The World Has Need of You: Poems for Connection

edited by Michael Wiegers

forthcoming Winter 2023

“Poets feed us. They look where there seems to be nothing to see, and they see.” —Alberto Ríos

In times of joy and sorrow, celebration and confusion, people turn to poetry. Amid the initial uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, the staff and interns of Copper Canyon Press created The World Has Need of You, a response to our community’s need for balm, for fuel, for a sense of connection.

Curated from our in-house catalogue of poems, this anthology is dedicated to our community of poets and readers with deep gratitude and awe: Your support and collaboration ensures that poetry will continue to flourish, bring comfort, and ignite change. We trust that, to weather any moment life brings, you will return to this collection to find the poets.

Contributor List

Chase Twichell, Marianne Boruch, W.S. Merwin, Camille Rankine, Olav Hauge (Robert Hedin, trans.), Sarah Ruhl, Arthur Sze, David Budbill, Lucille Clifton, Rachel McKibbens, Vicente Aleixandre (Lewis Hyde, trans.), Mark Bibbins, Anna Swir, Jericho Brown, Lao-Tzu, Ghassan Zaqtan (Fady Joudah, trans.), Dana Levin, Hayden Carruth, Alberto Ríos, C.D. Wright, Pablo Neruda (Forrest Gander, trans.), Deborah Landau, Dan Gerber, Brenda Shaughnessy, Ocean Vuong, Gregory Orr, Ellen Bass, Dean Rader, June Jordan, Ruth Stone, Lisa Olstein, James Richardson, Hô Xuân Huong (John Balaban, trans.), James Arthur, Laura Kasischke, Jean Valentine, Roger Reeves, Victoria Chang, Ted Kooser, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lucia Perillo, Bob Hicok, Leila Chatti, Alison C. Rollins, Jim Harrison, Matthew Zapruder, Jenny George, Richard Jones, Heather McHugh, Olena Kalytiak Davis, John Taggart, Tishani Doshi

Paperback: $16.00 list price

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ISBN: 9781556596230

Format: Paperback

The Current Isolationism
by Camille Rankine

In the half-light, I am most
at home, my shadow
as company.

When I feel hot, I push a button
to make it stop. I mean this stain on my mind
I can’t get out. How human

I seem. Like modern man,
I traffic in extinction. I have a gift.
Like an animal, I sustain.

A flock of birds
when touched, I scatter. I won’t approach
until the back is turned.

My heart betrays. I confess: I am afraid.
How selfish of me.
When there’s no one here, I halve

the distance between
our bodies infinitesimally.
In this long passageway, I pose

against the wallpaper, dig
my heels in, catch the light.
In my vision, the back door opens

on a garden that is always
in bloom. The dogs
are chained so they can’t attack like I know

they want to. In the next yard
over, honeybees swarm
and their sound is huge.