The Pushcart prize, XV, 1990-1991: best of the small presses

Introduction / Russell Banks

The day I met Buddy Holly / Kim Herzinger

On the Zeedijk / Richard Watson

A letter / Albert Goldbarth

Typical / Padgett Powell

Rust / Josip Novakovich

Vital signs / Natalie Kusz

Armageddon : Private Gabriel Calvin Wojahn, 1900-1918 / David Wojahn

My mother and Mitch / Clarence Major

The cave / Michael Collier

I'm having trouble with my relationship / Leonard Michaels

Astronauts / Wally Lamb

Through and through / Joseph Geha

Austerity in Vermont / T.R. Hummer

Heaven / David Lehman

Field of fire / Will Baker

The center of the story / Lydia Davis

Hospice / Lydia Hull

A motiveless malignancy / Barry Callaghan

Zoe / Molly Best Tinsley

What I wanted most of all / Daniel Hayes

Hopkins and Whitman / Lynne McMahon

Rush hour / Laurie Sheck

Above the tree line / Kathy Mangan

Installations / Robin Hemley

Snuff dippers / Shay Youngblood

On the life and death of Stan Laurel's son / Walter Pavlich

Hide-and-go-seek / Judith Kitchen

The middle of nowhere / Kent Nelson

Crazy life / Lou Mathews

Miller Canyon trail no. 106 / Michael Bowden

Believer's flood / Richard Currey

Murphy's angel / Thomas E. Kennedy

For Anna Mae Aquash whose spirit is present here and in the dappled stars / Joy Harjo

What the blue jay said / Frankie Paino

More room / Judith Ortiz Cofer

Francis : brother of the universe / Rodney Hale Jones

Dying in Massachusetts / Donald W. Baker

Listening / David Mura

At the I.G.A. : Franklin, New Hampshire / Jane Kenyon

With Pat Boone in the pentlands / Ken Chowder

Castrato / Kenneth Rosen

Miles weeping / Michael Waters

Aliens / Sharman Apt Russell

Because / Christopher Merrill

Cambrian night / James Solheim

Post-Larkin triste / Mary Karr

What is beyond us / Karen Fish

Broken hearts / Sarah Glasscock

The David of Michelangelo / Dennis Vannatta

Captivity : the minks / Toi Derricotte

Apologues of winter light / Christopher Buckley

Wejumpka / Rick Bass

Ascension on Fire Island / Henri Cole

A vacant lot / Gibbons Ruark

My lord bag of rice / Carol Bly

For the missing in action / John Balaban

Dust (Ars Poetica) / Allen Grossman

The battle of Manila / Laura Kalpakian

Special mention

Presses featured in the Pushcart Prize Editions (1976-1990)

Contributing small presses

Index

Contributors' notes.