The Wilds [Paperback]

In his third book of poems, Mark Levine continues his exploration of the rhythms and forms of memory.The Wildsis set in the border regions between natural and cultivated states, childhood and adulthood, past and present. We were boys, says the speaker of the opening poem, boyish, almost girls./Left alone on the roof, we would have dwindled. Austere and lyrical, the music of these poems resonates with echoes of poetic tradition-Wyatt, Jonson, Milton, Eliot-yet is singularly modern.

Mark Levineis the author of Debt, a selection of the National Poetry Series in 1993, and ofEnola Gay(UC Press, 2000). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. He teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and has also written nonfiction for many national magazines.

Praise for Enola Gay:

Mark Levine's poems conjure a post-cataclysmic, pre-apocalyptic world. Here things tend to be rusty, wet, subject to dry rot, incomplete, or just plain out of kilter. ReadingEnola Gayis an unforgettable experience. John Ashbery

Mark Levine's poems meld wit with the profoundest gravity, peculiar narratives with linguistic precision, and hubris with sorrow. Read them. Susan Wheeler, author ofLedger and Record Palace

Acknowledgments

1
Ontario
Quarry
Bering Strait
Arboretum
Grade Three
Two Women
Document
Then

2
Hand
Dock
Habitat
Animal
Insect
This Day Last Year in Yellowstone National Park
Nurse
Rent
Triangle
Remember

3
The Wilds

4
Song
Belongings
Early
Poem
Childs Song
Night
Autumn
Refuge Event
Song
Willow