The best American poetry, 1996 / Adrienne Rich, editor ; David Lehman, series editor.

The tombs / Latif Asad Abdullah
Capital punishment / Sherman Alexie
Morning in the burned house / Margaret Atwood
Cancer garden / Thomas Avena
Porkskin panorama / Marie Annharte Baker
Strong's winter / Sidney Burris
David Talamantez on the last day of second grade / Rosemary Catacalos
Cauldron / Marilyn Chin
American sonnet / Wanda Coleman
Me again / Jacqueline Dash
Transfer / Ingrid de Kok
The arrival of the Titanic / William Dickey
The history of navigation / Nancy Eimers
A night without stars / Nancy Eimers
Sleeping on the bus / Martin Espada
Rednecks / Martin Espada
Poem not to be read at your wedding / Beth Ann Fennelly
In this place / Robert C. Fuentes
Salmo: para el / Ramon Garcia
Two girls / Suzanne Gardinier
Kapital / Frank Gaspar
White beach / Reginald Gibbons
All facts, stories, chance / C.S. Giscombe
Possession: a zuihitsu / Kimiko Hahn
Plainsong / Gail Hanlon
The prisoner of Camau / Henry Hart
The steadying / William Heyen
Renewal / Jonathan Johnson
Reading aloud to my father / Jane Kenyon
Two Canadian landscapes / August Kleinzahler
Nude study / Yusef Komunyakaa
Touch me / Stanley Kunitz
Boxing the female / Natasha Le Bel
Foot fire burn dance / Natasha Le Bel
Kolohe or communication / Carolyn Lei-Lanilau
It is not / Valerie Martinez.

The river and under the river / Davis McCombs
Edge effect / Sandra McPherson
Body / James Merrill
Lament for the makers / W.S. Merwin
Far away / Jane Miller
Girl tearing up her face / Susan Mitchell
Mangos y limones / Pat Mora
One of the longest times / Alice Notley
The small vases from Hebron / Naomi Shihab Nye
The eight and thirteenth / Alicia Ostriker
Harlem suite / Raymond Patterson
As from a quiver of arrows / Carl Phillips
Song of calling souls / Wang Ping
Two poems / Sterling Plumpp
Sestina for Jaime / Katherine Alice Power
Twenty-one years / Reynolds Price
Domingo Limon / Alberta Alvaro Rios
Abundance and satisfaction / Pattiann Rogers
Prometheus at Coney Island / Quentin Rowan
For the evening land / David Shapiro
Crepuscule / Angela Shaw
Skin trade / Reginald Shepherd
Passive resistance / Enid Shomer
Fair trade / Gary Soto
Flight / Jean Starr
Heat / Deborah Stein
Honeycomb perfection of this form before me / Roberto Tejada
Aisle of dogs / Chase Twichell
Ghost sickness / Luis Alberto Urrea
Tell me, what is the soul / Jean Valentine
Crazy courage / Alma Luz Villanueva
The case / Karen Volkman
The butcher's apron / Diane Wakoski
Yellow wolf spirit / Ron Welburn
Run on a warehouse / Susan Wheeler
Meeting like this / Paul Willis
The mill race / Anne Winters
Vespers / C. Dale Young
Our bird Aegis / Ray A. Young Bear.