"The four long poems which comprise Anthem open outward not via abstraction but through the specifics of intimacy. Invention, for Jean Donnelly, is intimate - the parent, the friend, the child, are found, finally, to impact one's public sense of community and citizenship.

This collection moves from works inspired by letters (of Bernadette Mayer), to the lyrical folklore in "Legend," and, finally, to the private, domestic landscape embodied in "Anthem," which includes fifty sections, one with each of the states."--BOOK JACKET.