As tough and important as its subject, this book does more than collect the probings of several dozen American poets on their nation's nightmare--it calls into question the purpose of poetry. If poetry exists to make us feel safe and erudite and well-mannered, then the book fails utterly. If poetry exists to speak soul-to-soul of the heart's pain and the body's vivid longing and the soul's singular purity, then it succeeds completely. If a large proportion of the poets selected are black, Indian, Chicano, or Asian, that is unsurprising, for they are the ones upon whom the subject thrusts itself most insistently. Any of these poems eludes paraphrase, for each is a movement from one state to another--fear to wild joy, confusion to acceptance, unquestioning ease to complex self-knowledge. They have in common accessible manners that should appeal even to smug nonreaders of poetry. --Patricia Monaghan From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.