Introduction, Molly McQuade

"It's a Woman's Prerogative to Change Her Mind," Elizabeth Macklin

I. Writing Their Lives

Vesuvius Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich
The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley, June Jordan
Being a Dragon, Cynthia Zarin
My Plath Problem, April Bernard
"Either I'm Nobody, or I'm a Nation, Rita Dove
Edwin Muir and the Primal World, Mary Kinzie

II. A Poet's Tools: "The Incredible Difficulty of Saying Something True"

A Mediation on a Metaphor, Alicia Ostriker
Some Notes on Silence, Jorie Graham
A Cadenced Privacy, Brenda Hillman
Use This Word in a Sentence: Experimental, Ann Lauterbach
Myself a Kangaroo Among the Beauties, Lucie Brock-Broido
A Genuine Article, Heather McHugh

III. Critical Panoramas

Confessions of a Postmodern Poetess, Annie Finch
Playing the Changes, Eleanor Wilner
La Faustienne, Lyn Hejinian
Xio's Soakbook: Criticism Takes a Path, S.X. Rosenstock
Against Decoration, Mary Karr
Poetry, Mattering?, Susan Wheeler

IV. Reading Her Mind: Creeds and Memoirs

Letter to a Young Woman Poet, Eavan Boland
A Student's Memoir of Muriel Rukeyser, Sharon Olds
Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Audre Lorde
Meditations on "Mecca": Gwendolyn Brooks and the Responsibilities of the Black Poet, Elizabeth Alexander
69 Hidebound Opinions, Propositions, and Several Asides from a Manila Folder Concerning the Stuff of Poetry, C.D. Wright
Short Survey of Scruples, Molly McQuade
On Being Unable to Read, Valerie Cornell

Acknowledgements