The Spring 2009 issue of Ploughshares, guest-edited by Eleanor Wilner. Ploughshares, a journal of new writing, is guest-edited serially by prominent writers who explore different personal visions, aesthetics, and literary circles.This issue, edited by prize-winning poet Eleanor Wilner, author of The Girl with Bees in Her Hair, features new work from Maxine Kumin, Jess Row, Terrance Hayes, Alicia Ostriker, Ilya Kaminsky, and many other distinguished poets and writers. In her Introduction, Wilner writes, “I love poets who bring us to our proper size. Think about taking a picture of a mile-high waterfall, and about that little human you need in the shot to suggest the magnitude caught in the image—the tiny person is the scale factor. It isn’t that true scale diminishes the human, but rather that it celebrates our luck to be in the picture at all—such wonders!”Full Table of ContentsINTRODUCTIONEleanor WilnerEDITOR PROFILEby Christine CassonFICTION"Leaving Women," by Andria Nacina Cole "Baby R.," by C. E. Poverman"Lives of the Saints," by Jess Row"Hidden Works," by Sasha TroyanPOETRY byMeena AlexanderSinan AntoonSujata BhattJaswinder BolinaMarianne BoruchKevin ClarkCarolyn CreedonCarl DennisPatrick DonnellyPatricia FargnoliDaisy FriedDiane GilliamAnnie GuthrieMarilyn HackerJim HaganTerrance HayesIlya KaminskyBrigit Pegeen KellyMark KraushaarMaxine KuminLynn LevinMaurice ManningConstance MerrittNadine Sabra MeyerMuriel NelsonJacqueline OsherowAlicia OstrikerMarcia PelletiereJulia RandallJ. Allyn RosserTim SeiblesRebecca SeiferleTaije SilvermanBruce SniderHeidy SteidlmayerFrancine SterleTerese SvobodaElaine TerranovaAlpay UlkuBOOKSHELFKate Flaherty reviews: Exiles: A Novel, by Ron HansenDavid James Poissant reviews: Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer, an anthology edited by Bret Anthony JohnsonMichael Morse reviews: The Earth in the Attic: Poems, by Fady JoudahWilliam Cloonan discusses: J.-M. G. Le Clézio and the Nobel Prize