The Contracted World: New & More Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)

"Passionate and compassionate, these poems are both deeply imagined and accessible to the general reader, focusing on personal and political life in American society."--Publisher's website. Fish tale -- Left-winged sonnets. Brief meditations on a woodcut by Leonard Baskin The graybeards Marine forecast The purity of absolute perfection The death of friends Turkish coffee Elderly, she paints another nude The director 91st birthday Mystery Caterpillar plague, 2000 The skiers Treasure island Maples and orange trees, 2003 Rocking horse winner Butterfly cage The triumph of Desert Storm -- The chemical chain. The contracted world P-town, '04 What wild-eyed murderer The deserted village, 2002 Inheritance The spindled world The true UFO story The simplest animals The chemical chain The little factory M. Hoffstetler's last class Blackberry jam American youth Lilacs On teaching our son to tell time The wedding: February 26, 2000 The timaya tree Epithalamion for two scientists The bookshelf Song from the wrong bay -- from The night train & the golden bird. The night train The patient Morocco The Great Wall Gramma Bones in an African cave Neuchâtel swans Cheerios Vegetables Poem to old friends who have never met Sunday at the Apple Market The anchor Angels drink J Randall Randle The golden bird -- from The rat poems -- from Trying to surprise God. Trout Letter from Warsaw, 1979 Happy hour A necessary bucket Preacher, said the general The hunters: Southeast Asia Greta Garbo poem #41 To an athlete turned poet Threnody Miss Arbuckle Recipe The artist. from Night watch on the Chesapeake. On the bus in D.C., 1980 The pin Lordship Lane Station Weeds The sheep A dream of third base Sonnets for a diabetic Fraxinus nigra Birchbark The last mountain lion on Maple Crest Mountain Lines for the reveiwer Caitlin rampant on a field in Tuscany One hundred robins The shells of Bermuda. The Contracted World includes representative poems from four of Peter Meinke's previous collections. In poems that show us what it is like to grow up in America, love, nature, cities, sports, war, and peace are filtered through the imagination and verbal skills of one of our brightest poets. The new poems experiment with form, and address a life that is shrinking in specific ways: the poet is aging, the world is getting smaller, our post-9/11 freedoms are eroding, and our choices seem fewer and less attractive. Despite feelings of anger and loneliness, the narrator speaks to us in a personal, accessible, and often humorous voice.

Passionate and compassionate, these poems are both deeply imagined and accessible to the general reader, focusing on personal and political life in American society.