Preface -- I. Greetings from the Commonwealth! -- Pennsylvania / Gabriel Welsch -- The Map / Kathryn Hellerstein -- Coming East from Cleveland to Philadelphia at Harvest / Jeanne Murray Walker -- Route 81 / David Chin -- Me 'n Bruce Springsteen Take My Baby off to College / Barbara Crooker -- II. Beginnings: Philadelphia, "Dutch" Country, and Their Environs -- Philly Things / David Livewell -- Colors / Jeanne Murray Walker -- Rowers on the Schuylkill / Leonard Kress -- Listening for Bridge Builders / David Livewell -- Crazy Mary Rides the El / Michele A. Belluomini -- Spiritual Exercises, Kensington, Philadelphia / Leonard Kress -- If You Are Reading This / Lynn Levin -- Preliminary Sketches: Philadelphia / Elizabeth Alexander -- Our Lady of the Cabbages / Deborah Burnham -- 10 PM at a Philadelphia Recreation Center / Peter Krok -- The Star Show / Robin Becker -- A Poem for a Black Boy / Sonia Sanchez -- Chester County Winter Day / George Fleck -- Spiritual Morning / Robin Becker -- A Hill in Pennsylvania / Nathaniel Smith -- In the Small World / Sandra Kohler -- Mennonites / Julia Kasdorf -- Mennonite Farm Wife / Janet Kauffman -- Female Ancestor / Ann Hostetler -- Buggy Ride at Sixteen / Marjorie Maddox -- Papaya: Lancaster County / Juanita Brunk -- Back with the Quakers / Betsy Sholl -- Before the Silver Chord Is Loosed / Helen Mallon -- In Carpenter's Woods / Gerald Stern -- Halfway / Maxine Kumin -- Potter's Field, Germantown / Robin Hiteshew -- Wallace Stevens House Prayer / Heather Thomas -- Shillington / John Updike -- Route 222: Reading to Kutztown / Heather Thomas -- The Idea of the Ordinary / Carmine Sarracino -- III. Circling East: Mines, Mountains, and Mills -- Ode to Coal / Sherry Fairchok -- Coalscape / Craig Czury -- Coal Crackers / James Hoch -- Burning Mountain / W. S. Merwin -- Christ Comes to Centralia / Barbara Crooker -- Centralia (October 31, 1986) / Karen Blomain -- This is not my cousin / Valerie Fox -- What They Wanted Us to Bring Back / Sherry Fairchok -- Family Portrait, 1933 / Peter Oresick -- Working the Face / Jay Parini -- Coal Train / Jay Parini -- The Miner's Wife Leaves Home / Karen Blomain -- So the Coal Was Gone / Thomas Kielty Bloman -- Showing a Friend My Town / Harry Humes -- March 10, 1951 / Craig Czury -- Bones & Ashes / Helen Ruggieri -- Photograph / Anthony Petrosky -- The Strippings / Linda Tomol Pennisi -- Cousin, Will You Take My Hand? / Jerry Wemple -- Susquehanna: The Projects / Ruth Ellen Kocher -- Field (an Excerpt) / Linda Tomol Pennisi -- The Jeweler / Peter Oresick -- Real Faux Pearls / Betsy Sholl -- Polka Dancing to Eddie Blazonczyk and His Versatones in Coaldale, Pennsylvania / Leonard Kress -- A Different House / Paul Martin -- In Cursive / Len Roberts -- Spring Peepers, April, Wassergass / Len Roberts -- Easter Sunday, Seisholtzville / Ann E. Michael -- We Never Leave / Jason Moser -- Sprawl / Ann E. Michael -- Hawk Falls / Dan Maguire -- Climbing the Three Hills in Search of the Best Christmas Tree / Len Roberts -- Lehighton / David Staudt -- Gallivanting / Paul Martin -- Bombogenesis / Karen Blomain -- The Quarry / Paul Martin -- J.B. Phones Me at the End of Summer, Asking Where I Find Silence in the Lehigh Valley / Steven Myers -- The Poconos / Robin Becker -- Deer / Harry Humes -- IV. Hills and Ridges: The Susquehanna Valley and Central Pennsylvania -- Naming Heraclitus / Sandra Kohler -- November Textures / Karl Patten -- Cousins / Charles J. Rice -- The Agnes Mark / Gary Fincke -- Renovo / Sandra Kohler -- Freight / Julia Kasdorf -- The Little League World Series: First Play / Marjorie Maddox -- Going Back / Gregory Djanikan -- Nocturne: Roller Mills Flea Market / Nicole Cooley -- Clearfield County Fair / Ginny MacKenzie -- The Bloomsburg Fair / JoAnne Growney -- Racetrack Downriver / David Staudt -- Fishing the Little J Beneath the Methodist Church / Harry Humes -- The Company We Keep / Ron Mohring -- Worlds End / Barbara Crooker -- Winter Walks, Perry County / Susan Weaver -- It Isn't Raining / Cynthia Hogue -- Pleasure Gap / Bruce Bond -- Aunt Lena Committed to Bellefonte State Hospital / Ginny Mackenzie -- Running through Danville State Hospital / Michael Harden -- Laid Off in July / Matthew Perakovich -- Awl Street / Jerry Wemple -- Harrisburg Echoes (Excerpts) / Robert Small -- Nights Like This / Julia Kasdorf -- Three Mile Island Siren / Jack Veasey -- Dream City / Barbara DeCesare -- Twelve Facts about the Immigrants: A Prose Poem / Carmine Sarracino -- The Acoustic Shadows / Bruce Bond -- Gettysburg / Samuel Hazo -- The Battlefield Museum Guide Speaks / Carmine Sarracino -- V. Southwestern Pennsylvania: The Three Rivers Region and the Laurel Highlands -- Lines Written in a Pittsburgh Skyscraper / Diane Ackerman -- Bells / Deirdre O'Connor -- Listening to Jimmy Garrison (Pittsburgh, Pa.) / Sonia Sanchez -- The Dancing / Gerald Stern -- Integration (Kennywood Park, June 1963) / Daniel J. Wideman -- My Father Likes Pittsburgh / Jeffrey Oaks -- Pittsburgh Poem / Jan Beatty -- Brick / Kristin Kovacic -- My Grandfather's Cronies / Deirdre O'Connor -- Steelers! Steelers! Steelers! / Ann Hayes -- Class A, Salem, the Rookie League / Gary Fincke -- Slaving / Daniel J. Wideman -- Closed Mill / Maggie Anderson -- One of Many Bars in Ford City, Pennsylvania / Peter Oresick -- Spill / Judith Vollmer -- Listening to Birds after a Mild Winter / Judith Vollmer -- Audubon's Nature Preserve, Fox Chapel / Sharon F. McDermott -- Desire / Lynn Emanuel -- Panther Hollow Bridge, Pittsburgh / Jim Daniels -- Mysteries of Pittsburgh / Toi Derricotte -- In Her Mind She's Already Quit / Leslie Anne Mcilroy -- Miracle Mile / Ed Ochester -- Buddy Picture / Charles Clifton -- Leaving Pittsburgh / Kristin Kovacic -- Gray / Maggie Anderson -- Imagining the Johnstown Flood / Jerry Wemple -- Flash Flood / W. D. Snodgrass -- Altoona / E. A. Miller -- Memorial Day, Elderton, Pennsylvania / Ed Ochester -- Home Town / W. D. Snodgrass -- Apollo Is a Pink Town / JoAnne Growney -- Pennsylvania September: The Witnesses / Marjorie Maddox -- Spring: Fayette County, PA / Luise van Keuren -- This Hill Will Get You There / Patricia Jabbeh Wesley -- Turning into a Pond / Gerald Stern -- VI. North by Northwest: The Alleghenies and Erie -- Second Coming in Northern Pennsylvania / Steven Huff -- When I Looked Next / Michael Teig -- After Tithonous and Aurora, Thoughts on a Life of Work / David Swerdlow -- Bullet Shell Heart / Kirk Nesset -- Jacklighting / Antonio Vallone -- White Tent in the Alleghenies / David Staudt -- Mountain Night / Berwyn Moore -- Swimming in Lake Erie: Intermediate Beginners / Deborah Burnham -- The Resurrection of Lake Erie / Gerald Costanzo -- Confession off the Lake / George Looney -- Yet / John Repp -- Bus Stop at West 12th Street / Sean Thomas Dougherty -- In the Old Neighborhood It Begins in the Urgency of Whoever Is Nameless It Pulls the Night Hard in the Hands / Sean Thomas Dougherty -- Driving in Someone Else's Light / Mark S. Borczon -- In a Diner in Franklin, Pennsylvania / George Looney -- Meditation in Oil City, PA / Philip Terman -- The Auctioneer / Philip Terman -- Tractor Pull / Brad Comann -- If We Were as Brilliant as Groundhogs / Philip Terman -- On Gobbler's Knob / Shirley Stevens -- The History of Summer / Sharon F. McDermott -- The Poets.