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