CONTENTS Introduction 23 Yamabe no Akahito 25 THE MISTS RISE OVER William Allingham 25 WRITING Yehuda Amichai 26 MY FATHER A R Ammons 26 COWARD Anon. 27 'AT SIXTY I, DIONYSIOS' Anon. 27 PRAYER Anon. 28 THE DISTRACTED CENTIPEDE Anon. 28 'QUIETLY SITTING' Anon. 29 ANGELICA THE DOORKEEPER Anon. 29 ICE Guillaume Apollinaire 30 MOUSE W. H. Auden 30 THE AESTHETIC POINT OF VIEW Roy Baume 31 MENU Ambrose Bierce 31 WITH A BOOK Barbara Balch 32 PROBLEM Matsuo Basho 32 THE SUMMER GRASSES HilaireBelloc 33 JULIET E. Clerihew Bentley 33 THE PEOPLE OF SPAIN THINK CERVANTES John Betjeman 34 THE LAST LAUGH Bhartrihari 34 SHE WHO IS ALWAYS IN MY THOUGHTS William Blake ETERNITY 35 Richard Brautigan 35 PLEASE Joseph Brodsky 36 To A FELLOW POET BertoltBrecht 36 SEND ME A LEAF Tom Brown 37 I Do Not Love Thee, Dr Fell Robert Browning 37 RHYME FOR A CHILD John William Burgon 38 PETRA Robert Burns 38 THE BOOK-WORMS Yosa Buson 39 THE WINTER RIVER Mairead Byrne 39 MAHI-MAHI George Gordon, Lord Byron 40 ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPARATION, IN THE APRIL OF 1816 John Cage 40 1 HAVE NOTHING TO SAY' Catullus 41 I LOVE, HATE, HATE LOVE Constantine P Cavafy 41 HE VOWS Ho Chih-Chang 42 WRITTEN ON RETURN HOME Chong Choi 42 SHIJO John Ciardi 43 DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE J. Gordon Coogler 43 A PRETTY GIRL Wendy Cope 44 Two CURES FOR LOVE Cid Corman 44 UNTITLED Stephen Crane 45 TELL ME NOT IN JOYOUS NUMBERS Robert Creeley 45 MORNING Countee Cullen 46 FOR A MOUTHY WOMAN John Cunningham 46 ON ALDERMAN W - Elaine Cusack 47 SHORT THOUGHT Barbara Daniels 47 TROPHY J P Das 48 BEGINNING Charles de lint 48 THE PUPPET Thomas Parke D'Invilliers 49 THEN WEAR THE GOLD HAT John Donne 49 A LAME BEGGAR Carol Ann Duffy 50 MRS DARWIN Richard Eberhart 50 THE ECLIPSE Richard Edwards 51 WHEN I WAS THREE Paul Eluard 51 THE RIVER Marjorie M. Evasco 52 THIRD WORLD MUSIC ON THE 23RD DAY OF RAIN Gavin Ewart 52 A GREAT POEM Faiz Ahmad Faiz 53 LONELINESS George Farewell 53 QUERY Joe Fazio 54 FRIEND Duncan Forbes 54 BLURB Zymunt Frankel 55 WAKING UP IN THE MORNING Robert Frost 55 THE SECRET SITS John Fuller 56 THE BUTTERFLY Michael P. Garofalo 56 HAIKU Orlando Gibbons 57 THE SILVER SWAN Jack Gilbert 57 DIVORCE W. S. Gilbert 58 To SIT IN SOLEMN SILENCE... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 58 WHEN SPRING'S GOLD Simon Goodway 59 OCTOPUSSES Harry Graham 59 WASTE Mark Granier 60 GIRL IN A WHEELCHAIR Robert Graves 60 TWINS Olav H. Hauge 61 DON'T COME TO ME Satavahana Hala 61 'LOVE'S LIKE STRETCHING OUT' Donald Hall 62 BREASTS Michael Hamburger 62 PROGRESS Ian Hamilton 63 NATURE Thomas Hardy 63 EPITAPH ON A PESSIMIST Seamus Heany 64 THE RESCUE PietHein 64 WHAT LOVE IS LIKE Robert A. Heinlein 65 ALMIGHTY RULER OF THE ALL Ernest Hemingway 65 CHAPTER HEADING Zbigniew Herbert 66 OBJECTS Robert Herrick 66 DREAMS Prescott Hoard 67 SKY LINE Friedrich Holderlin 67 THE TREE Langston Hughes 68 BAD MORNING Ho Xuan Huong 68 THE CAKE THAT DRIFTS IN WATER David Ignatow 69 A FIRST ON TV Issa 69 NOW LISTEN Rolf Jacobsen 70 LIGHT POLE Juan Ramon Jimenez 70 Music Donald Justice 71 LORCAESQUES A.W Kayper-Mensah 71 MY HAIR-CUT John Keats 72 GIVE ME WOMEN, WINE, AND SNUFF Ronald Keen 72 'REACH OUT* Omar Khayyam 73 NEITHER YOU NOR I Kikaku 73 A BUND CHILD Stephen King 74 YOUR HAIR IS WINTER FIRE Fujiwara no Kiyosuke 74 I MAY LIVE ON UNTIL R. D. Laing 75 *WHY DID THE PEACOCK SCREAM' Walter Savage Landor 75 THE GEORGES Frederick Langbridge 76 PHILOSOPHY Ring Lardner 76 QUIESCENT, A PERSON SITS Philip Larkin 77 DAWN D. H. Lawrence 77 SELF-PITY Christopher Logue 78 To A FRIEND Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 78 THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL Amy Lowell 79 A LOVER Lucilius 79 'MEAN OLD HERMON' Antonio Machado 80 CLOSE TO THE ROAD Jayant Mahapatra 80 SONG OF THE RIVER Stephane Mallarme 81 GRASS AND BONE Anne Malcolm 81 UNTITLED Osip Mandelstam 82 THE SHY SPEECHLESS SOUND' Harry Martinson 82 CREATION NIGHT Martial 83 EPIGRAM David McCord 83 To A CERTAIN MOST CERTAINLY CERTAIN CRITIC Roger McGough 84 CAKE Paula Meehan 84 IN MEMORY, JOHN BORROWMAN William Michaelian 85 HOPE Edna St. Vincent Millay 85 GROWN-UP Spike Milligan 86 HAMLET Andrew Motion 86 CAUSA BELU Paul Muldon 87 Tract Les Murray 87 VISITOR Howard Nemerov A MALE CHAUVINIST MERMAID B P Nichol LANDSCAPE: I Grace Nichols 89 EPILOGUE George Gordon Noel 89 EPITAPH FOR LORD CASTLEREAGH Alden Nowlan 90 IN THE GARDEN Ogden Nash 90 REFLECTIONS ON ICE-BREAKING Dorothy Parker 91 EXPERIENCE D. D. Perrin 91 A MOSQUITO WAS HEARD TO COMPLAIN Fernando Pessoa 92 WANT LITTLE: YOU'LL HAVE EVERYTHING Plato 92 STAR OF MY LIFE IiPo 93 ALONE LOOKING AT THE MOUNTAIN Peter Porter 93 INSTANT FISH Ezra Pound 94 FAN-PIECE, FOR HER IMPERIAL LORD Matthew Prior 94 HUMAN LIFE Tjipoetat Quill 95 LAST NIGHT'S ENCONTER Walter Raleigh 95 FROM CATULLUS V A. K. Ramanujan 96 EXCERPTS FROM A FATHER'S WISDOM Peter Reading 96 FOUND Mary Repard 97 To EVERY TIDE Lewis F. Richardson 97 BIG WHORLS HAVE LITTLE WHORLS Rainer Maria Rilke 98 ROSE, OH PURE CONTRADICTION, JOY Jalaluddin Rumi 98 THE BIRDS HAVE FLOWN TO FREEDOM Salman Rushdie 99 DEDICATION J. D. Salinger 99 JOHN KEATS Carl Sandburg 100 CHOOSE Sappho 100 THE MOON IS DOWN F.R. Scott 101 ECLIPSE George Seferis 101 THE JASMINE Percy Bysshe Shelley 102 ONE SUNG OF THEE WHO LEFT THE TALE UNTOLD Izumi Shikibu 102 'ON NIGHTS WHEN HAIL' ShelSilverstein 103 STUPID PENCIL MAKER Charles Simic 103 EVENING CHESS Stevie Smith 104 THE PAST Piotr Sommer 104 DAYS OF THE WEEK Nikos Stangos 105 DISCURSIVE VISIBILITY Anne Stevenson 105 THE MOTHER R. L. Stevenson 106 AUNTIE'S SKIRTS Trumbull Stickney 106 I HEAR A RIVER THRO' THE VALLEY WANDER Rabindranath Tagore 107 STRAY BIRDS Sarah Teasdale 107 FAULTS Alfred, Lord Tennyson 108 THE EAGLE (A FRAGMENT) JRRTolkien 108 TALL SHIPS AND TALL KINGS C Torian 109 ONE SENTENCE POEM Tukaram 109 A GOOD POEM Judith Viorst 110 SECRETS Wang Wei 110 LADY XI John Hall Wheelock 111 EARTH SivWiderberg 111 NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP Hugo Williams 112 LIGHTS OUT JohnWilmot 112 EPITAPH ON CHARLES II MJ Wilson 113 DIARY WB Yeats 113 ON BEING ASKED FOR A WAR POEM Adam Zagajewski 114 THIS DAY'S NOTHINGNESS.