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The Eloquent Poem
128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making
Elise Paschen (Editor)

The Eloquent Poem is an exhilarating anthology of never-before-published poems by more than 100 contemporary poets from acclaimed poet-anthologist Elise Paschen. It is divided into fourteen chapters by poetic approach―some formal, some occasional, and some thematic―and includes illuminating micro-essays from the poets on how each poem came to be and how it fits into (or disrupts) its poetic tradition. Bound to inspire readers and writers, these are innovative poems to marvel at and learn from—among them ars poeticas by Joy Harjo and Cornelius Eady, litanies by Angela Jackson and Joy Ladin, epistles between Molly McCully Brown and Susannah Nevison, persona poems by Laura Kasischke and Marilyn Nelson, and collage poems by Kimiko Hahn and Major Jackson. Other chapters showcase aphorisms, aubades & nocturnes, concrete poems, eclogues, ekphrasis, poems in form, mirror poems, myth poems, and prose poems. 

Additional contributors include Quraysh Ali Lansanna, David Baker, Mary Jo Bang, Tina Chang, Michael Collier, Billy Collins, Martha Collins, Kwame Dawes, Oliver de la Paz, Martín Espada, Calvin Forbes, Forrest Gander, Rigoberto González, Edward Hirsch, Randall Mann, Maurice Manning, Paul Muldoon, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Duane Niatum, Molly Peacock, Stanley Plumly, Kevin Prufer, Mary Jo Salter, Grace Schulman, Lisa Russ Spaar, Elizabeth Spires, Rosanna Warren, Eleanor Wilner, and many others.

Elise Paschen, an enrolled member of the Osage Nation, is the author of, most recently, The Nightlife, Bestiary, Infidelities, and Houses: Coasts. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker and Poetry, among other magazines, and in numerous anthologies.  

Paperback / $20.00 (Can $27.00) / ISBN 978-0-89255-500-0 / 296 pages / Poetry Anthology