The Best American Poetry

The Best American Poetry is a series of annual poetry anthologies, edited by David Lehman and published by Simon & Schuster. According to the Academy of American Poets, "Best American Poetry remains one of the most popular and best-selling poetry books published each year and the series continues to provide a bird's-eye view of the breadth of American poetry."

History

The series was begun by Lehman in 1988. The annual volumes are edited by Lehman and a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general series editor, each year contributes a foreword focusing on the state of contemporary poetry, and each year the edition's guest editor also contributes an introduction. The books in the series always follow the format of the first, each containing 75 poems in alphabetical order by the author's name, changing only the year: for instance, "The Best American Poetry 1988".

A compendium for the first decade of the series has also been published, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, guest-edited by literary critic Harold Bloom, who selected what he regarded as the 75 best poems from the previous ten anthologies.

Guest editors

The guest editors of the series, by year:

The Best American Poetry 2011: Kevin Young The Best American Poetry 2010: Amy Gerstler

The Best American Poetry 2009: David Wagoner The Best American Poetry 2008: Charles Wright The Best American Poetry 2007: Heather McHugh The Best American Poetry 2006: Billy Collins † The Best American Poetry 2005: Paul Muldoon The Best American Poetry 2004: Lyn Hejinian The Best American Poetry 2003: Yusef Komunyakaa The Best American Poetry 2002: Robert Creeley The Best American Poetry 2001: Robert Hass † The Best American Poetry 2000: Rita Dove †

The Best American Poetry 1999: Robert Bly The Best American Poetry 1998: John Hollander The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997: Harold Bloom The Best American Poetry 1997: James Tate The Best American Poetry 1996: Adrienne Rich The Best American Poetry 1995: Richard Howard The Best American Poetry 1994: A.R. Ammons The Best American Poetry 1993: Louise Glück † The Best American Poetry 1992: Charles Simic † The Best American Poetry 1991: Mark Strand † The Best American Poetry 1990: Jorie Graham The Best American Poetry 1989: Donald Hall † The Best American Poetry 1988: John Ashbery

† editors who (as of 2007) have also been U.S. poets laureate

Rules and process

In his 1988 foreword to the first edition of the series, Lehman laid out the following rules:

• Lehman would select a poet each year to serve as guest editor;
• Each year's guest editor would make the final selection of poems;
• Each year's anthology would have poems from the previous calendar year (the 1988 anthology, for instance, would include only poems published in 1987);
• There would be fifty to seventy-five poems in each annual anthology (in fact, there have always been 75 poems);
• The guest editor could select as many as three poems by an individual poet;
• Poets would be asked to submit brief biographical information and, at their option, given the opportunity to write a bit about the poem chosen ("its form or its occasion or the method of composition or any other feature worth remarking on");
• The poems could come from magazines, including large-circulation periodicals and small presses, and in rare instances from books by individual poets;
• For poems that had first appeared more than a year in the past but which had been reprinted in a magazine during the previous calendar year, Lehman decided to have no rule ("To such questions, the anthologist's ever-ready response is: you just play it by ear");
• Foreign poets residing in the United States, "especially in cases where the poet has come to seem a vital presence in a particular American community", would be eligible to appear, and so John Ash, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Walcott all made it into the 1988 edition.

Lehman also wrote that he had set some tasks for himself as series editor:

• To maintain continuity from year to year;
• to enforce "such rules as there are";
• to assist the guest editor, in particular by helping find poetry for the guest editor to look over;
• to pick the guest editor.

John Ashbery selected a poem by the series editor for inclusion in the inaugural volume of The Best American Poetry. In his introduction to the 1989 volume, Donald Hall noted that, "The series editor declined to be included." The series editor's own poems have not appeared in subsequent volumes.

In Lehman's foreword to the 1992 book, he noted that translations are ineligible.

Sources of poems

Template:Cleanup-laundry As of 2007, the following literary journals, magazines, and periodicals had published poems chosen for inclusion in The Best American Poetry:

The New Yorker Poetry Collection The American Poetry Review The Paris Review Ploughshares Yale Review New American Writing The Atlantic Monthly The New Republic Boulevard The Kenyon Review New England Review The Threepenny Review The Gettysburg Review Grand Street The Iowa Review Michigan Quarterly Review TriQuarterly Boston Review Colorado Review Callaloo Hanging Loose The Southern Review Verse Western Humanities Review AGNI Antaeus Barrow Street Denver Quarterly Hambone Shenandoah Southwest Review Antioch Review Conjunctions FIELD The New Criterion Partisan Review Beloit Poetry Journal Five Points The Hudson Review The New York Review of Books Sulfur Georgia Review New Letters SHINY Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) Epoch O.blek Seneca Review Green Mountains Review Ontario Review POOL The World The Virginia Quarterly Review Chicago Review Cincinnati Review Crab Orchard Review Exquisite Corpse Fence jubilat No Tin House The Alaska Quarterly Review American Letters and Commentary Chelsea Crazyhorse Fine Madness Harvard Review Many Mountains Moving Pleiades Prairie Schooner Sentence Witness 88 Black Warrior Review Connecticut Review Cream City Review LIT Mississippi Review Mudfish The Nation North American Review Ohio Review Pequod Poetry New York Raritan Quarterly Review River Styx Skanky Possum The Hat Urbanus can we have our ball back? ZYZZYVA

Aerial American Poet BOMB Boston Phoenix Columbia Poetry Review Conduit Facture Gulf Coast Indiana Review LUNA Margie Massachusetts Review MeridianTemplate:Disambiguation needed No Roses Review Quarterly West Salmagundi TemblorTemplate:Disambiguation needed Third Coast Tyuonyi 32 Poems American Voice Atlanta Review Blue Sofa Boston Book Review Brooklyn Review Café Review can we have our ball back? Court Green CROWD DCPoetry Anthology 2003 Double TakeTemplate:Disambiguation needed Extracts from Pelican Bay Fulcrum Gargoyle Harvard Magazine Hotel Amerika In Time Kiosk London Review of Books LyricTemplate:Disambiguation needed Manoa Mid-American Review New York Quarterly The New York Times Northwest Review Notre Dame Review Open City Painted Bride Quarterly Parnassus PMS Poet Lore Poetry Flash Poetry Northwest Princeton University Library Chronicle Provincetown Arts Rattapallax RATTLE Rhino River City Santa Monica Review Sewanee Review Sewanee Theological Review Slate Solo Subtropics The Canary Tikkun The Times Literary Supplement Volt Xconnect 26 3rd Bed Acorn Alkali Flats American Scholar Americas Review Antennae apex of M Arshile Ascent Aufgabe Avec B City Bitter Oleander Blasts! Bombay Gin Bookforum BoondoggleTemplate:Disambiguation needed Bridge Brilliant Corners

Broadway Chain Clockwatch Review Common Ground Common Sense Cortland Review Croonenbergh's Fly Crux Deluxe Rubber Chicken Disbelief Drum Voices Review Ecopoetics Ecotone Empathy Endicott Review Evansville Review Failbetter Farmer's Market Faucheuse Figdust Formalist Fourteen Hills Free Lunch Gastronomica Germ Glass Technology Harper's Magazine Hayden's Ferry Review Heavy Daughter Blues Hotel Lautreamont How(ever) Image In Posse Review Insurance Magazine Iodine Poetry Review Jacket Journal of Family Life Kalliope La Petite Zine LingoTemplate:Disambiguation needed Literal Latte Literary Imagination Longhouse Los Angeles Review Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern MiPoesias Mungo vs. Ranger Nebraska Review New Millennium Writings Nightsun Nimrod Occident OnTheBus ’Pataphysics Patterson Literary Review PharosTemplate:Disambiguation needed PhoebeTemplate:Disambiguation needed Poetry East Poetry Project Newsletter Potomac Review Pressed Wafer Prose Poem Quarter After Eight Rapidfeed Rapture RosebudTemplate:Disambiguation needed Ruins Sacramento News & Review Sal Mimeo Salt Salt Hill Shankpainter Sites Slope Sonora Review Spinning Jenny Spoon River Poetry Review Spoon River Quarterly Stud Duck Sun Sycamore Review TalismanTemplate:Disambiguation needed Tampa Review Tar River Poetry Tarpaulin Sky The Texas Observer Texas Review The Butcher Shop The Progressive the tiny Tor House Newsletter Van Gogh's Ear Vocabula Review Volcano Inside Washington Post Magazine Waterstone Webber Studies Willow Springs

Critical reception of the series

Says the Academy of American Poets Web site: "The Best American Poetry series has become one of the mainstays of the poetry publication world." The Academy Web site called the introductions to the collection by the guest editors, as well as Lehman's "state-of-poetry" forewords, "indespensible." As a whole, the anthologies "seem to capture the zeitgeist of the current attitudes in American poetry."

However, the Academy article also noted that the series and its editors are "often criticized for their selections and assessments (common complaints include the exclusion of experimental poets, lack of diversity, and allegiance to poetry's "old guard") [...]"

See also

List of poetry anthologies

External links

About

• Great Anthology: Best American Poetry series at the Academy of American Poets
• The Best American Poetry at Simon & Schuster
• Best American Poetry Official website.
• The Best American Poetry Official weblog.