Best New Poets 2014

Best New Poets

by Dorianne Laux (guest editor), Jazzy Danziger (series editor)

Entering its ninth year, Best New Poets has established itself as a crucial venue for rising poets and a valuable resource for poetry lovers. The only publication of its kind, this annual anthology is made up exclusively of work by writers who have not yet published a full-length book. The poems included in this eclectic sampling represent the best from the many that have been nominated by the country's top literary magazines and writing programs, as well as some two thousand additional poems submitted through an open online competition. The work of the fifty writers represented here provides the best perspective available on the continuing vitality of poetry as it is being practiced today. bestnewpoets.org

Genres: Poetry

Unknown Binding

First published January 12, 2015

About the author

DORIANNE LAUX’s most recent collection is Life On Earth. Only As The Day Is Long: New and Selected, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also author of The Book of Men (W.W. Norton) which won the Paterson Prize for Poetry. Her fourth book of poems, Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award, chosen by Ai. It was also short-listed for the 2006 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States and chosen by the Kansas City Star as a noteworthy book of 2005. A finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, Laux is also author of three collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Awake (1990) introduced by Philip Levine, What We Carry (1994) and Smoke (2000). Red Dragonfly Press released The Book of Women in 2012. Co-author of The Poet's Companion, she’s the recipient of three Best American Poetry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has appeared in the Best of the American Poetry Review, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and she’s a frequent contributor to magazines as various as Tinhouse, Orion, Oxford American and Ms. Magazine. Laux has waited tables and written poems in San Diego, Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Petaluma, California, and as far north as Juneau, Alaska. She has taught poetry at the University of Oregon and is founding faculty at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program. In 2008 she and her husband, poet Joseph Millar, moved to Raleigh where she directs the program In Creative Writing at North Carolina State University. She is founding faculty for Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program.

Reviews

[Jonathan Compton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good if you like contemporary poetry. A mixed bag when it comes to quality. There were only 2 or 3 memorable poems, but was more accessible than I expected.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fresh new poems by fresh new poets. Great diversity in content and style. Favorites are "Night Stick" by Joy Priest and "Quiet Moon and Harvested Fields" by Karen Malzone.