The new American poetry of engagement: a 21st century anthology

Introduction : Saying what happened in the 21st century

Rae Armantrout : New ; Previews ; Bubble wrap ; Action poem

Frank Bidart : Curse ; The soldier who guards the frontier ; To the republic ; Inauguration day

Robert Bly : Call and answer ; Let sympathy pass ; The stew of discontents ; Those being eaten ; Here the sleepers sleep

Bruce Bond : The altars of September ; Flag ; Ringtone

Joel Brouwer : Lines from the reports of the investigative committees

Timothy Donnelly : Partial inventory of airborne debris ; Dream of Arabian hillbillies

Carolyn Forché : The ghost of Heaven

Katie Ford : Flee ; Earth ; Fish market ; The vessel bends the water

Forrest Gander : Background check

Peter Gizzi : Protest song

Louise Glück : October

Albert Goldbarth : Some common terms in Latin that are larger than our lives

Kenneth Goldsmith : "A1" from The day

Jorie Graham : Little exercise ; Praying (Attempt of June 14 '03) ; Guantánamo ; Employment

Linda Gregerson : Sweet ; Father Mercy, Mother Tongue ; Still life ; The selvage

Eamon Grennan : Y2K

Marilyn Hacker : Letter to Hayden Carruth ; From Names ; Ghazal: min al-hobbi m'a qatal

Forrest Hamer : Aftermath ; What happened ; Conference

Robert Hass : I am your waiter tonight and my name is Dmitri ; Ezra Pound's Proposition ; On visiting the DMZ at Panmunjom : a haibun ; Some of David's story

Bob Hicok : Happy anniversary ; Full flight ; Troubled times ; In the loop ; Stop-loss

Brenda Hillman : From Nine untitled epyllions ; Reportorial poetry, trance & activism ; In a Senate Armed Services hearing ; Request to the Berkeley City Council concerning Strawberry Creek ; In high desert under the drones

Galway Kinnell : When the towers fell

Yusef Komunyakaa : From "Love in the time of war" ; Grenade ; The towers ; Heavy metal soliloquy ; The warlord's garden ; Surge ; Clouds

Maxine Kumin : Extraordinary rendition ; On reading The age of innocence in a troubled time ; Entering houses at night ; Still we take joy ; Just deserts

Ann Lauterbach : Victory ; Hum ; Echo revision

Ben Lerner : Didactic elegy

Timothy Liu : Ready-mades ; Vita Breva ; Beauty ; Elegy for Oum Kolsoum written across the sky

John Matthias : Column I, tablet XIII

J.D. McClatchy : Jihad

Raymond McDaniel : Assault to Abjury ; Sen Jak's advice to the tropically depressed

Sandra McPherson : On being transparent: Cedar Rapids Airport

W.S. Merwin : To the light of September ; To the words ; To the grass of autumn ; To ashes ; To the coming winter

Philip Metres : From "Hung lyres" ; Asymmetries ; Testimony ; Compline ; From "Homefront/removes"

Naomi Shihab Nye : Dictionary in the dark ; Interview, Saudi Arabia ; I never realized they had aspirations like ours

Geoffrey O'Brien : A history

Sharon Olds : September, 2001

Robert Pinsky : Poem of disconnected parts ; The forgetting ; The anniversary

Kevin Prufer : National anthem ; Dead soldier ; Those who could not flee ; Recent history ; God bless our troops

Claudia Rankine : From Don't let me be lonely: an American lyric : "Cornel West makes the point" ; "Timothy McVeigh died at 7:14 a.m."

Donald Revell : Given days ; Vietnam epic treatment ; Election year

Frederick Seidel : God exploding ; The black-eyed virgins ; Eurostar ; Song : "The swollen river overthrows its banks" ; The Bush administration

Hugh Seidman : Found poem: Microloans ; Thinking of Baghdad

Lisa Sewell : The anatomy of melancholy

Susan Stewart : When I'm crying, I'm not speaking ; When I'm speaking, I'm not crying ; Elegy against the massacre at the Amish school in West Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, autumn 2006

David Wagoner : In rubble

C.K. Williams : War ; Fear ; The future ; Cassandra, Iraq ; Lies

Eleanor Wilner : Found in the free library ; In a time of war ; Back then, we called it "The war" ; The show must go on ; Rendition, with flag ; Colony collapse disorder (CCD)

C.D. Wright : From Rising, falling, hovering: "He slept with the dead then" ; "One bright night" ; "I was just thinking"

Robert Wrigley : Exxon

The poets : profiles and statements.