The Pushcart prize 2002 XXVI: best of the small presses

The cavemen in the hedges / Stacey Richter

Narrow road to the deep north / Gary Amdahl

Gratitude / Robert Cording

About tere who was in Palomas / Dagoberto Gilb

Tomorrow's bird / Ian Frazier

At horticulture park / Marianne Boruch

Returning to Providence / David Plante

Suitcase song / Albert Goldbarth

An official reply / Ha Jin

Grief / Pamela Painter

My night with Philip Larken / Rachel Loden

The ashes of August / Kim Barnes

Inventory / Eamon Grennan

Semper paratus / Alyson Hagy

Kinds of sleep / Kevin Prufer

The secrets of bats / Jess Row

A short history of the shadow / Charles Wright

Hippies / Denis Johnson

Creeley cursing in church / Rick Campbell

The big-breasted pilgrim / Ann Beattie

Three crows / Carol Potter

The bad seed: a guide / Nicola Mason

Beetles / Steve Kowit

Khwaja Khadir / David James Duncan

It is hard not to love the world / Jim Moore.

The mourning door / Elizabeth Graver

In transit / John Hollander

O lost / Thomas Wolfe

The turning / Jeannette Barnes

Reflections of an uncertain Jew / Andre Aciman

The poet's voice / Michael S. Harper

Melba Kuperschmid returns / Peter M. Orner

Memory / Anthony Hecht

Alcyone / Talvikki Ansel

The fireman / Rick Bass

Bike ride with older boys / Laura Kasischke

Self and attributes / Susan Wheeler

The thief of Tay Ninh / Kevin Bowen

Limen / Natasha Trethewey

Labor / Madison Smartt Bell

Splinter / Jeff Dolven

Bit-o-honey / Bernard Cooper

The story of the door / David Huddle

By a swimming pool outside Syracusa / Billy Collins

Death as a fictitious event / Bert O. States

Going / Daniel Hoffman

Part of the story / Stephen Dobyns.

Pain thinks of the beautiful table / Laurie Lamon

The price of eggs in China / Don Lee

Memoir / Louise Gluck

Seven types of ambiguity / Dan Chaon

I am Mrs. Lorca / Rafael Campo

Beethoven, Monet, technology and us / Burton Raffel

Yellow fever / Barbara Hamby

Grafting / Mariko Nagai

Recitation / Scott Cairns

A little learning / Sharon Dilworth

Archaeology / Margaret Gibson

Blood Sport / Thomas Lynch

In praise of coldness / Jane Hirshfield

Things not seen in a rear-view mirror / Debra Marquart

The palace at 4:00 A.M. / Debora Greger

Miles / Richard Burgin

Inheritance / Kwame Dawes

The names / Carol Maso

Her garden / Donald Hall

Funktionslust / Melissa Pritchard

To the tune of a small, repeatable, and passing kindness / Carl Phillips

The Moor / Russell Banks

The children of this land / Wole Soyinka

Fugue / Elizabeth Alexander.