The Aspen Poets' Society-a diverse democracy of poets on the Western Slope of Colorado. Grocery clerks, teachers, transplants, musicians, miners, counselors, students, designers, housewives, fishing guides and librarians, backwoods squatters, dancers and trust funders, or as Walt Whitman might have said, a piece of "America singing."

These poets gather in a variety of venues to honor the word, speak and share the word with each other and with whomever will listen. This democracy of poetry welcomes all forms of poetry. Some of the guest poets featured are from neighboring states.

This anthology represents as many of these voices as we could solicit from poets who have in one way or another participated in this west-of-the-Continental Divide chorus, at that monthly poetry reading in Aspen that has kept pace with the changing years, representing poetry delivered at the open mic of the Aspen Poets' Society, Ink, over approximately a decade. Aspen Poets' Society is located in Aspen, Colorado, in the Roaring Fork Valley.