The Best of the Best American Poetry

April 15, 2013
This 25th-Anniversary anthology celebrating Scribner’s annual Best American Poetry series, each volume of which is compiled by a different notable poet, with the help of series founder and editor David Lehman, offers one kind of survey of the past quarter-century of American verse and begs the question of what it means for a poem to be among the “best.” Although, necessarily, this is not a panoramic representation of all that U.S. poets have to offer, it does feature poets as aesthetically disparate as the formalist James Merrill (with a poem from 1991) and the free-form experimenter Lyn Hejinian, whose inclusion dates from 1994. There are plenty of poems by usual suspects—John Ashbery, Robert Hass, James Tate—as well as a few by late legends, like Allen Ginsberg, Jane Kenyon, Kenneth Koch, Adrienne Rich, and James Schuyler—but the book is short on names that will be new to poetry readers, leaving poets like Major Jackson, Sarah Manguso, and C. Dale Young, all now in mid-career, to carry the torches for new poetry. Readers will find, however, many of the standout poems from various volumes, including Anne Carson’s incredible “The Life of Towns” (from 1993) and Rae Armantrout’s slippery “Soft Money” (from 2011). Most of all, this volume attests to what may be the rule of this series: “the best” is a matter of each editor, and each reader’s tastes; no doubt, some readers will discover new favorites here.

February 1, 2013

In this second "Best of the Best"--the first being Harold Bloom's cantankerous tenth anniversary selection--guest editor former poet laureate Pinsky (The Figured Wheel) chooses his 100 favorites from among the nearly 1,900 poems appearing in the annual sampling of magazine verse since its 1988 debut. No year's work is neglected, and only 15 poems replicate Bloom's selections. As one might expect, the majority of poets included are fixtures in the contemporary canon (e.g., John Ashbery, Rita Dove, Louise Gluck, Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich). Pinsky favors the plain style ("a mannerless speaking," to borrow a phrase from Rodney Jones's poem here), and despite a scattering of both traditional formalists (James Merrill, A.E. Stallings) and poets of more experimental mien (Anne Carson, Harryette Mullen), the ambience is one of a cocktail party where the overlapping conversations of observant, thoughtful people are heard as a collective murmur, their distinctive styles subsumed by a general flatness of tone, diction, and subject. Still, several compelling voices (Stephen Dobyns, A.R. Ammons, J. Allyn Rosser, Richard Wilbur, Kevin Young) cut bracingly through the hubbub. VERDICT For libraries lacking the annuals, this single-volume compilation will suitably represent the flavor of the series as a whole.--Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2013
Each year a new volume in the Best American Poetry series, founded by poet Lehman, appears, each edited by a distinguished American poet, the likes of A. R. Ammons and Amy Gerstler. To celebrate the series' twenty-fifth anniversary, Lehman asked former poet laureate Pinsky to select 100 best of the best. The result is a concentrated, high-caliber, and exhilarating overview of the intensity and artistry that have made American poetry so splendidly varied and vital since 1988. In his far-reaching and enlivening introduction, Pinsky, an inspired poetry advocate, explains that his criteria were ear, imagination, and urgency; that is, poems that embody the sense that the ancient art must strive to get to the bottom of things, that a lot is at stake. The selections are arranged alphabetically by poet, ranging from Allen Ginsberg to Kevin Young, Megan O'Rourke to Adrienne Rich. Given the depth of Lehman and Pinsky's opening essays and the concise poet biographies and the poets' original statements about the writing of the poems, this is an anthology of broad scope, serious pleasure, and invaluable illumination.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)