Word of Mouth

These short segments of poets reading their own work, introduced and discussed by Bowman, allowed listeners to experience poetry as verbal music, recalling its roots as a popular oral art form. Collected here, they offer a window into the dynamic contemporary poetry scene. Word of Mouth features such award-winning and acclaimed writers as Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, Paul Muldoon, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jack Gilbert, Yusef Komunyakaa, C. D. Wright, Hal Sirowitz, Jane Cooper, and Wing Pang. This celebration of the poetic voice proves beyond any doubt that poetry is far more than just words on paper.

About the Editor<br><br>Catherine Bowman was born in El Paso, Texas, and currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where she teaches at Indiana University. She has worked with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" since 1995 as a consultant and commentator on contemporary poetry. She is the award-winning author of two collections of poems, <b>1-800-HOT-RIBS</b> and <b>Rock Farm</b>. She received the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize, the Kate Frost Tufts Discovery Award, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship from the University of Texas, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and two Yaddo Fellowships. Her poems have appeared in four editions of <i>The Best American Poetry</i> and in many magazines and journals, such as <i>TriQuarterly, River Styx, Conjunctions, Kenyon Review, Plo