Poet's Choice

You can see nothing of her, but her head

bent over the page, her hand moving,

moving again, and her hair.

I wrote like that once.

But this is different:

This time, when she looks up, I will be there.

Different though they are, these poems share a deep assurance that something in culture, in art, in the art of poetry and its forms, endures to speak across distances: from one culture to another, from place to place, and across time from generation to generation. In each, the writing of the poem itself become part of that story of endurance.

(Lam Thi My Da's poem "Night Harvest" can be found in the anthology "The Making of a Sonnet." Edited by Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland. Norton. Copyright 2008 by Norton. Eavan Boland's poem can be found in her book "Against Love Poetry." Norton. Copyright 2001 by Eavan Boland.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a little more than three years now, we've handed this space over to Robert Pinsky, a poet who is often called "poetry's rock star" for his passionate conviction that this highest of literary arts should be loved by the most ordinary of people. As a U.S. Poet Laureate, as a professor at Boston University, and as author or editor of 19 books, Pinsky has tirelessly promoted the craft and the work of his fellow poets. And here, in Book World, in more than 150 columns, he has combined his prodigious knowledge with a sharp eye for emerging talent. We thank him for a splendid run.