Collects over one hundred poems, forty of which can be heard on the accompanying CD, which are presented along with essays describing the importance of poetry being heard aloud and the changes the form has undergone in recent years.

Includes index.

CD track list -- Prologue -- Nobody's here (Marc Smith) -- Essay : poetry as a basic human need (Ted Kooser) -- pt. 1. slammers and laureates -- Selecting a reader (Ted Kooser) -- galumpf deez nuts ... galumpf deez shoulders, spines, eyes and collarbones of mine (Anis Mojgani) -- Anne Frank Huis (Andrew Motion) -- Essay : the raised voice of poetry (James Fenton) -- THICK (Sonya Renee) -- Brightly colored boats upturned on the banks of the Charles (Billy Collins) -- Labeling keys (Taylor Mali) -- Open letter to Neil Armstrong (Mike McGee) -- Tract (Kevin Stein) -- tongue tactics (Mayda Del Valle) -- Old man leaves party (Mark Strand) -- The great poet returns (Mark Strand) -- Mandate (Roger Bonair-Agard) -- Essay : the revolution will be (Guy Le Charles Gonzalez) -- Bagram, Afghanistan, 2002 (Marvin Bell) -- Oya (Regie O'Hare Gibson) -- A winter journey (Dave Allan Evans) -- messiahs (Da Boogie Man) -- women take the slam -- When the burning begins (Patricia Smith) -- Hell night (Lisa Buscani) -- Funeral like Nixon's (Gayle Danley) -- Essay : read by the author : some notes on poetry in performance (Henry Taylor) -- Night house (Bob Holman) -- the elders -- It--the remedy (Marc Smith) -- Maps and wings (Gary Mex Glazner) -- Gravitas : in three movements (Michael Warr) -- My name's not Rodriguez (Luis J. Rodriguez) -- Hammer Heistand (the police chief) (Michael Brown) -- Private Patrick Gass, the carpenter, Makes his case to Lewis and Clark (Allan Wolf). pt. 2. Legacy : poetic influence -- Essay : Robert Creeley : performance poet (Bob Holman) -- Creeley's oral tradition (Bob Holman) -- Creeley's answering machine (Bob Holman) -- You got a song, man (Martín Espada) -- Apples (Michael Anania) -- Short and clear (Robert Creeley) -- Essay : a gathering of memories : Gregory Corso, 1930 -- 2001 (Bob Holman) -- Marriage (Gregory Corso) -- Letter to Jack Kerouac (on the 30th anniversary of his death--2001) (Mike Henry) -- I will give you Christmas (Billy Lombardo) -- Keys (Daniel Ferri) -- Essay : so this guy walks into the Green Mill Uptown Poetry Slam (Chicago) ... (Daniel Ferri) -- My father's coat (Marc Smith) -- Jonathan (Nick Fox) -- The quicksand hourglass (Jeffrey McDaniel) -- Essay : another two poets (Jeffrey McDaniel) -- The modernist bowling alley (Matt Cook) -- How the jellyfish wishes (Derrick Brown) -- Essay : poet David Lerner : "still floating, bobbing on the surface of oblivion ..." (Jeffrey McDaniel) -- Mein kampf (David Lerner) -- BLEED, BE (hydi zasteR) -- Truce (Viggo Mortensen) -- Utopian chaos (Hank Mortensen) -- Why I'm not a business man (Hank Mortensen). pt. 3. musicians meeting poets/music meeting poetry -- 8 fragments of Kurt Cobain (Jim Carroll) -- Tom Waits, I hate you (Simone Muench) -- RULEBOOK (Vernon Reid) -- Interruption in arc (Phil West) -- A letter to Bob Dylan (Jeff Buckley) -- A house is not a home (Scott Woods) -- put off your faces, death : for day is over (E.E. Cummings) -- Love, put on your faces (Patricia Barber) -- When I say my heart (Jeff Tweedy) -- Another great thing (Jeff Tweedy) -- Poetry of my heart (Billy Corgan) -- Sonny's Lettah (Linton Kwesi Johnson). pt. 4. slam poetry -- Essay : answering Carol : an open letter from the margin (Jack McCarthy) -- A quick thank you note to Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath (Genevieve Van Cleave) -- Saint Catherine of Siena to Mary-Kate Olsen (Marty McConnell) -- my southern heritage (Jason Carney) -- Essay : from poetryslam.com news, posted by "Slamuncle" (Steve Marsh) -- Thirty? again (Elizabeth Lewis) -- Essay : on poet Elizabeth Lewis (Dave Allan Evans) -- Guitar repair woman (Buddy Wakefield) -- Echo (Sou MacMillan) -- The vagabond heart says, (Lynne N. Procope) -- You are dangerous (Sarah McKinstry-Brown) -- Eulogy for Gregory Hines (Ed Mabrey) -- Jazz funeral (Chuck Perkins) -- The good news (Matt Mason) -- Letters from a young poet, letter #1 (young male poet) -- Phone sex operator (Cynthia French) -- Letters from a young poet, letter #2 (young male poet) -- Slut (Daphne Gottlieb) -- Letter my dad never gave me (Corbet Dean) -- Letters from a young poet, letter #3 (young male poet) -- Ophelia's Technicolor G-string : an urban mythology (Susan B.A. Somers-Willett) -- Undressing Virginia Dare (Victor D. Infante) -- Essay : on poet Paula L. Friedrich (Jack Foley) -- Essay : what legitimizes poems (Paula L. Friedrich) -- Ode to Pablo Neruda (Paula L. Friedrich) -- conquered, colonized, colonialized (Beau Sia) -- Essay : on poet Beau Sia (Jack Foley) -- slam poets writing in form -- Delilah and Samson (Michael Kadela) -- Epithalamion (Michael Kadela) -- Epithalamion : a few words for Kathleen (Jack McCarthy) -- Sylvia Plath's gangsta rap legacy (Jeremy Richards) -- T.S. Eliot's lost hip-hop poem (excerpt) (Jeremy Richards) -- Essay : parody's hidden agenda (Jeremy Richards) -- Medusa (Patricia Smith) -- Essay : "unable to untangle ourselves from this starkly crafted drama ..." (Patricia Smith) -- mistress stella speaks (Tyehimba Jess) -- Candler (James Nave) -- MY THIRD 9AM APPOINTMENT WITH THE UNIVERSITY'S WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE (Karyna McGlynn) -- Eve's Sestina for Adam (Lucy Anderton). pt. 5. the spoken world : poetry abroad -- It's history (Brendan Murphy) -- Moment Auf Rattanbank (Nora Gomringer) -- Moment on Rattan Bench (Nora Gomringer) -- Liebesrost (Nora Gomringer) -- Love rust (Nora Gomringer) -- Trois (Pilote le Hot) -- Three (Pilote le Hot) -- An American dream (Jürg Halter a.k.a. Kutti MC) -- Infected (David Stavanger a.k.a. Ghostboy) -- Amrit Sar (Chris Mooney-Singh) -- Prelude to a journey (Matthew Shenoda) -- Remembering (Matthew Shenoda) -- love poem (Suheir Hammad). pt. 6. the young and spoken : youth poetry -- Essay : the "youuuuths" : "at base, we humans want to connect with each other" Essay (James Kass) -- Sixteen fragments of Islam (Caronae Howell) -- Two cities (Kelly McWilliams) -- Lebron James (Nate Marshall) -- Superfabulous (Molly Kennedy) -- Dear son, part 1 (Zora Howard) -- Dead ass (Michael Cirelli). pt. 7. A hip-hop poetica -- The revolution will not be televised (Gil Scott-Heron) -- harlem love poem (yvonne fly onakeme etaghene) -- Brooklyn's atlas (Kyle G. Dargan) -- Microphone fiend (Kyle G. Dargan) -- 1707 (Idris Goodwin) -- Detroit winter (excerpt) (Invincible) -- Essay : toward a hip-hop poetica (Kevin Coval) -- The day Jam Master Jay died (Kevin Coval) -- what norman rockwell didn't capture (Kevin Coval) -- Crazy bunch barbeque at Jefferson Park (Willie Perdomo) -- B-Boy infinitives (Patrick Rosal) -- Freddie (Patrick Rosal) -- Born under punches (Major Jackson) -- All eyez on u (Nikki Giovanni) -- Mr. Dynamite splits (Thomas Sayers Ellis) -- Essay : the new oral poetry : an excerpt from the essay 'disappearing ink : poetry at the end of print culture' (Dana Gioia) -- Villanelle : for the dead white fathers (Duriel E. Harris) -- Drag (Duriel E. Harris) -- self portrait at the millennium (Duriel E. Harris) -- Rasta not (Tracie Morris) -- Indigo (Tracie Morris) -- Life saver (Tracie Morris) -- HIP HOP HAIKU (17 skillables) (Douglas Kerney, Bao Phi) -- makémake ghetto bodypartscasta (LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs) -- My father's brother (Christina Santana) -- hoodology (west side of chicago) (Mike Booker) -- For those who need a true story (Tara Betts) -- Lili's hands (Kelly Tsai) -- Blue Monday (Xero) --, said the shotgun to the head. (excerpt) (Saul Williams) -- Essay : stealing from a Jeff Chang book on hip-hop (Jeff Chang) -- Epilogue (Victor D. Infante) -- A tree in the forest (Marc Smith) -- About the editors -- Acknowledgments -- Contributor biographies -- Permissions and credits -- Index.