Alicia Suskin Ostriker's voice has long been acknowledged as a major force in American poetry. In "No Heaven," her eleventh collection, she takes a hint from John Lennon's andquot; Imagineandquot; to wrestle with the world as it is: andquot; no hell below us, / above us only sky.andquot; It is a world of cities, including New York, London, Jerusalem, and Berlin, where the poet can celebrate pickup basketball, peace marches, and the energy of graffiti. It is also a world of families, generations coming and going, of love, love affairs, and friendship. Then it is a world full of art and music, of Rembrandt and Bonnard, Mozart and Brahms. Finally, it is a world haunted by violence and war. andlt; Iandgt; No Heavenandlt; /Iandgt; rises to a climax with elegies for Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated by an Israeli zealot, and for the poet's mother, whose death is experienced in the context of a post-9/11 impulse to destroy that seems to seduce whole nations. Yet Ostriker's ultimate stance is to andquot; Try to praise the mutilated world, andquot; as the poet Adam Zagajewski has counseled. At times lyric, at times satiric, Ostriker steadfastly pursuesin "No Heaven" her poetics of ardor, a passion for the here and now that has chastened and consoled her many devoted readers.