So much of what we live goes on inside— The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches Of unacknowledged love are no less real For having passed unsaid. What we

Can Poetry Matter? is an important book, and anyone who professes to care about the state of American poetry will have to take it into account. --World Literatu

The long-awaited fourth collection by one of America's foremost poets O Lord of indirection and ellipses, ignore our prayers. Deliver us from distraction. Slow

In a brilliant array of essays that tests the pulse of traditional and contemporary poetry, Gioia ("Can Poetry Matter?") ponders the future of the written word