Dark Horses ─ Poets on Overlooked Poems

Too many amazing poems end up overlooked by the academy and excluded from the canon, remaining largely unknown to the poetry-reading public. Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer’s Dark Horses joyfully rediscovers dozens of these poems, recognizes their power, and illuminates their significance.

Seventy-five established American poets including Billy Collins, John Ashbery, Linda Bierds, Carl Phillips, C. K. Williams, Wanda Coleman, Miller Williams, and Dana Gioia have each selected one unjustly neglected poem, most never previously anthologized, and written a concise commentary to accompany it. Selections include forgotten gems by well known poets as well as poems by writers who have fallen into obscurity. Dark Horses also acts as a primer on how to creatively read a poem and a documentary of the bonds between a poem and its reader.

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