This highly engaging book vividly dramatizes an urban youth and a rural life, along with deeper concerns about injustice.

CONTENTS
(I) NEW POEMS [p. 8]
9 Family Dollar
10 What Was Expected
12 The Copier
13 The Gypsy Child
15 The Ivory Billed One
16 Looking at the Birds
18 Max and Rose
19 The Witch¿s Daughter
20 Just Taste Them
21 The Gardener¿s Wife
22 Swimming for the Ark
25 Doorway
27 The Well
29 White Bridge Road
30 Lifeline
32 The Trees
34 Wracked Blue Suitcase
36 Funnel
37 Tomma and Sammy
38 Rear View Mirror
40 Deer in the Apples
41 Forsythia
(II) THE SAME WATER (1990) [page 43]
44 from Coming of Age on the Harlem
48 from The Unmolested Child
54 The Precarious Nest
58 The Grotte des Infants
64 Larkspur
65 The Same Water
68 My Father¿s Last Words During the Breeders¿ Cup


(III) QUEEN OF THE MIST (1999) [page 70]
71 Initiation
72 The Phenomenon
73 Doing Cartwheels
75 A Woman¿s Options
77 Fiat!
79 ¿She¿s Coming!¿
81 Descent
83 Return
84 Debriefing
86 Visio Beatifica
88 The Window
90 Crawl on All Fours
91 Solo Flight
93 Immutability Canto
95 Last Days

(IV) LOOKING FOR THE PARADE (1999) [page 97]
98 Her Head
99 Taking the Count
101 Sonny¿s Hands
104 Play by Play
106 Possession
108 The Black Dog: On Being a Poet
109 What to Do with an Inchworm
111 Breath
113 from Autumn in Eden
115 The Good ¿Bad Kids¿
117 Peterborough Pet Store
120 20th Century Creativity
122 from Looking for the Parade


(V) DANCING ON THE EDGE (2002) [page 128]
129 The Fence
131 Eternity
133 Now We Know
136 Master of the Situation
138 For Anonymous
139 Toby¿s Body
141 What Makes Us Happy
(continues)
143 The Division of Labor
144 Being Light
146 The Mine
148 The Hunt
149 Where It¿s Taking Us
152 Jumpers
154 Dancing on the Edge
157 Song Overheard in a Field

Joan Murray: Joan Murray is a poet, writer, and playwright, whose books include: Looking for the Parade (W. W. Norton), Dancing on the Edge and Queen of the Mist (both from Beacon Press), and The Same Water (Wesleyan University Press).