gulf war

Denise Levertov reads from her collection Evening Train (1992), mixing in several poems from A Door in the Hive (1989). She also reads poems that would later appear in Sands of the Well (1996). Longing—for the past, for human connection, for an end to atrocities committed by the United States military—plays a prominent role in the poems Levertov reads.

Galway Kinnell reads from across his body of work before reading drafts of poems that would appear in his twelfth book, Imperfect Thirst (1994). He reads from Body Rags (1968), The Book of Nightmares (1971), Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980), and When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990). He also recites a portion of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Whitman's death.

Judith Barrington reads from History and Geography (1989) along with poems that would go on to be collected in Horses and the Human Soul (2004) and several that remain uncollected. The poems she selects for this reading center on place, landscape, memory, and Lesbian identity; horses recur throughout.