The Next-to-Last Word

Sometimes you don't need to have the last word.

Having the next-to-last word can be quite fine in its own right.

For example, my poem "Sweater" is the penultimate entry in the anthology Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems, edited by Ellen Foos, Vasiliki Katsarou and Ruth O'Toole, and published by Ragged Sky Press. That strange and wonderful book title is drawn from the title of a strange and wonderful poem by Eileen Malone on page 65.

Besides her poem and mine (which previously appeared in my collection Settling for Beauty), there is work by very well-known poets including Kim Addonizio, Jorie Graham, Paul Muldoon and Charles Simic. Clothing from head to toe is covered, and the moods range from the solemn to the hilarious. Among the latter is Janis Butler Holm's "If Paris Hilton Wrote Poetry," which must be read to be believed.