Since its founding in 1975, Persea Books has been a vital force in contemporary poetry. In its early years, it was a publisher of indispensable poets in translation-Paul Celan, Nazim Hikmet, Osip Mandelstam, and Vasko Popa among them-as well of innovative English-language poets of the twentieth century like Paul Blackburn, Ramon Guthrie, Les Murray, and Laura Riding. Its participation at the inception of the National Poetry Series (which to Persea books by Tory Dent, Marie Howe, Thylias Moss, James Richardson, and others) further laid the groundwork for its ongoing contemporary American poetry program, which includes dynamic and varied poets like Cameron Awkward-Rich, Elizabeth Bradfield, Molly McCully Brown, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Sarah Gambito, Kimberly Grey, Cynthia Marie Hoffman, Kimberly Johnson, Sandra Meek, Patrick Rosal, Lisa Russ Spaar, Alexandra Teague, and dozens of others.            However & Wherever We Are: Poems from Persea's First Fifty Years brings together a sampling of fifty poets essential to the press's identity in poetry over the past half-century.  Small yet formidable (like Persea itself), this anthology is a showcase for many of the irreplaceable poets the press has published and continues to publish-poets of striking imagination, lyricism, insight, and conscience.