The cover of “The House on Boulevard St.” is a Roy Lichtenstein-style cartoon, a portrait of the poet David Kirby with a furrowed brow, above which floats a word balloon: ...

The poem in my head goes something like this: Sunset and evening star/And one clear call for me! /O Captain my Captain!/Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers/I'm nobody! Who are you?

I spent a bit of last summer reading three anthologies-three collections of selected poems by "young American poets" (that is to say, poets born in 1960 or after), most (though not all) of whom have at least one published book of poems.

ON AUGUST 13, 1981,1 LEFT THE UFFIZI and walked through the crowds surrounding Michelangelo's David...

In a column in The San Francisco Chronicle not long ago, Lawrence Ferlinghetti asked, "Why are poetry readings never reviewed in the media?" Not a world-shaking question...

Arriving late to a dinner party a while back, my husband and I approached the dining room, where people were already seated. A woman rose up from her chair, pointed a finger at David and cried, "My God, you're the one who raped Edith Bunker!"...