Although evaluation is at the core of many of the practices associated with poetry--including teaching, editing, selecting, judging, and even writing--and although there have been involved discussions of the assessment of verse, there has been no empirical investigation of the specific values which, one supposes, lie at the heart of such…

From September 2008 to July 2009, the author traded academic robes for the Army Combat Uniform issued to US Navy personnel deploying to Afghanistan. Along with using the ceramic and Kevlar body armor he learned to don at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he metaphorically defended himself from the disruption to his personal and professional life that…

The author responds to the essays in this special issue by noting that they emphasize the importance of careful, complex comparisons between Western and Chinese rhetorical traditions.

A short story of a teacher, a student and the ghost of William Blake. (RY)

Respondents agreed that the best poetry currently is being published in "Poetry,""New Yorker," and "American Poetry Review." (JH)

Notes that the minor Romantic poet John Clare commands increasing attention at academic conferences, in essay collections, and on college syllabi. Argues the practices that have kept Clare in view have also rendered him partially inaccessible to students, scholars and general readers. Suggests readers are now in possession of the materials with…

A satire on overzealous annotators and over overclever poets. (JH)

Author discusses issues inherent in Emily Dickinson's effort to define herself and to perceive truthfully the milieu in which she experienced life. To appreciate Dickinson, one must not be offended by the reminder that she was a poetess.'' (Author/NL)

Holland's "Poems in Persons" is evaluated. (JH)

Author encounters poems by women as part of the matrix of her own life and the lives of her women students. In so doing, she and they discover the meaning of literature in a new way. (Author/NL)

Shows that Antin's talk poems satisfy basic needs. Discusses Antin's view on an art that addresses the concerns of "common life" and concentrates on feelings that do not depend on elaborate and evasively self-sustaining formal constructs. (EL)

Describes the emergence of Native American writers and the problems they face with their achievement. Apendixes list publishers of native American poetry and contemporary poets. (CRH)

Examines the difficulty an aspiring poet faces in publishing, and by reprinting an example, praises poetry as a refining of raw experience and exhorts all poets to continue writing. (CRH)

Answers to letters sent by the editors of College English to poets who have published poems in the magazine asking why they write poems, to whom they write poems, and what particular purpose poems have in this magazine. (Editor/MB)