Since his poetry began appearing in the New Yorker when he was in his early twenties, Nicholas Christopher has been praised as one of America's most important poets by such literary talents as John Ashbery, Charles Simic, James Merrill, and Anthony Hecht, among others. Crossing the Equator collects Christopher's best work from the past three decades and includes a section of new poems that are among his finest. Exploring with equal brilliance the labyrinths of history and the human heart, the jagged magic of urban life and the illuminations of travel, the luminous and transformative voice of Crossing the Equator puts on display Christopher's dazzling power and myriad depths.


Cold missiles and a rain
of embers accompany the men
who slide like shadows into the city
faces mud-smeared
stones for teeth no eyes

who slit the throats of everyone
they encounter until breaking down
my door they drag me into the darkness
that floods the corridor
and lock me in an icy chamber
-from "The Last Hours of Laódikê, Sister of Hektor"