Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry 3rd Edition edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellman, and Robert O'Clair (two-volume boxed set $75)
This extensive and extensively revised anthology of English-language poetry stretches from Walt Whitman to Anne Carson. Over half the poetry is new. Also appearing for the first time is a poetics section, providing prose work by the featured poets. It's a college-level course at a fraction of the cost.

Sin Puertas Visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women edited and translated by Jen Hofer (Univ. of Pittsburgh $22.50)
Ms. Hofer "cast a wide and public net" to gather the poems for this fully bilingual anthology, placing ads in a variety of Mexican newspapers, literary journals, and cultural centers. Her goal, to find emerging or less established poets, was realized with these eleven writers, all of whom have published at least one book in Mexico but whose work had not been translated into English. She is careful to point out that this collection is not panoramic but "rather periscopic and pivoting and particular." Each poet provided a poetic statement that concludes her section.

All Day Permanent Red by Christopher Logue (FSG $18)
With this volume, Mr. Logue continues his much praised translation of Homer' s Iliad, here rendering the epic's first battle scenes. The crisp, brisk, yet musical results are an impressive mixture of the ancient and the contemporary.

The Blue Hour by Carolyn Forche (HarperCollins $24.95)
In her first collection since The Angel of History, Ms. Forche again turns her gaze to the sorrows of the world. Over half of the book consists of an incantatory, elegiac poem that takes the inspiration for its abecedarian form from ancient Gnostic hymns.

Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara: A Memoir by Joe LeSueur (FSG $25)
This captivating book grants us entry into Frank O'Hara's circle, which included the likes of Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Koch, Grace Hartigan, and Edwin Denby, to name but a very few. LeSueur, who shared several apartments with O'Hara, structured his memoir around O'Hara's poems, placing them in context, annotating them, and on occasion modestly offering an opinion. His reminiscence is not only important to scholars of The New York School, it's a delicious read.

Rules of the House by Tsering Wangmo Dhompa (Apogee $12.95)
This is a marvelous book. Ms. Dhompa's voice is faultlessly sincere. The poems consider her childhood in Tibetan communities in India and Nepal, and her exile into American culture, with great charm and a clean indirection. As example, from "Partial Sun": "We were little and we had people we wanted to be like, but M said they had no jobs, only capricious hairstyles."

J'Accuse by Aharon Shabtai (New Directions $14.95)
In this collection of fierce, unflinching poems the Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai accuses his government and his nation of believing morality is "a pain in the ass." His poem, "War" begins "I, too, have declared war: / You' ll need to divert part of the force / deployed to wipe out the Arabs - /. and set it against me." Mr. Shabtai's passions run wide and deep, so this collection is balanced with some fine, sensual love poems. Originally written in Hebrew, the poems are translated here by Peter Cole.

The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems by Charles Simic (Harcourt $25)
This broad selection is drawn from Mr. Simic's books, beginning with Unending Blues (1996) and ending with nineteen new poems. Only work from his prose poetry collection, The World Doesn't End, is left out. For those of you unfamiliar with his distinctly dark and humorous voice, here's the title poem in its entirety: "Who put canned laughter / into my crucifixion scene?" None of the rest of the poems are that short, but all sing with that immediacy and oddness. The publisher very wisely chose not to interrupt the flow of the poems with section breaks, so we readers are left bathing in one long, brisk Simic spring.

Great American Prose Poems From Poe to the Present edited by David Lehman (Scribners $16)
Mr. Lehman has been generous in his parameters, so this thick anthology begins with a piece by Ralph Waldo Emerson and closes with a piece by -- birth years are included so we know -- the twenty-seven year old Jenny Boully. The great Harryette Mullen is included, as are the expected characters of Peter Johnson and Louis Jenkins. If you believe in, want to believe in, or want to argue with the existence of such a thing as a prose poem, this anthology gives you plenty to read. Take this book as evidence, and make your case.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight by Agha Shahid Ali (Norton $21.95)
The Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali was a terrific character and terrific writer. His death, in 2001, came too soon. There is always a great depth of feeling in his work, and quite often a delicious sense of humor, too. This book is a compilation of ghazals, the Persian form Mr. Ali championed, written in English. At the end of a ghazal the poet is to use his or her own name, or a pseudonym. He ends "After You" with: ".although / SHAHID DEVASTATES FLORIDA is your dream headline, no hurricane will ever be named after you." Mr. Ali lived and wrote like a force of nature.

Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry selected by Billy Collins (Random House $13.95)
This anthology draws from the "180" website that Mr. Collins created soon after he became United States Poet Laureate. Though designed for use in high schools ("all too often.the place where poetry goes to die," Collins writes in his introduction), the collection will please all readers seeking accessible contemporary American poetry. Included are work by Philip Levine, Mary Ruefle, Lucia Perillo, Dorianne Laux, Bill Knott, Lucille Clifton, Bob Hicok, Lisa Jarnot, Joe Wenderoth, and Norman Dubie, to name but a few.

Lost River by James Tate (Sarabande $8.95)
This chapbook finds Mr. Tate working his inscrutable magic. The twenty poems, not previously published in book form, are quirky, funny, with the wistfulness and/or ache that sets his work apart. At once as pedestrian and surreal as a Monty Python skit, these poems get under the skin and are welcome there.