| Introduction | |
| Heresy and the American Ideal | |
| Heresy and the American Ideal: On T. R. Hummer | p. 3 |
| To Advantage Dressed: Miller Williams among the Naked Poets | p. 39 |
| Culture, Inclusion, Craft | |
| Culture, Inclusion, Craft: (On Albert Goldbarth, Jane Kenyon, Li-Young Lee, Wayne Koestenbaum, David Wojahn, Alice Fulton) | p. 61 |
| The Push of Reading: (On Jorie Graham, Carol Muske, Sherod Santos, A. R. Ammons) | p. 79 |
| Framed in Words: (On Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney, Eavan Boland) | p. 99 |
| Kinds of Knowing | |
| Smarts: (On Susan Howe, Andrew Hudgins, Mark Doty, Lynda Hull, Billy Collins) | p. 119 |
| Kinds of Knowing: (On Eric Pankey, Louise Gluck, Linda Bierds) | p. 137 |
| Plainness and Sufficiency: (On April Bernard, Susan Hahn, Lynne McMahon, Donald Revell, Rodney Jones) | p. 149 |
| Line by Line: (On Donna Masini, Donald Plate, 'Annah Sobelman, Arthur Smith, Deborah Digges, Elizabeth Spires) | p. 169 |
| Probable Reason, Possible Joy | |
| Probable Reason, Possible Joy: (On Henri Coulette, Diane di Prima, June Jordan) | p. 191 |
| On Restraint: (On Ted Kooser, Charles Simic, Galway Kinnell, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Charles Wright) | p. 205 |
| Romantic Melancholy, Romantic Excess: (On Linda Gregerson, Stephen Dunn, Sharon Olds, Stanley Plumly, Robert Hass) | p. 221 |
| Hieroglyphs of Erasure | |
| Against Mastery: Adrienne Rich and Philip Levine | p. 239 |
| The Crux of the Matter: David Wojahn | p. 251 |
| The Romance of Betrayal: David St. John | p. 257 |
| Hieroglyphs of Erasure: Albert Goldbarth | p. 265 |
| Afterword: On Explication: 'Still-Hildreth Sanatorium, 1936" | p. 277 |
| Index | p. 287 |
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