First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them

When Carmela Ciuraru, former editor of the Journal of the Poetry Society of America, asked poets to recount their first experiences with verse, the response was astounding. Poets ardently selected the poems that made them fall in love with poetry, commemorating the sparks that led to a lifelong commitment to the architecture of language. The result, featuring many Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning poets, is a marvelous anthology of poignant, intimate, often humorous essays accompanied by the poems that inspired our most celebrated poets. Regardless of your relationship to verse -- reader, student, writer, or someone entirely new to its myriad pleasures -- First Loves is sure to enchant and delight.