Captures DC’s unique sense of place, from monuments to parks, from lawyers to bus stations, from go-go music to chili half-smokes. 101 poems, written between 1950 and the present, by past and current residents of the city. The Washington Post says it “teems with poets who’ve distilled the region’s lifeblood into verse over the past 50 years.”
Contributors
Karren L. Alenier, Elizabeth Alexander, Kwame Alexander, Abdul Ali, Francisco Aragón, Naomi Ayala, Jonetta Rose Barras, Holly Bass, Paulette Beete, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Derrick Weston Brown, Sterling A. Brown, Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Kenneth Carroll, Grace Cavalieri, William Claire, Carleasa Coates, Jane Alberdeston Coralín, Ed Cox, Teri Ellen Cross, Ramola D, Kyle Dargan, Ann Darr, Tina Darragh, Christina Daub, Hayes Davis, Thulani Davis, Donna Denizé, Joel Dias-Porter, Tim Dlugos, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Roland Flint, Sunil Freeman, Deirdre Gantt, David Gewanter, Brian Gilmore, Robert L. Giron, Barbara Goldberg, Patricia Gray, Michael Gushue, Daniel Gutstein, O.B. Hardison, Jr., Essex Hemphill, Randall Horton, Natalie E. Illlum, Esther Iverem, Gray Jacobik, Brandon D. Johnson, Percy E. Johnston, Jr., Fred Joiner, Beth Joselow, Alan King, Michael Lally, Mary Ann Larkin, Merrill Leffler, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Saundra Rose Maley, David McAleavey, Richard McCann, Eugene J. McCarthy, Judith McCombs, Tony Medina, E. Ethelbert Miller, May Miller, Samuel Miranda, Miles David Moore, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Kathi Morrison-Taylor, Gaston Neal, Jose Emilio Pacheco, Jose Padua, Michelle Parkerson, Betty Parry, Linda Pastan, Richard Peabody, Adam Pellegrini, Elizabeth Poliner, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Liam Rector, Joan Retallack, Katy Richey, Joseph Ross, Ken Rumble, Robert Sargent, Gregg Shapiro, Myra Sklarew, Rod Smith, Alan Spears, Sharan Strange, A.B. Spellman, Hilary Tham, Maureen Thorson, Venus Thrash, Dan Vera, Rebecca Villarreal, Belle Waring, Joshua Weiner, Reed Whittemore, Terence Winch, Ahmos Zu-Bolton II.
Book Reviews
From Harriet, the blog of The Poetry Foundation, by Annie Finch:
“Fresh and memorable poems from a true range of voices. An additional unique charm is that each author bio ends with a sentence giving concrete information about DC evoked by that poet’s poem…All around, this is a fun and unique anthology and a great introduction to the very cool world of DC poetry.”
From Smartish Pace, by Wynn Yarbrough:
“One of the strengths of this collection is that local geography and life is always touched by national life and events, whether that be Bush’s second inauguration in ‘Second Inauguration’ or the legacy of slavery and Lincoln’s maid in ‘Elizabeth Keckley: 30 Years a Slave and 4 Years in the White House.’ Since so much history has taken place in D.C. and continues into the present moment, this collection engenders much of its richness from the intersections that are available to a poet writing for and in this city, even if it is because of nationwide outlets like the Kennedy Center, as in ‘billy eckstine comes to washington, d.c.’ where national fame intersects with local preoccupation.”