The XY FIles

The title reflects the biological marker of maleness, the "XY" chromosome. This poetic documentary, 170 poems, celebrates the complex lives of men at the end of the twentieth century. The poets, male and female, young and old, straight, gay, adopted personas, and ethnically diverse have written about masculine myths, mysteries, and every day life with honesty and tenderness.

The 224 page book is organized into files representing facets of the male experience: work, love, fathers and sons, outdoor life, the body, risk taking, archetypes, elegies and what men talk about.

The editors note that the book is dedicated to the men in their lives who

"challenged us, cherished us, infuriated us and been our allies."

What the critics are saying:

"If, to paraphrase Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living, what he should have added is that the examined life is tremendously exciting, enriching, and great fun.

In the XY Files are poems of life, indeed, for anyone who has ever loved, hated , or been a man.

Here are almost two-hundred poems full of the music of male-ness, of multitudes of voices concerned with the growing and changing lives of men, and the women who can also speak to the male experience of our century"

David Keller, poet, author of Land That Wasn't Ours

"As I read theses moving poems, I found my self coming face to face with myself and other men I know. This is truly a book for Everyman (and for anyone who wants a peek at what makes him tick)"

Paul Janeczko, poet, co-editor with Naomi Shihab Nye of I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You (Her Poems and His Poems Collected in Pairs)

order the book here