Introduction -- I'm nobody! who are you? -- I can wade grief -- I like a look of agony -- After great pain, a formal feeling comes -- I died for beauty -- I dwell in possibility -- Because I could not stop for death -- I heard a fly buzz-when I died -- Much madness is divinest sense -- They say that "time assuages" / Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) -- In an artist's studio -- Remember / Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) -- New colossus / Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) -- Letter -- Katydids / Amy Lowell (1874-1925) -- From songs to Joannes / Mina Loy (1882-1966) -- After Love / Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) -- Eagle and the mole -- Parting Gift / Elinor Wylie (1885-1928) -- Birds in snow -- From the walls do not fall: I, VI / HD [Hilda Doolittle] (1886-1961) -- From facade: Sir Beelzebub -- Still falls the rain / Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) -- No swan so fine -- Past is the present -- Silence / Marianne Moore (1887-1972) -- What lips my lips have kissed -- I, being born a woman and distressed / Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950) -- One perfect rose -- Symptom recital / Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) -- Women / Louise Bogan (1897-1970) -- Queen and the young princess / Stevie Smith (1902-1971) -- Public journal / Phyllis McGinley (1905-1978) -- Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) -- Neither wanting more -- Unconscious came a beauty -- Staring at the sea on the day of the death of another / May Swenson (1913-1989) -- More of a corpse than a woman -- What they said -- Waiting for Icarus -- Myth / Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980) -- Getting to know you -- Train ride / Ruth Stone (b 1915) -- Five senses -- Woman to child -- Ishtar / Judith Wright (1915-2000) -- Kitchenette building / Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) -- Nothing stays put / Amy Clampitt (1920-1994) -- In bed with a book -- Stream / Mona Van Duyn (1921-2004) -- Ache of marriage -- Divorcing / Denise Levertov (1923-1997) -- Necessities / Lisel Mueller (b 1924) -- Children -- From Pro femina: I, II / Carolyn Kizer (b 1925) -- Envelope -- Calling / Maxine Kumin (b 1925) -- Housewife -- Truth the dead know / Anne Sexton (1928-1974) -- I am in danger-Sir -- From twenty-one love poems: III, XI -- For the record / Adrienne Rich (b 1929) -- Daddy -- Morning song -- Edge / Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) -- What we want -- Prosody 101 -- Obligation to Be happy / Linda Pastan (b 1932) -- Advice to a discarded lover -- Poem ended by a death / Fleur Adcock (b 1934) -- Now that I am forever with child / Audre Lorde (1934-1992) -- Roses, late summer -- Place I want to get back to / Mary Oliver (b 1935) -- My mother's novel -- For strong women -- For the young who want to / Marge Piercy (b 1936) -- Lost baby poem / Lucille Clifton (b 1936) -- Animals in that country -- Habitation -- Carrying food home in winter -- From Songs of the transformed: Pig song -- Rat song -- Crow song / Margaret Atwood (b 1939) -- Invocation -- Morning news / Marilyn Hacker (b 1942) -- Language of the brag -- Topography / Sharon Olds (b 1942) -- Fable -- Eros / Louise Gluck (b 1943) -- Amaryllis -- Lesson / Ellen Bryant Voigt (b 1943) -- Legacies / Nikki Giovanni (b 1943) -- Pomegranate / Eavan Boland (b 1944) -- Repulsive theory -- Well or the cup / Kay Ryan (b 1945) -- Happiness -- Otherwise / Jane Kenyon (1947- 1995) -- Outcry -- Physics / Heather McHugh (b 1948) -- Garden Shukkei-en / Carolyn Forche (b 1950) -- Crab-Boil / Rita Dove (b 1952) -- Asiniig -- Advice to myself / Louise Erdrich (b 1954) -- Notes to the poems -- Credits -- Index of authors and titles -- Index of titles.