Sweet nothings : an anthology of rock and roll in American poetry / edited, with an introduction, by Jim Elledge.

Introduction : rock and roll and American poetry
W.C.W. watching Presley's second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show : Mercy Hospital, Newark, 1956 / David Wojahn
On the Elvis mailing list / Neal Bowers
Letter to Russell Barron / Robert Gibb
Woody Guthrie visited by Bob Dylan : Brooklyn State Hospital, New York, 1961 / David Wojahn
Late summer news / Dorothy Barresi
"Tumbling dice" / Rachel Loden
Jungle music / Warren Woessner
Class bully / Thomas Reiter
How near Vietnam came to us / Paul Zarzyski
The songs we fought for / Walter McDonald
Very true confessions / Sidney Burris
Hanoi Hannah / Yusef Komunyakaa
Forgetting the sixties / Mark DeFoe
Meet the Supremes / David Trinidad
Painkillers / Thom Gunn
Eighties meditation / Kay Murphy
Strangers : an essay / Jim Elledge
The back-up singer / Dorothy Barresi
Midnight reports / Lynda Hull
The man who knew the words to "Louie, Louie" / David Keller
"Johnny B. Goode" / James Seay
Rock 'n roll / Peter Balakian
Song of the burning / David Wojahn
The hours musicians keep / Aleda Shirley
An elegy for Bob Marley / William Matthews
Time with Stevie Wonder in it / Christopher Gilbert
The one white face in the place / Sydney Lea
Decrescendo / Larry Levis


Upon finding a black woman's door sprayed with swastikas, I tell her this story of hands / Kevin Stein
Christ at the Apollo, 1962 / Michael Waters
Soul music / Baron Wormser
The Supremes / Mark Jarman
Tu Do Street / Yusef Komunyakaa
It was fever that made the world / Jim Powell
Consolation / David Rivard
The purest rage / Charles Baxter
Chosen to be water / Christopher Gilbert
The day Lady died / Frank O'Hara
Heat / David Johnson
American Bandstand / Michael Waters
"Hully gully" / Rita Dove
"Dream lover" / Mark DeFoe
The penalty for bigamy is two wives / William Matthews
Sound systems / Ronald Wallace
Cures / David Rivard
Elvis Presley / Rochelle Nameroff
The prophecy / Robert Wrigley
Betty / Paul Mariani
Playland / Richard Foerster
Performance / Paul McRay
Dancing to the track singers at the nightclub / Judith Berke
Nine of Clubs, Cleveland, Ohio / Dorothy Barresi
The deaf dancing to rock / Lisel Mueller
"Their hats is always white" / Jim Elledge
I wannabe your queen / Susan Swartwout
Mary's dream / Van K. Brock
Fans / Baron Wormser
The victim / Thom Gunn
Video mama / Jack Ridl
To Marie Osmond / Jack Skelley
Mama loves Janis Joplin / Richard Speakes
Honky-tonk blues / Walter McDonald
Homage to Robert Johnson / David St. John
Heartbreak Hotel piano-bar / Richard Speakes


Joni Mitchell / Joseph Hutchinson
Ancestral echoes/rap music / Charles Lynch
The Everly Brothers / Floyd Skloot
Father of the man / David Graham
Paul Butterfield, dead at 44 / Robert Gibb
Salad days / Bruce Berger
The girl with the bad rep / Kay Murphy
Spofford Hall / Alison Stone
The summer the Beatles went over seven minutes on a single / Doyle Wesley Walls
Audubon Drive, Memphis / James Seay
The year the space age was born / Floyd Skloot
Vacation, 1969 / Dorothy Barresi
In 1969 / Katharyn Howd Machan
Nursing the sunburn / Judith Vollmer
Tempted by the classical on returning from the store at twenty below zero / Sydney Lea
Household gods / Jim Elledge
"Monday, Monday" / David Trinidad
"California dreaming" / Rochelle Nameroff
California / David St. John
"What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding" / Robert Long
"When you wish upon a star that turns into a plane" / James Harms
Seizing the day / Judith Ortiz Cofer
After supper / David Keller
How it comes / Dorothy Barresi
Cruising with the Beach Boys / Dana Gioia
For the last summer / Robert Wrigley
First performance of the rock 'n roll band Puce Exit / Kevin Stein
How Garnett Mims and the Enchanters came into your life / Bruce Smith


Smoking / Ronald Wallace
Late afternoon at the arboretum / Kelly Cherry
First radio / Michael McFee
Hurley High / Paul Zarzyski
Jesus never sleeps / David Graham
The burden lifters / Michael Waters
On living with a fat woman in heaven / Sidney Burris
Fifties rock party, 1985 / Judith Berke
Heaven / Gary Soto
Enclosure / Christopher Gilbert
The death of Janis Joplin / Robert Phillips
People are dropping out of our lives / Albert Goldbarth
Homage to Lester Flatt / David Bottoms
Buddy Holly / David Wojahn
Sphinx / Van K. Brock
Patsy Cline / Richard Speakes
Eight ball / Richard Jackson
Necromancy : the last days of Brian Jones, 1968 / David Wojahn
Epithalamion / Nancy Schoenberger
Duckling, swan / Jim Elledge
Elegy for Elvis / Richard Blessing
Over voice of America / Dennis Finnell
"All shook up" / Dan Sicoli
Rocket to Russia / Alison Stone
Venice Beach : brief song / Dorothy Barresi
A challenge to the reader / Tad Richards
Bryan Ferry / B.D. Love
World without end / Kevin Stein
Night waitress / Lynda Hull
Waiting on Elvis, 1956 / Joyce Carol Oates
Wildsisters Bar / Judith Vollmer
On the Otis Redding bridge / Judson Mitcham
Contributors' notes and comments
Acknowledgments
Author index
Title index
Index to first lines.