The ExtLaordinaryJid^ r^^-'New Poetry by American Womei^

L.

EDITED BY Susan Aizenberg and Erin Belieu

Jeremy Countryman

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Columbia University Press New York Contents

Foreword by Eleanor Wilner XX,

Introduction XV

Marjorie Agosin The Obedient Girl 1 Fear 2 Fear II 2 Night 3

Ai Chance 4 Charisma 5 The Paparazzi 6

Susan Aizenberg Meeting the Angel 8 Kiss 9 Art 10

Sandra Alcosser My Number 12 Dancing the Tarantella at the County Farm 13 By the Nape 14

Elizabeth Alexander Apollo 15 Affirmative Action Blues (1993) 16 Equinox 17

Pamela Alexander Manners 18 Understory 18 Look Here 19 Soon 19 CONTENTS Julia Alvarez Bilingual Sestina 20 Estel 22 Angela Ball The Dance Pianist 23 The Man in a Shell 24 The Kiss 25 Dorothy Barresi When I Think About America Sometimes (I Think of Ralph Kramden) 26 Robin Becker A History of Sexual Preference 31 The Crypto-Jews 32 Late Words for My Sister 33 Dog-God 34 Erin Belieu Erections 35 Your Character Is Your Destiny 36 Choose Your Garden \ 37 Lovely 38 Linda Bierds Vespertilio 39 Lawrence and Edison in New Jersey: 1923 40 Depth of Field 41 After-image 42 Chana Bloch Act One 43 How the Last Act Begins 43 Puzzle Pieces 44 Michelle Boisseau Fog 45 —Cassiopeia at Noon 46 Sleeplessness: 47 Catherine Bowman Demographics 48 From The El Paso Times "World of Women" 49 Heart 50 CONTENTS '—- IX Lucie Brock-Broido Her Habit 52 Prescient 53 Housekeeping 53

Olga Broumas Lumens 54 Photo Genie 57

Teresa Cader Spirit Papers 58 Empress Shotoku Invents Printing in 770 59

Marilyn Chin Composed Near the Bay Bridge 60 Beijing Spring 61 Autumn Leaves 62

Lucille Clifton hag riding 62 blake 63 to michal 63 what did she know, when did she know it 64

Judith Ortiz Cofer Photographs of My Father 64 Letter from Home in Spanish 66 from Three Poems in Memory of Mama (Grandmother) Cold as Heaven 67

Martha Collins The Border 68 Lies 69 Out of My Own Pocket 70 Like Her Body The World 71

Jane Cooper My Mother in Three Acts 72 Estrangement 72 Hotel de Dream 73 Childhood in Jacksonville, Florida 74

Kate Daniels Prayer to the Muse of Ordinary Life 75 After Reading Reznikoff 77 CONTENTS Madeline DeFrees In the Locker Room 78 In the middle of Priest Lake 79 Blueprints 80

Toi Derricotte Bookstore 81 Black Boys Play the Classics 81 For Black Women Who Are Afraid 82 For Sister Sue Ellen and Her Special Messenger 83

Deborah Digges Rough Music 83 Akhmatova 85 Five Smooth Stones 87

Rita Dove Rosa 88 History 89 Exit 89 Blue Days 90 Gotterdammerung \ 90

Nancy Eimers Morbid 91 A Night Without Stars 93 No Moon 93

Lynn Emanuel The Corpses, 95 Halfway Through the Book I'm Writing 96 In English in a Poem 97

Angle Estes Now and Again: An Autobiography of Basket 98 The Annunciation in an Initial R 99

Kathy Fagan Moving & St Rage 101 Revisionarv Instruments I 102 She Attempts to Tell the Truth About True Romance 103 CONTENTS Candice Favilla west lexas Kain journal 107 Red Clay 109

Carolyn Forche Elegy 111 The Testimony of Light 112 The Garden Shukkei-en 112

Alice Fulton = = 114 Wonder Bread 115 Take: A Roman Wedding 116

Tess Gallagher . Trace, In Unison 118 Fresh Stain 118 Valentine Delivered by a Raven 119 Un Extrano 120

Amy Gerstler Siren 122 The Nature of Suffering 122 Saints 123 Housebound 123

Patricia Goedicke Lacrimae Rerum 124 From the Boat 125 - The Ground Beneath Us 126 And Yet 128

Beckian Fritz Goldberg My Bomb 129 Swallower 130 Rebirth 131

Jorie Graham Thinking 132 The Guardian Angel of Not Feeling 133 Willow in Spring Wind: A Showing 134 Of the Ever-Changing Agitation in the Air 135 Xll <~ CONTENTS Linda Gregerson Saints' Logic 136 Line Drive Caught by the Grace of God 137 Mother Ruin 138

Linda Gregg The Limits of Desire 139 Stuff 140 Fish Tea Rice 140 The Tree Falling in a Vacant Forest 141 The Unknowing 142

Marilyn Hacker The Boy 142 Twelfth Floor West 144 Invocation 144 Broceliande 145

Rachel Hadas Still Life in Garden 146 Shells 146 On That Mountain 147 Falcon 148 Mutability 149

Kimiko Hahn A Boat Down the River of Yellow Silt 150 Radiator 150 Clippings 151 Annotation in Her Last Court Diary 153

Susan Hahn For Beauty 153 The Fifth Amendment 154 January Ovaries 155

Brenda Hillman The Mysteries 156 The Arroyo 157 Male Nipples 160

Jane Hirshfield The Lives of the Heart 163 On the Beach 164 CONTENTS '—' Xlll

Not-Yet 164 Painting 165 Each Happiness Ringed by Lions 166 Linda Hogan Nothing - 166 Tear 167 Map 168

Janet Holmes Depressive Episode 169 Whistle 170 Fantasie Metropolitan 172 Fanny Howe Basic Science 173 Bathroom 174 Starlet 175 My Broken Heart 176 Marie Howe The Attic 177 How Some of It Happened 178 The Kiss 179 What the Living Do 180 Lynda Hull Red Velvet Jacket 181 The Window 184 Barbara Jordan Viper Light 187 This Poem 188 Peaceable Kingdom 188 Allison Joseph Soul Train 189 Wedding Party 191 Brigit Pegeen Kelly Song 192 Petition 194 Botticelli's St. Sebastian 195 Wild Turkeys: The Dignity of the Damned 196 XIV • • CONTENTS Jane Kenyon Dutch Interiors 197 Having It Out with Melancholy 198 August Rain, After Haying 201

Mary Kinzie The Bolt 202 Beautiful Days 203

Carolyn Kizer Twelve O'clock 203 Reunion 207 Fearful Women 207 Ingathering 208 Election Day, 1984 210

Maxine Kumin Early Thoughts of Winter 210 Almost Spring, Driving Home, Reciting Hopkins 211 October, Yellowstone Park 212 Credo 214

Ann Lauterbach Meanwhile the Turtle 215 Werner Herzog 68 / Iowa City 88 216 How Things Bear Their Telling 217

Dorianne Laux This Close 219 What I Wouldn't Do 220 Homecoming 221 The Thief 222

Cleopatra Mathis Blues: Late August 223 The Angels 223 from Lessons 12. Given What Manages 224

Gail Mazur The Acorn - 226 After the Storm, August 227 Keep Going 227 Then 230 CONTENTS ' ' XV Heather McHugh Past All Understanding 231 Sizing 232 Three To's and an Oi 233 Etymological Dirge 234 Ghazal of the Better-Unbegun 234

Lynne McMahon Not Falling 235 Peace Studies 236 All quail to the wallowing, 237

Sandra McPherson Outsider: Minnie Evans 238 Bedrooms 240 Genius of Fog at Ecola Creek Mouth 241

Jane Miller Giants 243 Sonnet Against Nuclear Weapons 244 Foundered Star 245

Susan Mitchell The Grove at Nemi 246 Golden Bough: The Feather Palm 248

Thylias Moss Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler 249

Lisel Mueller Losing My Sight 253 Statues 254 The Late-Born Daughters 255 Happy and Unhappy Families I 256 Happy and Unhappy Families II 257 Animals Are Entering Our Lives 258

Laura Mullen House 259 For the Reader (Blank Book) 260 Self-Portrait as Somebody Else 261 After I Was Dead 262

Carol Muske Like This 263 Miracles 264 CONTENTS

At the School for the Gifted 265 Blue Rose 266

Marilyn Nelson How I Discovered Poetry 267 Juneteenth 268 Chosen 269 The Sacrament of Poverty 269 Lovesong 270

Alice Notley A Baby Is Born Out of a White Owl's Forehead—1972 270 I—Towards a Definition 272 Mysteries of Small Houses 273

Naomi Shihab Nye Steps 274 Across the Bay 275 Vocabulary of Dearness 276 I Still Have Everything You Gave Me 277 Fuel 277

Sharon Olds First 278 Her First Week 279 Lifelong 280 The Promise 281

Jacqueline Osherow Phantom Haiku/Silent Film 282 Ghazal: Comet 283 Villanelle from a Sentence in a Poet's Brief Biography 284

Alicia Suskin Ostriker The Studio (Homage to Alice Neel) 284 The Boys, the Broom Handle, the Retarded Girl 285 from The Mastectomy Poems The Bridge 286 Wintering 287 Healing 288 Millennial Polka 289

Linda Pastan An Early Afterlife 290 Agoraphobia 291 Self-Portrait 292 CONTENTS —-- XV11 Molly Peacock Why I Am Not a Buddhist 293 The Purr 294 The Fare 294 Matins 295 Lucia Perillo For Edward Hopper, from the Floor 296 Lament in Good Weather 297 For I Have Taught the Japanese 297 Marie Ponsot "I've Been Around: It Gets Me Nowhere" 299 One Is One 300 The Story After the Story 300 "Trois Petits Tours et Puis ..." 301 Winter 302

Minnie Bruce Pratt Shades 303 The White Star 304 Eating Clay 306 Claudia Rankine Testimonial 307 Hilda Raz Before John and Maria's Wedding 309 Volunteers 310 Fast Car on Nebraska 1-80: Visiting Teacher 3u Martha Rhodes Behind Me 313 Bare Windows 3H Inside Father's Pockets 314 All the Soups 315 The Robe 315 Adrienne Rich Letters to a Young Poet 316 In Those Years 319 What Kind of Times Are These 3i9 Mary Ruefle Controlling Factors 320 School of Denial 321 CONTENTS

Minor Figure 321 Stopwatch 322

Kay Ryan Why Isn't It All More Marked 323 The Woman Who Wrote Too Much 324 Surfaces 324 If She Only Had One Minute 325 Elephant Rocks 326

Mary Jo Salter A Rainbow Over the Seine 326 Distance 328 Absolute September 329 Liam 329

Leslie Scalapino from New Time 330

Grace Schulman False Move 333 Crossing the Square 334 Notes from Underground: W. H. Auden on the Lexington Avenue IRT 335 Two Trees 336

Maureen Seaton Malleus Maleficarum 4 337 Tagging 338 Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death 339 The Man Who Killed Himself to Avoid August 340

Rebecca Seilerle Welcome to Ithaca 341 The Catch 342 Mother Tongue 343

Vivian Shipley At Fifty 344 The Faithful Daughter Dreams of Spring Break While Installing a Bird Feeder for Her Mother by a Window in the Courtyard of Safe Harbour 345 A Heart with Little or No Bedrock for Anchor 346 CONTENTS Aleda Shirley Late Night Radio 348 Long Distance 349 Betsy Sholl To the Dregs 350 Something to Say 351 The Past 353 Maurya Simon All Souls' Day 354 Coward 355 Doomsday 356 The Search 357 Cathy Song Journey 358 Leaf 359 Golden 360 Elizabeth Spires Worldling 361 The Robed Heart 362 The Rock 362 Pamela Stewart August 364 What It's For 365 Martin 366 Against Silence 367 Susan Stewart The Arbor 1937 368 Ruth Stone Hummingbirds 372 Earth Quake 372 Up There 373 Reading 373 So Be It 374 Stephanie Strickland Absent from Dances, 1925 375 Fig Tree 376 Gustave Thibon, How Simone Weil Appeared to Me/2 377 CONTENTS

gustave inioon, MOW sxmone wen Appearea to ivie/j 377 Gustave Thibon, How Simone Weil Appeared to Me/4 378 Gustave Thibon, How Simone Weil Appeared to Me/5 379 Intact 379

Terese Svoboda The Goddess Corn Finds Her Dress in Disarray 380 Appomattox 381 Epithalamion 382

Ann Townsend Purple Loosestrife 383 Rouge 384 Outdoor Chums in the Forest 385

Chase Twichell Tea Mind 386 Kerosene 386 Private Airplane 387 My Taste for Trash 387 Horse 388

Leslie Ullman Rose Quartz 388 1945 389 Resolve 390

Jean Valentine X 391 The One You Wanted to Be Is the One You Are 392 The First Station 392 The Under Voice 393 American River Sky Alcohol Father 393 Death Asphodel 394 Yield Everything, Force Nothing 394

Mona Van Duyn One Strategy for Loving the World 395 Late Flight of the Love God 395 Poets in Late Winter 396

Ellen Bryant Voigt from Kyrie 398 CONTENTS • ' XXI Belle Waring Look 402 So Get Over It, Honey 403 Baltazar Beats His Tutor at Scrabble 404

Rosanna Warren Hagar 405 His Long Home 406 Song 408 Man, That Is Born of a Woman 409

Rachel Wetzsteon Learning from the Movies 410 Thoughts While Walking 410 Surgical Moves 412

Susan Wheeler He or She That's Got the Limb, That Holds Me Out on It 413 Song for the Spirit of Natalie Going 413 That Been to Me My Lives Light and Saviour 414

Eleanor Wilner You, Failed Pronoun 416 Judgment 416 Her Body Is Private 417 All the Wide Grin of Him 418 Abstraction 419

C. D. Wright from Deepstep Come Shining 421

Contributors 425

Acknowledgments 443

Index 4S7