This superb selection from an enduring, flagship journal holds work by many of our most indispensable poets and, remarkably often, what went on to become their signature poems. This anthology reminds us of those poems' first public life: in the pages of a 'small' magazine with, as it turns out, a freighter-sized wake. The prose introductions to each section are lucid microcosms, outlining each decade's shifting cultural concerns. If some imagined Alexandrian Library of American Poetry were to burn, this anthology could, on its own, convey an important part of our literary seed-stock. - Jane Hirshfield, author of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and After: Poems ""No reader will leave this harvest table hungry - here is nourishment for all. Eleanor Ross Taylor's title poem invites us to a playful sacrament: eat the 'bright flesh' of birdsong, drink the 'momentary blood' of a wave, and 'All thy sins are teggen away, teggen away.' Fifty years of the best American poetry is spread out before us, grouped by decade with James Smith's extraordinarily helpful essays giving us a quick context for each, from the 'Me Decade' of the seventies to the 'Greed Decade' of the eighties and our current 'Security Decade.' These poems epitomize their eras yet move beyond, rise beyond as poetry always does, capturing time and place and lived life in a way no other art can manage.... This fine collection offers us fare for the journey."" - Lee Smith, author of On Agate Hill