disc 1. The charge of the light brigade (2:20) ; Come into the garden, Maud (:20) / Alfred, Lord Tennyson --
How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix : excerpt / Robert Browning (:58) --
America : excerpt / Walt Whitman (:38) --
The lake isle of Innisfree (3:10) ; The song of the old mother (:54) / William Butler Yeats --
Lucinda Matlock (:58) ; Emily Sparks (:52) / Edgar Lee Masters --
The creation / James Weldon Johnson (4:26) --
If I told him : a completed portrait of Picasso / Gertrude Stein (3:38) --
The road not taken (1:04) ; Stopping by woods on a snow evening (:56) / Robert Frost --
From The people, yes (#90) / Carl Sandburg --
So and so reclining on her couch / Wallace Stevens (2:10) --
The red wheelbarrow (:15) ; For Elsie (from Spring and all) (1:46) / William Carlos Williams --
From Hugh Selwyn Mauberly / Ezra Pound (3:02) --
From Helen in Egypt : excerpt / H.D. (3:35) --
Journey of the Magi : with introduction / T.S. Eliot (3:19) --
Recuerdo (1:29) ; Love is not all (1:14) / Edna Saint Vincent Millay --
Résumé (:21) ; The lady's reward (:57) / Dorothy Parker --
As freedom is a breakfastfood / e.e. cummings (2:33) --
To Juan at the Winter Solstice / Robert Graves (2:21) --
From John Brown's body / Stephen Vincent Benét (3:50) --
Strong men / Sterling Brown (2:59) --
The negro speaks of rivers : with intro (:57) ; The weary blues : with intro (1:46) / Langston Hughes --
Portrait of the artist as a prematurely old man / Ogden Nash (2:02) --
King of the river / Stanley Kunitz (3:16) --
The cave of nakedness / W.H. Auden (6:28) --
I knew a woman (1:47) ; Elegy for Jane (1:12) / Theodore Roethke --
Late air (:33) ; The fish (2:40) / Elizabeth Bishop --
disc 2. Those winter Sundays / Robert Hayden (:52) --
The ballad of orange and grape (2:46) ; To be a Jew in the twentieth century (1:02) / Muriel Rukeyser --
#23 (The lay of Ike) (1:11) ; #36 (The high ones die
(1:28) / John Berryman --
The world is so difficult to give up--
(:23) ; This is the solution, to be happy with slaughter--
(:19) ; Here I am with mike in hand, shooting down the rapids--
(:29) ; What about dying? (:52) / David Ignatow --
Passing remark (:48) ; Serving with Gideon (1:17) / William Stafford --
And death shall have no dominion (1:44) ; The tombstone told when she died (1:52) / Dylan Thomas --
The mother (2:34) ; We real cool (1:36) / Gwendolyn Brooks --
Skunk hour / Robert Lowell (2:25) --
Crossing over / William Meredith (2:17) --
See it was like this when--
(:39) ; Underwear (3:34) / Lawrence Ferlinghetti --
The secret of my endurance / Charles Bukowski (2:16) --
Ray / Hayden Carruth (2:44) --
Love calls us to the things of this world / Richard Wilbur (1:54) --
American haikus : excerpt / Jack Kerouac with Al Cohn & Zoot Simms (6:08) --
Death psalm : O Lord of mysteries / Denise Levertov (3:45) --
Monet refuses the operation / Lisel Mueller (2:28) --
Woodchucks / Maxine Kumin (1:57) --
America / Allen Ginsberg (8:47) --
Still / A.R. Ammons (2:40) --
My philosophy of life / John Ashbery (4:08) --
After making love we hear footsteps (1:31) ; Last gods (2:03) / Galway Kinnell --
A blessing / James Wright (1:49) --
All my pretty ones (3:26) ; For my lover, returning to his wife (3:07) / Anne Sexton --
disc 3. Even in Paris : excerpt / Richard Howard (6:28) --
Driving into the wreck / Adrienne Rich (4:02) --
Lovesong / Ted Hughes (2:12) --
Omeros : excerpt / Derek Walcott (3:02) --
The song of the taste (:59) ; Why I take good care of my Macintosh computer (1:30) / Gary Snyder --
The idea of ancestry / Etheridge Knight (3:09) --
Daddy / Sylvia Plath (3:41) --
The greatest poem in the world / David Ray (1:20) --
An oddly lovely day alone / John Updike (2:10) --
Bang, bang outishly (1:31) ; Rhythim [sic] blues (:24) ; Shazam doowah (:50) / Amiri Baraka --
Dahomey / Audrey Lorde (2:09) --
Right to life / Marge Piercy (4:09) --
The poem / Mark Strand (2:31) --
Zimmer imagines heaven / Paul Zimmer (1:59) --
Cruelty, don't talk to me about cruelty / Lucille Clifton (:40) --
I have had to learn to live with my face / Diane Wakoski (6:43) --
(:30) ; I was stolen by the gypsies--
(:35) ; Everybody knows the story--
Death of a naturalist / Seamus Heaney (2:05) --
Lester leaps in (1:08) ; A dance for militant dilettantes (1:29) / Al Young --
Fire / Gloria Vando (4:08) --
Odysseus to Telemachus / Joseph Brodsky (1:40) --
Sometimes it's better to laugh, honest injun / Simon J. Ortiz (2:55) --
Ode to my shoes / Erica Jong (1:49) --
disc 4. Wonder / Sharon Olds (1:38) --
The lost pilot / James Tate (1:56) --
Puerto Rican obituary : excerpt / Pedro Pietri (5:34) --
Uh oh plutonium / Anne Waldman (3:12) --
The fine printing on the label of a bottle of non-alcohol beer (1:29) ; The sweat lodge (1:11) / Adrian Louis --
Facing it / Yusef Komunyakaa (1:10) --
Logan Heights and the world / Juan Felipe Herrera (4:35) --
The Colonel / Carolyn Forché (2:44) --
The history of Armenia / Peter Balakian (3:37) --
Grace / Joy Harjo (4:27) --
Parsley / Rita Dove (4:13) --
The long meadow / Vijay Seshadri (4:11) --
The floral apron / Marilyn Chin (1:24) --
Raisin eyes / Luci Tapahonso (1:43) --
The concrete river / Luis Rodriguez (3:34) --
My father, in heaven, is reading out loud / Li-Young Lee (2:29) --
Two standards / Elise Paschen (2:17) --
I saw you walking / Deborah Garrison (1:42) --
The female seer will burn upon this pyre (1:17) ; After the gig, Mick Jagger (1:10) / Elizabeth Alexander --
Morning broke on my cabin inverted, tempest in my forehead / D.A. Powell (3:47) --
Eleven more days / Carl Hancock Rux (4:52) --
Simon Peter / John Poch (2:09) --
Fragments of the forgotten war / Suji Kwock Kim (3:46) --
Lucky criminals / Kevin Prufer (2:01) --
The slaughter / Kevin Young (2:18) --
Scab / Jonathan Lamfers (3:14).
