Adrian Blevins is a poet and essayist who has taught at Hollins University, Sweet Briar College, and in theVirginia Community College System. She also is the author of The Man Who Went Out for Cigarettes, a chapbook of poems. In this essay, Blevins explores the ways in which James Dickey's "The Hospital Window" articulates and makes accessible an experience that is, in the end, of a highly spiritual and even metaphysical nature.

In his introduction to The Best American Poetry 1991, the American poet Mark Strand tells an especially illuminating story about his mother's fear and bewilderment in the face of his decision, as a college student, to become a poet. "But then you'll never be able to earn a living," his mother said.Strand, after a commendable discussion on the differences between the language of poetry and the language of nonfiction prose—generally fact-bound news—that his...