Are you experienced? : Baby Boom poets at midlife / edited by Pamela Gemin.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Gemin, Pamela, 1954-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--20th century.

American poetry.

Baby boom generation--Poetry.

Baby boom generation.

Midlife crisis--Poetry.

Midlife crisis.

Middle age--Poetry.

Middle age.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 258 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Iowa City : University of Iowa Press, [2003]

Summary:

In this timely and reflective anthology, the generation that sought to stay forever young reveals that midlife should mean more than jokes about thinning hair, creaking joints, and thickening waistlines. Midlife's insights -- whether they be physical, spiritual, or emotional -- are indeed startling, and who better than poets to deliver them? The nearly one hundred poets, both men and women, emerging and established, in this anthology move beyond the standard complaints of middle age to more resounding themes that define an entire generation: social, political, and environmental concerns, domestic partnerships and blended families, crises and affirmations of faith. Each poet seeks an answer to the ambiguous, electric, and open-ended question that has haunted the Baby Boom generation: Are you experienced? And each poet answers emphatically: Yes, Yes, Yes.

Contents:

I. Bless This House

Choosing My Conception / Bob Hicok 3

I'm a Fool to Love You / Cornelius Eady 5

To My Ancestral Spirits / Kyoko Mori 7

Blessing the House / Jim Daniels 8

How the Streets in Front of Kaufmann's Department Store Tell Me I Am Home / Rick Campbell 10

Braly Street / Gary Soto 12

Issei Strawberry / David Mura 15

Habitual Offender / Ginger Andrews 16

Reading Aloud to My Mother / Andrea Hollander Budy 17

Sundowning at the Dementia Unit / David Graham 18

On the Eve of My Mother's Surgery / David Graham 19

Lucky / Tony Hoagland 21

The Moment / Kim Addonizio 23

My Father Calls Me Every Sunday Morning / Jan Heller Levi 24

It's Good That Old People Get Crotchety / Charles Harper Webb 26

Early Inheritance / Philip Bryant 28

Adult Child / Robin Becker 29

My Father's Loveletters / Yusef Komunyakaa 30

My Mother's Clown / Janet Holmes 31

My Father's Sweater / Andrea Hollander Budy 32

Beneath the Canopy of Trees / Amy Dryansky 34

II. Extending the Lines

Land of the Living / Kathleen Norris 39

Reminded of My Biological Clock

While Looking at Georgia O'Keeffe's Pelvis One / Denise Duhamel 41

When Hope Goes to Hug Me / Leslie Adrienne Miller 44

What I Did / Jim Daniels 46

What She Didn't Tell Him / Judith Vollmer 48

Listening / David Mura 49

Lucky / Cathy Song 50

Abiku / Afaa Michael Weaver 51

When the Call Came / Norbert Krapf 52

Geography of Love / Laurel Mills 54

Open Throat / Bruce Bond 55

Falling Bricks / Jim Daniels 56

Teasing Was Only the Beginning / Cortney Davis 57

From the Temple of Longing / Roger Weingarten 59

Children of Divorce / Kathleen Norris 60

Family Reunion / Jeredith Merrin 62

Making Step Beautiful in Maine / Kate Sontag 64

Father of the Man / David Graham 66

Chances / Betsy Sholl 68

Fatherhood / Mark Cox 71

Those Things / Walter Bargen 73

Comfort / Deborah Keenan 75

III. Woven in My Walk

Willing / Paula McLain 79

Freight / Julia Kasdorf 80

Providence / Yusef Komunyakaa 82

Ang Tunay Na Lalaki Moves into Sally's Apartment / Nick Carbo 84

When I Was Straight / Maureen Seaton 85

Two Men on a Swing Watching Their Shadows Lengthen / Timothy Liu 86

Wedding Party / Allison Joseph 87

Marriage / Deborah Keenan 89

Making Love / Rebecca McClanahan 90

After Making Love, We Hear Sirens / Kel Munger 92

Looking at Your Body / Philip Bryant 93

Milk / Laurie Kutchins 94

What Difference Does It Make? / Natasha Saje 96

Wild Strawberries / Ronald Wallace 98

The Couple / Louis Jenkins 99

After Fighting for Hours / Kate Gleason 100

Near Heron Lake / Kim Addonizio 101

The Bull's Eye Inn / Luis Rodriguez 102

Peace / Leslie Ullman 105

So Get Over It, Honey / Belle Waring 107

Hives / Julie King 108

The Affair / David Baker 109

Marriage 2 / Jan Heller Levi 110

At the Pioneer Valley Legal Clinic / Dorothy Barresi 112

After Skinnydipping, the Old Couple Fishes for Brown Trout in the Root River / John Reinhard 114

The Embrace / Mark Doty 116

IV. In This Strange Land We Sing Our Song

Thoreau / Timothy Liu 119

TV News: Detox Closed / Heid Erdrich 120

Exquisite Candidate / Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton 122

Secret Asian Man / Nick Carbo 123

Jimmy Pohoski's a Woman Now / John Reinhard 124

Lingerie Ads in the Sixties / Rachel Loden 126

For the Jim Crow Mexican Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts Where My Cousin Esteban Was Forbidden to Wait Tables Because He Wears Dreadlocks / Martin Espada 128

When I Was White / Maureen Seaton 129

Black on Black / Bruce Jacobs 130

Human Map / Heid Erdrich 132

To the Moon, Alice / Bob Hicok 134

The Man Who Tried to Rape You / Erin Belieu 136

Bearing Witness / Ellen Bass 138

Evidence of Death's Voodoo

Inside and outside the "Gun as Art Exhibit" / Wendy Bishop 140

Columbine High School/Littleton, CO / Albert Goldbarth 141

Blood / William Olsen 142

And we came home / Bruce Weigl 144

To the Vietnam Vet / Afaa Michael Weaver 145

Facing It / Yusef Komunyakaa 146

Exquisite Communist / Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton 147

Cement Cloud / Bob Holman 148

The Way Things Used to Be / Louis Jenkins 150

Heaven / Andrew Hudgins 151

A Star Is Born in the Eagle Nebula / Marcia Southwick 153

Future Debris / Heid Erdrich 154

Sping / Josie Kearns 155

Rajah in Babylon / David Wojahn 156

V. The Strenuous Work of Vanishing

Estrogen / Leslie Ullman 161

Variation on a Sundial / Rodney Jones 162

Kansas / Diane Seuss 164

At the Hairdresser. Reading Elle Magazine / Alison Townsend 165

Losing My Hair / Charles Harper Webb 167

The Sexual Revolution / Stephen Dunn 168

Epitome Cafe / Holly Iglesias 169

The Young / Lisa Lewis 170

Priestess of Love / Ann Hostetler 172

Wildflowers / Bill Bauer 173

Getting Older / Kim Addonizio 175

Scan / Judith Vollmer 176

Outliving Our Ghosts / Doug Anderson 178

The Art of Comedy / David Baker 179

The Rapture / Cynthia Huntington 181

Chemo / Karen Donovan 183

Caribbean Breast Lullaby / Kate Sontag 185

Ashes / Andrew Hudgins 186

What the Living Do / Marie Howe 188

Heroin / Bob Hicok 189

Are You Experienced? / Tony Hoagland 191

Drunk / Virginia Chase Sutton 192

Loudmouth Soup / Thomas Lux 193

After Detox / Jane Mead 194

February / Louis Jenkins 197

Late Summer News / Dorothy Barresi 198

Antilamentation / Dorianne Laux 200

These Are My Buddhist Shoes / Susan Firer 201

Memory as a Hearing Aid / Tony Hoagland 202

VI. Why the Dog Howls at the Moon

The Owl and the Lightning / Martin Espada 207

Lourdes / Jeanne Bryner 208

Viceroy / Diane Seuss 209

Why the Dog Howls at the Moon / Kel Munger 210

Not Believing / Kyoko Mori 211

If There Is No God / Ellen Bass 214

We Were Simply Talking / Andrew Hudgins 216

A Long Commute / Laura Kasischke 217

Dennis's Sky Leopard / Thylias Moss 218

Mount Olive / Monifa A. Love 220

A Non-Christian on Sunday / Amy Gerstler 221

Refusing to Baptize a Son / Rodney Jones 222

The Dashboard Virgencita / Julia Alvarez 223

What Saves Us / Bruce Weigl 224

Fundamental / Thomas Lux 225

The Mystery of Meteors / Eleanor Lerman 226

Dear Earth / Laura Kasischke 227

Look / Belle Waring 229

Passing a Truck Full of Chickens at Night on Highway Eighty / Jane Mead 231.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0877458502

OCLC:

50866853