This anthology collects essays by current and former lecturers at the Warren Wilson College (North Carolina) MFA Program for Writers. Some of the poets whose essays are included are: Joan Aleshire, Marianne Boruch, Carl Dennis, Stephen Dobyns, Reginald Gibbons, Louise Gluck, Allen Grossman, Robert Hass, Tony Hoagland, Heather McHugh, Gregory Orr, Michael Ryan, Ellen Bryant Voight, Alan Williamson, Eleanor Wilner, and Renate Wood. The anthology presents an extended dialogue on a range of topics: forays into the texts of poets from Homer, Dickinson, and Akhmatova to Bishop, O'Hara, Milosz, and Plath; meditations on the nature of the image and the discovery of the self in Greek verse; a defense of lyric poetry; and other themes. Whatever their subject, the anthology's essays are meditations on the place of poetry in contemporary culture--each poet's precision of observation and language is brought to essential issues of the craft. The anthology is meant to serve teachers and students of poetry and poetics at every level. (NKA)