Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- MARY JO BANG -- POEMS -- From The Eye Like A Strange Balloon: High Art -- Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters -- Untitled # 70 (Or, The Question of Remains) -- From Elegy: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus -- Words -- From The Bride of E: And as in Alice -- B Is for Beckett -- C Is for Cher -- In the Present and Probable Future -- From the Mrs. Dalloway series: Opened and Shut -- POETICS STATEMENT -- ARTICULATIONS OF ARTIFICE IN THE WORK OF MARY JO BANG -- LUCILLE CLIFTON -- POEMS -- From Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980: [the light that came to Lucille Clifton] -- From Quilting: eve's version -- lucifer speaks in his own voice -- From The Book of Light: daughters -- [won't you celebrate with me] -- leda 1 -- leda 3 -- From The Terrible Stories: telling our stories -- From Mercy: the river between us -- From Voices: sorrows -- POETICS STATEMENT: Excerpts from an Interview with Charles Rowell -- LUCILLE CLIFTON'S COMMUNAL "i" -- KIMIKO HAHN -- POEMS -- From Mosquito and Ant: Orchid Root -- Garnet -- From The Narrow Road to the Interior: Utica Station Dep.10:07 A.M. to N.Y. Penn Station -- From The Artist's Daughter: In Childhood -- Like Lavrinia -- POETICS STATEMENT: Still Writing the Body -- "I WANT TO GO WHERE THE HYSTERIC RESIDES": Kimiko Hahn's Re-Articulation of the Feminine in Poetry -- CARLA HARRYMAN -- POEMS -- From Baby: [Now. Word. Technology.] -- [Dark. Swat. Land.] -- [The. Open. Box.] -- [Baby. N. Baseball. Song.] -- [Wartime Surroundings.] -- From Adorno's Noise: [consents to a few statements one knows ultimately to implicate murder] -- [it is difficult to write satire] -- [the opposite of slackness] -- POETICS STATEMENT: Siren -- LISTENING IN ON CARLA HARRYMAN'S BABY -- ERÍN MOURE -- POEMS -- From O Cidadán: document32 (inviolable) -- document33 (arena).

Eleventh Impermeable of the Carthage of Harms -- From Little Theatres: Theatre of the Confluence (A Carixa) -- Theatre of the Stones that Ran (Fontao, 1943) -- Theatre of the Millo Seco (Botos) -- From O Cadoiro: [[T]he best woman i ever saw.] -- [This night of liquid storms, high noon s dwelling] -- POETICS STATEMENT: A Practice of Possibility, a Life in Languages -- MOURE'S ABRASIONS -- LAURA MULLEN -- POEMS -- From The Surface -- From The Tales of Horror: (A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody) -- From After I Was Dead: Secrets -- 35 ½ -- From Murmur -- From Subject: Circles -- POETICS STATEMENT -- LAURA MULLEN: THREATENED AS THREAT: Rethinking Gender and Genre -- EILEEN MYLES -- POEMS -- Transitions -- Snowflake -- To My Class -- Questions -- Hi -- POETICS STATEMENT -- "WHEN WE'RE ALONE IN PUBLIC": The Poetry of Eileen Myles -- M. NOURBESE PHILIP -- POEMS -- From She Tries Her Tongue -- Her Silence Softly Breaks Discourse on the Logic of Language -- From Universal Grammar -- From Zong! Os, Zong! #2 -- Zong! #4 -- Ferrum (excerpt) -- POETICS STATEMENT: Ignoring Poetry (a work in progress) -- THE LANGUAGE OF TRAUMA: Faith and Atheism in M. NourbeSe Philip's Poetry -- JOAN RETALLACK -- POEMS -- From Errata 5uite -- From How to Do Things with Words: The Woman in the Chinese Room -- From MONGRELISME -- From MEMNOIR Curiosity and the Claim to Happiness -- Lost Brief Case Conjecture -- POETICS STATEMENT: Procedural Elegies: N Plus Zero -- THE METHOD "IN MEDIAS MESS" -- LISA ROBERTSON -- POEMS -- From The Weather: Residence at C___ -- Tuesday -- Residence at C___ -- Saturday -- From Utopia (R's Boat): [In the spring of 1979] -- POETICS STATEMENT: Soft Architecture: A Manifesto -- ABOUT SURFACE: Lisa Robertson's Poetics of Elegance -- C. D. WRIGHT -- POEMS -- From Steal Away: Floating Trees -- Privacy -- From Cooling Time: [only the crossing counts.].

[elation washed over our absence toward everything in the increasing darkness] -- From One Big Self: An Investigation: Dear Prisoner -- My Dear Conflicted Reader -- Dear Child of God -- [Mack trapped a spider] -- From Rising, Falling, Hovering: Re: Happiness, in pursuit thereof -- Like Having a Light at Your Back You Can't See but You Can Still Feel -- Like a Prisoner of Soft Words -- Like Something in His Handwriting -- Like Something Flying Backwards -- POETICS STATEMENT: My American Scrawl -- THE BORDER-CROSSING RELATIONAL POETRY OF C. D. WRIGHT -- Contributors -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.