Table of Contents
Foreword David Lehman xi
Introduction Tracy K. Smith xxi
"The Pyramid Scheme" Rosa Alcalá 1
"Divination" Lauren K. Alleyne 3
"Some Call It God" Jabari Asim 5
"Benediction" Joshua Bennett 7
"Love poem that ends at popeyes" Destiny O. Birdsong 10
"Further Exercises" Susan Briante 13
"Work" Jericho Brown 16
"After Tu Fu" Christopher Buckley 18
"Marfa, Texas" Victoria Chang 20
"The School of Eternities" Chen Chen 22
"Abecedarian for ESL in West Lafayette, Indiana" Su Cho 27
"After the Apocalypse" Ama Codjoe 29
"Gross National Unhappiness" Henri Cole 33
"On the Deaths of Friends" Billy Collins 34
"Interstate Highway System" Adam O. Davis 36
"Before the Riot" Kwame Dawes 39
"The Great Beauty" Toi Derricotte 41
"A Child's Guide to Grasses" Jay Deshpande 43
"Lake-loop" Natalie Diaz 46
"Love" Alex Dimitrov 49
"Naji, 14. Philadelphia." Rita Dove 59
"This'll hurt me more" Camille T. Dungy 60
"Stone Love" Louise Erdrich 62
"Conqueror" Kathy Fagan 64
"They Ran and Flew from You" Chanda Feldman 65
"I Feel Good" Nikky Finney 67
"Night School" Louise Glück 69
"Tilt-A-Whirl" Nancy Miller Gomez 71
"I Won't Live Long" Jorie Graham 73
"Hunger" Rachel Eliza Griffiths 76
"Sonata in F Minor, K. 183: Allegro" Francine J. Harris 77
"George Floyd" Terrance Hayes 78
"Waste Management" Edward Hirsch 80
"David" Ishion Hutchinson 82
"Two Mule Deer" Didi Jackson 83
"Double Major" Major Jackson 86
"So Much for America" Amaud Jamaul Johnson 87
"Wheelchair" Yusef Komunyakaa 88
"Immigrant Song" Dana Levin 90
"The End of Poetry" Ada Limón 92
"In the Village" James Longenbach 93
"Meditations on a Photograph of Historic Rail Women" Warren C. Longmire 97
"When My Sorrow Was Born" Emily Lee Luan 99
"All the Stops" Dora Malech 100
"Playing Dead" Sally Wen Mao 102
"Provincetown" Francisco Márquez 105
"This Is a Love Poem to Trees" Hannah Marshall 107
"The Hastily Assembled Angel on Care and Vitality" Shane McCrae 109
"There Is Only You" Lupe Mendez 111
"Since Time Immemorial" Francine Merasty 113
"a brief meditation on breath" Yesenia Montilla 114
"Irony" Kamilah Aisha Moon 116
"A Smiling Understanding" Stanley Moss 117
"When White Hawks Come" Dg nanouk okpik 118
"December" Cecily Parks 119
"Elegy with Table Saw & Cobwebs" Patrick Phillips 121
"For Black Children at the End of the World-and the Beginning" Roger Reeves 123
"For Air" Ed Roberson 125
"Blood" Margaret Ross 127
"Black and brown people on shark tank" Angbeen Saleem 130
"Pages 5-8" (An excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure) Nicole Sealey 132
"Women's voting rights at one hundred (but who's counting?)" Evie Shockley 139
"What Is There to Do in Akron, Ohio?" Darius Simpson 142
"The Stuff of Astounding: A Golden Shovel for Juneteenth" Patricia Smith 144
"Ode to the Boy Who Jumped Me" Monica Sok 146
"Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" Adrienne Su 148
"Acequia del Llano" Arthur Sze 150
"Copernicus" Paul Tran 153
"The Beginning of the Beginning" Phuong T. Vuong 154
"The Dead Just Need to Be Seen. Not Forgiven." John Sibley Williams 156
"Red Wine Spills" L. Ash Williams 157
"How to Live in Southern California" Shelley Wong 159
"Overnight" John Yau 161
"Caution" (from "Deracinations: Seven Sonigrams") Monica Youn 163
"Dog Tags" Kevin Young 167
Contributors' Notes and Comments 171
Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published 209
Acknowledgments 211
