When Emily's

deathly fly calls to her in

a tiny, pleading voice—

when Robert's

snowy woods glow with

an unearthly light—

when Walt's

celebratory song becomes a

post-apocalyptic dirge—

when Allen's

rebel howl bares sharp canines

beneath the Moloch moon—

when William Carlos'

red wheelbarrow transforms

in the lethal rain—

then the course prospectus

for American Poetry 101

will prove stranger than

anything Mr. Wells

could have ever

imagined.