"American cities are physical labyrinths, and also spiritual and metaphysical ones," poet and novelist Nicholas Christopher observes in his introduction to Walk on the Wild Side. "The business of the city poet is to chronicle, explore, excavate, and reflect the byways, recesses, and inner chambers of that labyrinth." This anthology, the first to plumb the maze of American urban life, gives us the city in all its forms: ethnic, economic, religious, political, sexual, intellectual. Here are 115 poems from sixty poets, representing over twenty cities. These are not just poems "about" cities, or with the city as subject; they filter and radiate the diversity and vitality of today's cities, from the electric night of New York to the sunblanked sprawl of Los Angeles, from the factories of Pittsburgh to the waterfront of New Orleans.A kinetic mix of new voices and established writers, Walk on the Wild Side presents the timeless themes of poetry - the hunger for love, the circularity of memory, the search for renewal, and the ceremonies of life and death - through the prism of our unique urban experience. In a time when the city dominates so much of our nation's consciousness, Walk on the Wild Side illuminates the city's riches and ills. Read Less