<DIV><p>"I regard Lease as the best poet of his generation. This is a poetry filled with stories that are built to last. This is a poet who will become a major voice in American poetry."?David Shapiro</p><p>With singular grace and musicality, these accomplished poems summon the voices of a divided country. With a storyteller's rhythm, Lease braids humor, political bite, psychological intensity, and lyric beauty, taking us to a place of warning, critique, and elegy.</p><p><B>Joseph Lease</B> is the author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry: <I>Broken World</I>, <I>Human Rights</I>, and <I>The Room</I>. His poems have also been featured on NPR and published in <I>Bay Poetics</I>, <I>The AGNI 30th Anniversary Poetry Anthology</I>, <I>VQR</I>, <I>The Paris Review</I>, and elsewhere. Lease's poem "'Broken World' (For James Assatly)" appeared in <I>The Best American Poetry</I>, edited by Robert Creeley and David Lehman.<BR></DIV>