Illinois State Library

When a parent is poet, the child becomes a muse—often wondrous, sometimes terrifying. This anthology explores the vast emotional landscape of parenting, from the serenity of innocent naps to the howling anguish of early deaths. Here are poetic mothers and fathers (and children), across cultures both ancient and modern, trying to make sense—and art—from the sublime mystery and relentless grind of living with children.

Never has there been a collection that so honestly speaks to the parents’ perspective, where moments of tenderness—such as a father abandoning "the most divinely inspired poem" to feed his son—have their counterpoints:

—a nursing mother-poet, who has not slept in 400 nights, going "gradually mad" or —a mother’s realization that her daughter would "drive nails into my tongue"

Remember those older friends we used to envy,
brilliant and glittering with beauty,
Who refused to have children,
not about to sacrifice their careers
Who refused the mess, the entrapment,
as we toiled over chores and homework,
worried about measles and money—
Have you seen them lately?
They no longer converse in sparkling cadenzas.
They are obsessed with their little dog
who piddles on the Oriental rug,
who throws up on the bedspread…

They way they caress him makes you fairly ill
the way they call him, "Baby."
from "Children" by Carolyn Kizer

Michael Wiegers is the managing editor at Copper Canyon Press. His most recent anthology is Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon, 2002), co-edited with Monica de la Torre.

Contributors Include:
John Balaban
Marvin Bell
Kay Boyle
Norman Dubie
Susan Griffin
Jim Harrison
Ho Xuan Huong
Rolf Jacobsen
Richard Jones
Carolyn Kizer
Thomas McGrath
W.S. Merwin
Alberto Ríos
Ann Stanford
Su Tung-p’o
T’ao Chien
C.D. Wright

The inaugural volume in the Copper Canyon Press Back to Books Series

The centuries have changed little in this art,
The subjects are still the same.—Kenneth Rexroth

Why poetry? What is poetry and why do people write it and read it? Why, as Dana Levin has written, "this urge to making a scrapbook of stars"?

Every poet, by accident or design, has responded to "Why poetry" by writing a poem about poetry (an ars poetica). Whether these poems focus on the personal, political, or philosophical, each recognizes that our world is more complicated than a direct statement.

As Marvin Bell has written, "Writing is all and everything." This anthology of poems about the art and life of poetry—which draws widely from Copper Canyon’s 30-year backlist of poetry books—proves him right.

Poets write out of love and longing:

Lord, let me live / long enough to dare /a love poem —Cyrus Cassells

Poets confront suffering:

since we will always have a suffering world, we must also always have a song.—David Budbill

And poets write in order to live fully:

We all stumble into ourselves /like this, fitting our fingers to the shape of letters,/ while the page gallops out of our reach—Rebecca Seiferle

Only poetry lasts.—Ho Xuan Huong

Michael Wiegers is the Managing Editor at Copper Canyon Press.

CONTRIBUTORS Included: [box]
Kay Boyle,
Olga Broumas,
Hayden Carruth,
Norman Dubie,
Han Shan,
Jim Harrison,
Carolyn Kizer,
W.S. Merwin,
Jane Miller,
Kenneth Rexroth,
Ruth Stone,
Anna Swir