Able Muse Anthology (best of the poetry, fiction, short stories, creative nonfiction, essays, interviews, book reviews, poetry translation, art & phot

"Over the last twelve years Able Muse and its extraordinary companion website the Eratosphere have created a huge and influential virtual literary community. There is no better example of the New Bohemia of electronic culture. Poets, translators, critics, teachers, and readers gather in this vast, smokey virtual all-night cafe, sharing work, debating issues, providing advice and instruction. The clientele of the Eratosphere range from major poets to rank amateurs, all conversing as equals. There is no question that this invisible institution has become central to countless poets and critics, especially those interested in form and narrative, who find here an informed and engaged community impossible to surpass in the bricks and mortar world. Able Muse has now gathered the best of their works in both prose and verse in an ink-and-paper anthology. This book fills an important gap in understanding what is really happening in early twenty-first century American poetry."-Dana Gioia

"This extraordinarily rich collection of fiction, poetry, essays and art by so many gifted enablers of the Muse is both a present satisfaction and a promise of future performance. May this now decade-old enterprise continue to flourish!"-Charles Martin

"Neither unskilled, lethargic, nor distracted from their proper enterprise, the muses in the past decade have been singularly able, as this outstanding anthology of work from The Able Muse demonstrates. The poems, including fine work by R.S. Gwynn, Mark Jarman, X.J. Kennedy, Leslie Monsour, Timothy Steele, Alan Sullivan, Diane Thiel, Deborah Warren, and a score of other skilled poets, almost define what good American poetry is and should be, whether in traditional rhymed forms, which dominate here, or freer ones. Marvelous wit appears throughout. Translations from three languages, an interview with Steele, and good essays on rhyme, Richard Wilbur, and Turner Cassity provide reinforcement for the high poetic values on display "-Catharine Savage-Brosman

"You hold in your hands a remarkable anthology of poems, translations, an interview, essays, short stories and visual art. These represent the best of The Able Muse an on-line magazine now defying current trends by moving into print. To have this work published between covers is to meet not only such well-known writers as X.J. Kennedy, Rachel Hadas, R.S. Gwynn and A.E. Stallings, but also to form an acquaintance with a much larger community, including writers who will be new to you but who share both devotion and accomplishment. Welcome to the dexterous makers of The Able Muse."-David Mason

"Much so-called poetry you can read on the web merits an epithet coined by John Updike-"road kill on the information highway." But Able Muse for more than a decade has been a reliable source of the real thing. Two dozen of my favorite metrical poets illuminate this splendid anthology, besides others I'm grateful to meet. Here's a generous serving of the cream of Able Muse, including not only formal verse but nonmetrical work that also displays careful craft, memorable fiction (seven remarkable stories), striking artwork and photography, and incisive critical prose (don't miss Susanne J. Doyle's funny, heart-warming memoir of Turner Cassity). As this enjoyable selection proves, editor Alex Pepple has enlisted more than his share of the best art and writing America has generated lately."-X.J. Kennedy