This anthology, which includes work by eight poets who met in a writing workshop, celebrates what can be accomplished in a group with no prior aesthetic agreement. The poets represented here embrace diverse strains of American poetics, from narrative/lyrical to disjunct/experimental.

In their conversations, the poets made a practice of speaking to each other's work in a way that respected the impulses in each poet/poem, while losing none of the insight and conviction that informed their own work. Similarly, in their writing, they stayed true to their strongest beliefs and most inspiring sources while remaining open to new possibilities. The anthology serves as testimony to that delicate, difficult balancing act - one which requires tremendous discipline, but which is necessary to create compelling, relevant work within the context of a vibrant, healthy artistic community. The reader will be struck by each writer's particular relationship to language, as well as by these writers' freedom to break down walls that exist between schools of contemporary poetics in order to attend to the needs of the poem under hand.

The work collected here moves - among forms, exploring space and line, jaywalking across the intersection of poetry and prose. It moves - through feelings of grief, tenderness, horror, hysteria, hilarity. It moves - inside and outside the culture, within and without the self. It moves - the words and images and sounds glide, leap, shimmer, shatter, (re)compose. It moves - the energy and intellect in these pages will move you to keep reading; it will move you to return.

Sarah Rosenthal
San Francisco
December 2002