<DIV><p>Praise for Hayden Carruth:</p><p>"Something Hayden Carruth does as well as any writer is to treat the reader as a friend, and to provide, through his poetry, hours of good company."?<I>The New York Times Book Review</I></p><p>"One of the lasting literary signatures of our time."?<I>Library Journal</I>, starred review</p><p>"Carruth, like Whitman, like Chaucer, is large?he contains multitudes. Dip into his work anywhere, and there is life?and death?as stirringly felt and cogitated as in some vast, Tolstoyan novel."?<I>Booklist</I>, starred review</p><p>Hayden Carruth's <I>Last Poems</I> is a triumph?a morally engaged, tender, and fearless volume that combines the last poems of his life with the concluding poems from each of his previous volumes. Introduced by Stephen Dobyns, <I>Last Poems</I> is a moving tribute to a towering and beloved figure in American poetry.</p><p><B>From "Father's Day":</B></p><p><I>I don't know what fathers are<BR>Supposed to do, although the calendar says<BR>This is "Father's Day." But the day is gloomy<BR>And not at all conducive to visiting or<BR>Celebrating. I know the best thing fathers in<BR>Their prime can do is to make daughters and<BR>More daughters; we can never have enough.<BR>Daughters are our best protection against<BR><BR>Loneliness and the absurd atrocities of<BR>Foreign policy . . . </I></p><p><B>Hayden Carruth</B> (1921?2008) lived for many years in northern Vermont, then moved to upstate New York, where he taught at Syracuse University. He won the National Book Award for <I>Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey</I>, and his <I>Collected Shorter Poems</I> received the National Book Critics Circle Award.</p></DIV>