 44
Morphine	p. 44
First Solo Flight	p. 45
Clown Prince	p. 46
The Day After	p. 47
My Mother's See-Through Blouse	p. 48
Brown's Farm	p. 49
Night-Light	p. 51
The Bindi Mirror	p. 52
Ululu	p. 53
The Stilt Fisherman	p. 53
Tagging the Stealer	p. 54
Biophilia	p. 55
God	p. 57
Clitoris	p. 58
Dead Baby Speaks	p. 58
Two of the Lost Five Foolish Virgins	p. 63
The Rainbow Bridge in the Painting of the Sung Dynasty	p. 65
Guillotine Windows	p. 66
Unexpected Holiday	p. 68
(Often, In Dreams, He Moved)	p. 69
(That Day He Spent Hours)	p. 70
Mystery, So Long	p. 70
At the Gym	p. 71
Fish-R-Us	p. 72
From "An Island Sheaf":
Sea Grape Valentine	p. 74
Watermelon Soda	p. 75
On the Chinese Abduction of Tibet's Child Panchen Lama	p. 76
A Genesis Text for Larry Levis, Who Died Alone	p. 78
The Caste Wife Speaks to the Enigmatic Parabolas	p. 79
Elegy for My Brother	p. 80
The Death of God	p. 81
Nature	p. 82
Different Hours	p. 83
A Postmortem Guide	p. 84
Inspiration	p. 85
Vigil	p. 86
Narcissus	p. 87
Overhead Fan	p. 87
Exam	p. 88
Outer Space	p. 90
Passing Things	p. 92
The Instruction Manual	p. 93
The White Dress	p. 94
She	p. 94
Walt, I Salute You!	p. 95
Madame L. Describes the Seige of Paris	p. 96
Split the Lark	p. 100
One Kiss	p. 105
When the Enemy Is Illiterate	p. 105
Invaded by Souls	p. 106
Laughter and Stars	p. 108
Rooms and Their Airs (Camere et Aer Ipsius)	p. 109
White Asparagus	p. 110
What We're Used To	p. 112
Imps	p. 113
Ancestored-Back Is the Overpresiding Spirit of This Poem	p. 115
Refugees	p. 117
Twentieth-Century Children (s): Blood-Kissing	p. 118
Torture Boy's Watch, Burn Boy's Boat of Souls	p. 118
Retro Lullaby	p. 119
Law and Sensibility	p. 120
The Bat	p. 121
Lao Tzu Rebuked	p. 122
The Summer I Spent Screwing in the Back Seats of Station Wagons	p. 122
Rest	p. 123
Lesson	p. 124
Artist at Work	p. 124
Heart Attack	p. 125
Approximation 7	p. 126
Wrong Poem	p. 127
Frankfort Laundromat	p. 128
Your Visit to Drettinghob	p. 129
Parkersburg	p. 130
Zeno's Lemur	p. 131
Desperados	p. 131
Her Body	p. 132
The Eternal Light of Talk	p. 135
The Path to the Milky Way Leads Through Los Angeles	p. 136
Song from the House of Death, or How to Make It Through to the End of a Relationship	p. 137
This Is My Heart	p. 139
The End	p. 140
Our Other Sister	p. 141
Sex and Poetry	p. 142
Rowing	p. 143
A Shave by the Ganges	p. 143
My Double Non-Conversion	p. 144
Swifts at Evening	p. 145
The Party	p. 146
Miscarriage and Echo	p. 148
Birth of a Saint	p. 149
Neither Here nor There	p. 150
The Strong Yet Hollow Life Force of Hot Tub Jesus	p. 152
Evel Knievel: The Fountain at Caesar's Palace (151 feet 6 inches) Las Vegas, Nevada, September 4th, 1968	p. 153
Blanket on Grass	p. 155
Lullaby Rub	p. 157
From "Thicket Group": A Power	p. 158
Empty Spires	p. 159
A Window	p. 159
The Thicket	p. 160
Ethics of Twilight	p. 161
Colette	p. 161
Days of 1968	p. 163
Ocean of Grass	p. 163
Windchime	p. 164
Lawrence	p. 164
Benevolence	p. 166
How It Adds Up	p. 166
Teaching My Son to Drive	p. 167
Integrals	p. 168
The Third Party	p. 169
Such Beauty	p. 170
Model Father	p. 172
Ooly Pop a Cow	p. 172
Crossing New River	p. 173
Home Fires	p. 175
For Love	p. 176
For Dora Maar	p. 176
The Rapture	p. 178
Do Not Duplicate This Key	p. 179
CXXXII: The Quandary	p. 182
Terzanelle of Kosovo Fields	p. 182
No Turn on Red	p. 183
Dialect	p. 185
Goya's Saint Peter Repentant	p. 187
You Lucky People	p. 187
Unholy Sonnet	p. 188
The Storm	p. 189
The Fear	p. 189
The Freight	p. 190
Father's Day	p. 191
Sacrament for My Penis	p. 192
Elegy for a Bad Example	p. 192
Nihilist Time	p. 193
Raccoon Time	p. 193
On the Day After Allen Ginsberg's Death a Woman Thinks of Me	p. 195
Love Poem for an Enemy	p. 196
The Turn	p. 197
Black Swan	p. 198
Elegy	p. 199
Two Boys	p. 200
Outside The Blue Nile	p. 202
Queen Marie-Theresa and Nabo	p. 204
Forgive and Live	p. 206
Inviting the Moose: A Vision	p. 208
Conspiracy Theory	p. 209
November	p. 211
Western Wars Mitigated by the Confucian Analects	p. 212
Many Mansions	p. 213
Georgia O'Keefe: American Icon	p. 214
Emptying the Mind	p. 214
Little Black Dino	p. 215
Jack Benny	p. 217
Nowhere to Mosh	p. 217
Love Potion No. 9	p. 218
One of the Grim Reaper's Disguises	p. 219
Indian Sign Language	p. 219
Dead Skoonk	p. 221
Old Friend in the Dark	p. 221
I'm Still Alive	p. 222
Failed Teachers	p. 224
Sisters	p. 224
A Tiny Man of Print	p. 225
Capitalist Poem #38	p. 226
Capitalist Poem #36	p. 227
The Manatee	p. 227
The Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial	p. 227
Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun	p. 230
Past All Understanding	p. 231
The Gulf Between the Given and the Gift	p. 232
Qua Qua Qua	p. 232
We Take Our Children to Ireland	p. 233
Marriage Dissolving in the Upstairs Room	p. 234
These Same, These Many Birds	p. 235
Because	p. 236
Three Weeds	p. 237
Words	p. 238
Doppelganger	p. 238
Pussy Willow (An Apology)	p. 239
Girl Tearing Up Her Face	p. 241
First-Generation Angels	p. 243
from "Dahmer"	p. 244
The Young Asian Women	p. 246
Immigration Angel	p. 247
Narcissus	p. 248
Taking the Children Away	p. 249
On Sitting	p. 250
Bread, Meat, Greens, and Soap	p. 251
Mona's Taco	p. 252
Bill's Beans	p. 253
Knitting, Crocheting, Sewing...	p. 253
Ongoing	p. 255
Deer Traffic	p. 255
Electric Church	p. 257
Fear in Style	p. 258
St. Ives, Winter Night	p. 259
Monkey Mind	p. 260
Happy As I Am	p. 261
The Old Religion	p. 264
The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian	p. 265
Alchemy	p. 266
Samurai Song	p. 268
The Green Piano	p. 269
The Haunted Ruin	p. 270
To Television	p. 271
Group Portrait with Ukuleles	p. 273
Fitful Angel	p. 274
Table Prayer	p. 275
The Bounty	p. 277
Tilted Man, Tilted Woman	p. 278
Damsels, I	p. 279
Intact Woman	p. 280
From the Life of Don Margarito	p. 281
Writing from Memory	p. 282
Some Extensions on the Sovereignty of Science	p. 283
Versace	p. 285
Question for the Magic Hour	p. 285
Jung	p. 286
Murder in the Good Land	p. 288
Reiteration	p. 289
Opus from Space	p. 290
Come, Drink Here	p. 290
Transplanting	p. 292
Lover Release Agreement	p. 296
Resurfaced	p. 296
Quest of the Prell	p. 298
Brief History of a Sentence	p. 300
Rice County Soliloquy	p. 301
"Why Talk When You Can Paint?"	p. 302
Eve to Adam, in Retrospect	p. 304
Seven Postcards from Dover	p. 304
No Comparison	p. 306
10 April	p. 306
Among the Musk Ox People	p. 307
My Other Self	p. 308
Against Self-Torment	p. 310
Complete Semen Study	p. 310
In the Sink	p. 312
On the Day of Nixon's Funeral	p. 312
My Mother's Funeral	p. 314
Izzy	p. 314
Delirious	p. 315
Why I Won't Pierce My Ears	p. 316
I am peeling four pink grapefruit	p. 317
Wonders of the Invisible World	p. 318
Story of a Marriage	p. 319
Romeo and Juliet	p. 319
The Book of Blessings	p. 320
Illuminated Manuscript	p. 321
The Talking Cure	p. 321
The Displaced	p. 324
The Extra	p. 325
In Medias Res	p. 326
The Holy Worm of Praise	p. 327
The Zen of Crime	p. 328
Whining Prairie	p. 329
Miss Molly Rockin' in the House of Blue Light	p. 330
Woman Circling Lake	p. 331
Lateral Time	p. 331
The Freezing Point of the Universe	p. 332
Half the Music	p. 333
Queen of the Night	p. 335
Late Psalm	p. 336
The Yawner	p. 338
I Dream About My Dead	p. 341
Newsreel	p. 343
The Grid	p. 345
Speaking Louder	p. 346
Hairspray	p. 347
The Family Man	p. 348
Raisin Factory	p. 350
Devising Your Own Time	p. 351
Teaching English from an Old Composition Book	p. 352
Late Confession	p. 353
Practicing T'ai Chi Ch'uan	p. 354
Posthuman	p. 355
Outside St.-Remy-de-Provence	p. 357
Searches	p. 357
Merlin	p. 358
Los Angeles, 1954	p. 359
I Know	p. 361
Beanstalk	p. 361
Because I Wanted to Write a Happy Poem, I Thought of Harry Caray's Dying	p. 363
Confessional	p. 364
The String Diamond	p. 366
A Knock on the Door	p. 370
Never Again the Same	p. 370
The New Ergonomics	p. 371
How the Pope Is Chosen	p. 372
Exilium	p. 374
Incident	p. 375
Southbound Pullman, 1945	p. 375
The Alley Behind Ocean Drive	p. 376
Road Tar	p. 377
Erotic Energy	p. 378
A Last Look Back	p. 378
To the Reader: If You Asked Me	p. 379
To the Reader: Polaroids	p. 379
Decade	p. 380
Calypso, Twilight	p. 381
Neap Tide	p. 383
Estrogen	p. 385
Iron Brigade Highway	p. 385
Night of the Moon	p. 387
Conjuries in Amber	p. 388
"Did That Really Happen?"	p. 389
To Prove That We Existed Before You Were Born	p. 390
Tone of Voice	p. 391
Funktionslust	p. 392
Biblical Also-Rans	p. 393
One of the Wives of God	p. 394
Elegy for Matthews	p. 396
The Super	p. 397
Into the Mouth of the Rat	p. 400
One Enchanted Evening	p. 405
Catholic	p. 406
Prayer That the Rod of the Prede Stined Spouse May Blossom	p. 407
Apology for and Further Explanation of an Attempt to Divert Accusations of Equivocation	p. 408
Between Zero and Ten	p. 409
Yad	p. 410
The Drowning and the Drowned	p. 411
Conundrum	p. 412
Excavation Photo	p. 413
Stalin's Library Card	p. 414
The Room	p. 418
The Conjure Woman	p. 420
Note from the Stop-Gap Motor Inn	p. 422
Floating Lady Retablo	p. 423
Floating Lady Retablo	p. 423
Handfishing Retablo	p. 424
Handfishing Retablo	p. 424
Rosesucker Retablo	p. 424
Rosesucker Retablo	p. 425
Today's Visibility	p. 425
Howl Upone Eskaping, I Learne Mey Vehikle Is Not Sea-Worthie and Upone Mey Tragik Recapture and Longe Internmynt During Whyche I Wrighte These Words Thorough a Secret System Infolfing Mey Owne Blood	p. 426
Lives of the Painters	p. 427
Sunflower	p. 428
Side Effects	p. 429
Warhol Attends Roy Cohn's Final Birthday Party at the Palladium, June 1985	p. 431
Negative	p. 432
Campbell's Black Bean Soup	p. 433
Acknowledgments	p. 435
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.