The first McSweeney's foray into contemporary poetry brings together onehundred poems by fifty poets in ten poet-chains, and makes us wonder why wewaited so long to try this. How it works: Ten poets choose a poem of theirown and a poem by another poet, who then does the same, and so on unto thefifth generation. Thus DC Berman leads to Charles Simic by way of JamesTate, and other chains run through Mary Karr, Denis Johnson, C.D. Wright,Michael Ondaatje, John Ashbery, Mark Doty, C.K. Wright, Dean Young, YusefKomunyakaa, and dozens more.

Introduction by: David Orr