Best of the Best American Poetry

by Robert Pinsky (Editor), David Lehman (Editor)

This special edition celebrates twenty-five years of the Best American Poetry series, which has become an institution. From its inception in 1988, it has been hotly debated, keenly monitored, ardently advocated (or denounced), and obsessively scrutinized. Each volume consists of seventy-five poems chosen by a major American poet acting as guest editor—from John Ashbery in 1988 to Mark Doty in 2012, with stops along the way for such poets as Charles Simic, A. R. Ammons, Louise Glück, Adrienne Rich, Billy Collins, Heather McHugh, and Kevin Young. Out of the 1,875 poems that have appeared in The Best American Poetry, here are 100 that Robert Pinsky, the distinguished poet and man of letters, has chosen for this milestone edition.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies, Unfinished

352 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2008

About the author

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations, including The Inferno of Dante Alighieri and The Separate Notebooks by Czesław Miłosz. He teaches at Boston University and is the poetry editor at Slate.
wikipedia

Reviews

[Ken]

I'll admit upfront that I usually have bad luck with "Best of..." books, especially the annual ones put out not only for poetry but for short stories, essays, sports writing, etc. That said, Pinsky's picks for best of the best from the last 25 years of "Bests" was not bad, overall. A lot of familiar faces in the crowd. I skipped a few poems that were 4+ pages if they didn't hold me in the initial going because, if you're name's not "Homer," chances are your long poem isn't going to hold my fickle attention.

A wrinkle I liked was that, in the back, there was not only the usual biographical info on the poet but also a little commentary by the poet on the selected poem. Some of those comments were illuminating, amusing, or insightful. I kept a bookmark in back and, if the poet moved me, snuck a peek at the author's aside for dessert.

A few quotes I copied:

Even the latticed fretwork of stairs
where he was standing, even the first stars
climbing out of their sunlit graves
were branded and lifted up, consumed by fire.

--from Edward Hirsch's "Man on a Fire Escape" (loved the first stars personification/metaphor!)

Jane Hirschfield's commentary in back included a quote from the venerable Chekhov: "If you wish to move your reader, you must write more coldly." Granted, that line is abstract enough for multiple interpretations, but most writers can conjure some "cold" that might give their otherwise shouting words to improve. Jane also cited the Japanese and their term for life which can be translated two ways: "the world of the middle" or "the world of betweeness."

Philip Levine's poem "The Return" breaks a rule effectively, using the no-no word "things" but with good effect: "... and marveled at what was here: nothing at all except the stubbornness of things."

Any volume is improved by inclusion of a Jane Kenyon poem. This one has "Reading Aloud to my Father," wherein Jane reads to her dad in his deathbed, choosing unwisely a Nabokov book that starts with a reference to life as an "abyss." She also tried playing Chopin (her dad loved classical) but he asked her to turn that off.

In the back, Donald Hall (Jane's poet husband) comments that 14 year later, when Jane was in her deathbed dying of leukemia, she refused the music he offered as well. She, too, loved classical, but Hall thought that she didn't want reminders of what she hated to part with. As in the poem, he avoided holding her hands, touching them only. In the poem she mentions how her father would pull his hands away.

[SmarterLilac · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was very disappointed by this collection, especially considering Robert Pinsky's name was attached to it.

As a big fan of this series, (I've read all but the '89, '90 and '91 volumes) I can say that its selections are usually excellent. Truly some of the best American poetry I've ever read; the '92 installment has the distinction of being the one that inspired me to start writing poetry seriously at age 13. These books have always been a rich blend of astonishing talent. They have also always been a place to experience both the subtle formality and vast extremes contained within this complex art form.

So I am perplexed, even somewhat disdainful of the fact that Lehman/Pinsky, whoever did the bulk of the 'picking' of poems here, barely skimmed the surface of what the Best American books have to offer. Where were the poems with strong, vivid images of the passion and pain of American life? Where were poems of complex formal skill, or the poems of daring, restless experimentation? Far too many of these poems are simply boring. Wholesome, bland, and somewhat superficial reminiscences that rarely go too deep into the emotional world, or the spiritual one.

One of my biggest issues with it is that this volume cuts out virtually all of the (good) political poetry present in the series. This had my teeth grinding the entire time. If there's one thing I've always respected about the editors of the individual BAPs, it's that they never fail to include several, even many, pieces that address political, social and cultural problems head on. The Best of the Best American Poetry feels like it was deliberately sanitized of any of the voices clamoring for the big improvements our society desperately needs. What--were they afraid it wouldn't sell if it contained political content? Some of poetry's greater moments are the times when the form provides a venue for serious criticism of governmental corruption, inequality, oppression and injustice. That should have been reflected in the poems here, especially because they were some of the finest works in series overall.

I'm also annoyed that this book was obviously trying to showcase as many of the 'name' poets of the modern/postmodern American era. It reads more like a 'who's who in American poetry' than anything else. IMO, they didn't even include the best contributions of people like Jane Kenyon, Charles Wright, Sharon Olds or Kevin Young, just some of the most recent and least well known. Which made me sad. Why include the authors if you're not going to include their strongest work?

I really hope this wasn't the Best American Poetry series' Jump the Shark moment. This collection was almost totally sapped of life. I expect (much) better from something I have come to know and love.

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Country Fair

If you didn’t see the six-legged dog,
It doesn’t matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

Charles Simic

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compilation of favorite poems taken from the annual Best American Poetry series, covering 1988 to 2013.

Like all poetry collections, in this most subjective corner of literature, I found many brilliant gems, some indifferent stones and a few lumps of coal. For instance, and I say this without regret, I will never ever get John Ashbery.

Nevertheless, there are moments of lofty grace and true wonder sprinkled throughout this book, and I am also bemused by the fact that there can suddenly be a whole string of brilliant poems and then a string of mediocre ones, when they've been arranged strictly by last name.

I also seems to me that the gender balance in this collection is too male, but thus the world.

Here is just one of my favorites, a truly sweet, truly American poem.

American Twilight
Charles Wright

Why do I love the sound of children’s voices in unknown games
So much on a summer’s night,
Lightning bugs lifting heavily out of the dry grass
Like alien spacecraft looking for higher ground,
Darkness beginning to sift like coffee grains
over the neighborhood?
Whunk of a ball being kicked,
Surf-suck and surf-spill from traffic along the by-pass,
American twilight,
Venus just lit in the third heaven,
Time-tick between “Okay, let’s go,” and “This earth is not my home.”
Why do I care about this? Whatever happens will happen
With or without us,
with or without these verbal amulets.
In the first ply, in the heaven of the moon, a little light,
Half-light, over Charlottesville.
Trees reshape themselves, the swallows disappear, lawn sprinklers do the wave.
Nevertheless, it’s still summer: cicadas pump their boxes,
Jack Russell terriers, as they say, start barking their heads off,
And someone, somewhere, is putting his first foot, then the second,
Down on the other side,
no hand to help him, no tongue to wedge its weal.

[Joan Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well named collection. These poems that have appeared over a 25 year period in the Best American Poetry anthologies truly represent the foremost poets with outstanding examples of their work. While I borrowed this book from the library, I liked it so much I intend to buy it.

[Lisa Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the 25 years of this anthology. Loved some pieces, liked others, hated a few - just like always.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry collections are something that’s ultimately up to the taste of the reader. I find the Best American Poetry collections tend to give me the most bang for my buck in terms of great poems versus shitters. When I’m in a rut in reading or writing (as I was picking up this book) the BAP collections tend to get me out.

That said, this collection ironically didn’t hit as hard as others have in the past. There is a sense the poems included are almost too polished. Despite a range of forms and subjects, it feels as though the poems lack diversity in some ways. There was an emotional dimension this collection missed.

If you read the bios, you’ll understand why. All the authors come from similar amazing schools and have similar dazzling accolades. Some of their bios even reference each other. I think I just met this anthology at the wrong time because I’d already been thinking about bias and nepotism in the literary world around this time. This feels like a victory lap for a very specific group of scholar/poets, which is fine, but it just lacks the quirk which makes other collections stick.

There were still certainly excellent poems here. But I suppose the issue with a ‘Best of the Best’ anthology is that you don’t have any footholds in terms of quality. Usually, I like BAP because I can go through and say “this poem hit me, this one didn’t.” All these poets are equally extremely capable. All of them also seemed to lack a certain spark due to how slick and polished they were. I found myself yearning for the overwrought, the misplaced line, the awkward image. I don’t know if that makes sense.

In fact, the bios are pretty much the most interesting part of this, and made my reading the book worthwhile. Once you get past everyone’s Guggenheim fellowships and named chairs at universities, the poets get to write about a) their approach to the poem included in the collection and b) their approach to poetry in general. That part was fascinating!

[Rikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

A misleading title, the Best of the Best American Poetry is a collection of poems published in "The Best American Poetry," another publication. I read the 25th anniversary edition.

I found several poets to whom I'd not previously been exposed, some of whom I came to love. And some of those introductions led me to more work I might not have otherwise come across. There were several poets I resonated with and others I didn't, like the male poets with pretty nastily misogynistic material like Michael Ryan and his "Switchblade" and Stephen Dunn's intertwined ignorance and sexism in "The Imagined." But, among others but most notably, I also found Stephanie Brown and her "Feminine Intuition," more of Sharon Olds' work, a poem I hadn't read by Margaret Atwood ("Bored"), Denise Duhamel and her "How It Will End," and, an absolute stunner that has left me forever affected, Sarah Manguso's "Hell."

I appreciated that there were biographies at the back of the book and, often, blurbs from the poets about their selected poem. Some were more revealing than others, as it goes in poetry.

Overall, it was a useful collection, particularly for the class I'd taken in which this had been assigned. I doubt I would have read it otherwise, but I am grateful for the (guided) exploration and exposure to so many different styles, conversations, and presentations of experience. It has left me more open to rather bland-looking anthologies of poetry. Also, if men could by and large just stop writing about women, that'd be great.

[Kenton Yee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Best American Poetry series and have relied on it to sample a broad swath of contemporary American poetry. I'm grateful for the exposure to the work of poets as divergent as Lynn Hejikian, James Tate, A.R. Ammons, Paul Violi, and Billy Collins. Where else would I read Collins' delightful dog ode Dharma and an excerpt of Ammon's infinite Garbage within 30 pages (though Dharma is not Collins' best doggie poem)? Through BAP, I initially encountered several now-favorite poets of mine I otherwise would not have found. Nonetheless, I suspect that important schools with less academic acceptance (like language poetry, surrealism, and visual poetry) are underrepresented. If I have a complaint, it's the word "Best" in the title. For me, poetry is "making art with words." Since word art comes in a plethora of flavors - traditional, experimental, or crazy - it's impossible to create a poetry anthology with consensus appeal, particularly if the claim is to be the "Best" or "Best of the Best". A more accurate name for this series would be "Curated Sampler of Contemporary American Poetry".

[Danny · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the oldest “Best of American Poetry” book I’ve read. Maybe they’ve gotten better over the years, but this is the worst selection I’ve read.

Most lack depth in emotion and subject matter. (Going to the opera, taking their dog for a walk. Some dude shallowly reminiscing about a pretty girl he met 37 years ago.)
This can be fine if the author has something interesting to say about it, or if it’s described in a unique way. But the prose itself was rather boring.

Likely I just have different taste than the editors (who included their own works…) This was made very clear to me with them including an anti-feminist, incel poem (Stephen Dobyns).
Many others included uncomfortable descriptions of women and lowkey misogynistic commentary (and a surprising number of male authors talked about their penises?). I probably wouldn’t have thought much of them on their own, but compiled like this, it all began to stand out. Generally a weird vibe from this collection.

Usually, even when a collection isn’t a perfect match for me, I can find some hidden gems. Not with this one - the poems that stood out were just Not Bad.

[Brad Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this collection of poems from the Best of the American Poetry series a 3.5 out of 5 stars. In this collection, I believe that their were some poems that stood out and others that did not as well as some that did not grab my attention or were not my cup of tea as tastes go for poetry in general. Poetry will always be a subjective medium of writing, as is most writings. This Best of the Best American Poetry collection seemed to me a mixed bag of poems. I particularly loved Paul Muldoon's "The Loaf"; Robert Pinsky's "Samurai Song"; Alan Shapiro's "Country Western Singer"; Charles Simic's "Country Fair"; and A. E. Stallings' "Asphodel". I also love Bob Hicok and most of his poems that I have read.

[Adam Roll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could use this to write about the sad state of American Poetry, in that it has learned so little from hip hop and rock and roll, but it seems like these are not big music fans, poets in general are looking for some silent time that never seems to present itself to me. Or I could direct you to my poetry, the best answer I have for what I think poetry should look like. Are all poetry fans also poets? Possibly. But this just makes us all more opinionated and difficult. Anne Winters made this collection, and was the best of the best of the best in my opinion. Worth looking at, especially if your time for poetry is limited. Making more time for reading this art seems like a good goal.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. I ordered this book for a Christmas read for my book group. I read it in order to choose poems that would be accessible for readers who don't ordinarily read poetry, and was able to find a number of poems that fit the bill. It's a fine collection, garnered from The Best American Poetry annual series from the first 25 years of its publication, and Pinsky made some great choices. There are a few poems that didn't do much for me, hence the 1/2 star docking. All in all a worthy collection. (I must add that I gave the BAP 2019 5 stars. It's amazing.)

[Sasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just wasn't a fan (there's an entire poem about pornography, and while I'm not a prude, the sexual overtones were prominent throughout. I really didn't need to know that William Carlos Williams was a serial philanderer...guess he should leave the plums in the icebox and take an STD test instead)! There was a gorgeous poem, though, by Pamela Sutton that paid homage to Daniel Pearl, and I learned so much about him from her little ode.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not surprisingly, this Best American Poetry anthology was better than any of the others I've read. The entries are consistent, with some scattered classics (i.e., Ammons's "Garbage" and Hirshfield's "In Praise of Coldness") and only a few clunkers.

[Daniel W. Polk · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite poem from this collection was "This Pleasing Anxious Being," by Richard Wilbur.

[Hendrick Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Nice Collection

A nice collection of poems, from slice of life to the absurd to the slightly political. A good collection here.

[Philipp Sorge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das Buch, welches ich in dem Seminar im Studium gelesen habe, wo ich meine Liebe zur Lyrik gefunden habe. Besonderer Platz im Herzen.

[TheMilkMan · Rating 5 out of 5]

peoms

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Be careful about promising too much.

Better title: Some of the Pretty Good American Poetry. Yes.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never reviewed a volume of poetry before and I don’t have the technical vocabulary to say anything about a poem’s formal qualities. I have been known, however, at the drop of a hat to recite Blake’s “London,” Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky,” “You, Andrew Marvell” by Archibald MacLeish, “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, the first part of Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman” (I can’t remember the second part), a couple of Shakespeare’s sonnets, some poems without names by Auden, Ferlinghetti, e.e. cummings (auto correct hates e.e. cummings), and Gary Snyder, and bits and pieces of a number of other things. My friends have become very wary of dropping their hats when I’m around, but I believe that our dog Zoë picks her feet up a bit more smartly when I start reciting on our morning walk, although my wife suggests she might be trying to get away – how many times, she asks, can anyone listen to “The Highwayman: Part One”?

So, having established my credentials, I’ll say that I’m enjoying this collection. When I read a poetry collection or the collected works of a single poet I don’t linger long over the selections that leave me cold or befuddled. But I sometimes read a volume all the way through and then start at the beginning again (almost right away; the method doesn’t work for me if I put something aside for too long) and I usually feel warmer and less befuddled on the second reading. The ratio of enjoyment to befuddlement was about 50-50 when I read this collection the first time, but I’m mid-way through my second reading and the ratio has shifted to about 65-35, and I think the enjoyment side of the ratio could go as high as 75, maybe even 84, by the time I’m done.

I could quote many examples of things that pleased me when I read them and will stick in my mind. Here, for example, are some lines from Louise Glück’s “Landscape” (2003):

I lived in the present, which was
that part of the future you could see.
The past floated above my head,
like the sun and moon, visible but never reachable.

But I have no idea what Paul Muldoon thinks he’s up to inserting “with a pink and a pink and a pinkie-pick” and other similar lines in “The Loaf” (2003), which I found otherwise lyrical and vivid.

I hesitate to point to any selections that I will go back to because they seem to articulate lucidly things I find important but hard to articulate. I look for such things in poetry, but tend to keep them to myself when I find them. To borrow a phrase from John Gardner’s Sunlight Dialogues, there’s a fine line between “spiritualistic trash for old ladies [and] the roaring secret of life and death” and I prefer not to risk stumbling over it in public. But, have a look yourself.

I definitely needed a change from “The Highwayman” and “The Raven,” and even “The Tyger” and “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” I’m wondering though, if my dog would enjoy Cavafy’s “Ithaka” if I could get it by memory. She might well perk up her ears at mention of the Laistrygonians.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A stacked cast. Read out-of-order on most occasions. Everything will be fine. 3.5*

[Romie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to visit some old friends and to encounter a few good poems from the years before I started collecting the Best American Poetry series as an annual ritual. I am surprised to find that I overall prefer the poems of the last decade to poems of the 1990s, although I shouldn't be: I disliked most of the contemporary poetry I read during the 1990s, whereas I like most of the contemporary poetry I read now. I just assumed that what had changed was me, since in the 1990s I was a bratty teenager. YET IT WAS THE POETRY ALL ALONG.

Mind you, this could be a distortion imposed by editor Robert Pinsky's selections; I don't feel he succeeded in selecting the best of the best, and prefer several of the yearly editions to this compilation, which skews a bit laddish.

Yet I will be forever grateful for meeting Allen Ginsberg's hilarious "Salutations to Fernando Pessoa" (1995).

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked reading Best of the Best American Poetry but not all of the poems were touching to me. Some that were, though, were the following.

- Stephen Dobyns, "Desire"
- Denise Duhamel, "How It Will End"
- Carol Muske-Dukes, "Hate Mail"
- Stephen Dunn, "The Imagined"
- John Hollander, "The See-Saw"
- W.S. Merwin, "The Stranger"
- Charles Simic, "Country Fair"
- A.E. Stallings, "Asphodel"
- Franz Wright, "A Happy Thought"
- Kevin Young, "Lime Light Blues"

Here are a few that stood out to me. Dobyns' "Desire" is an apology for male desire. Duhamel's "How It Will End" is a couple's projection of relationship troubles on another couple's argument. Merwin's "Stranger" is a parable. These were very touching. I imagine I'll go back over the book eventually and re-read some of the poems I highlighted.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable and admirable collection of poetry. I removed one star because there isn't a single wild card in the book (these poets have been canonized, each in his or her own way), it's trendy and lacks cultural diversity, and a number of the poems are taken from the 'Best of' anthologies of the last two years. I just read them!

from "Wakefulness," by John Ashbery

A kindly gnome of fear
perched on my dashboard once, but we had all been instructed
to ignore the conditions of the chase. Here, it
seems to grow lighter with each passing century. No matter how you
twist it,
life stays frozen in the headlights.
Funny, none of us heard the roar.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been trying to read more poetry and I think I've been successful with including more of it in my repertoire. I usually like anthologies such as these because of the potential to become acquainted with new poets.

I picked this up because it had several poets whose work I have previously enjoyed (Mark Doty, Edward Hirsch, Tony Hoagland) and others who I wanted to try. Unfortunately, I failed to connect with or even understand most of these poems. Most seemed rambling and I couldn't grasp the point. It just didn't do much for me at all and was overall fairly boring.

1.5 out of 5 stars.

[Aseem Kaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not that the poems in this selection are bad; on the contrary, they are, for the most part, very good. It's just that for a book that purports to collect the best American poems for the last twenty five years they should be so much better. The problem, I think, is that Pinsky, in making his selection, has gone with the most conventional choices, making these not the best american poems of the last quarter century but the safest.

[Kate S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not a huge fan of reading poetry. There were a few gems in this collection, however. I enjoyed Ginsberg's offering of "Salutations to Fernando Pessoa", Michael Palmer's "I Do Not" and Jane Hirshfield's "In Praise of Coldness". There were a few others I enjoyed, but these were my favorite of them. I will be taking a little break from poetry now.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

"... Some piece of you /stays in me and I will never give it back." From No forgiveness Ode by Dean Young, pg 244

"I am in anger / encouragement class." From Lime Light Blues by Kevin Young, pg 245

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent collection, but only about 5 of these poems really touched me.