Best New Poets 2006: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers

Best New Poets

by Eric Pankey (Editor), Jeb Livingood (Editor)

The only publication of its kind, Best New Poets is an annual anthology of poetry 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 nearly two thousand additional poems submitted through an open online competition. The fifty poems that made the final cut show, in dazzling fashion, how tomorrow's poets are writing today.

For those concerned that current writing programs and periodicals are forcing young writers into the same mold this book offers exciting evidence to the contrary. The poems collected here display an astonishing range in both content and style, from the intensely lyrical to robust, often humorous, narratives. For the reader who wishes to explore the work of these budding writers but wonders where to begin, Best New Poets 2006 has already scoured the contemporary poetry landscape to discover some of the nation's most engaging and promising voices.

Distributed for the Samovar Press in cooperation with Meridian: The Semi-Annual from the University of Virginia

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2006

About the author

Eric Pankey is the author of eight previous collections of poetry, most recently The Pear as One Example: New and Selected Poems 1984-2008 and Reliquaries. He is the recipient of a Walt Whitman Award, a Library of Virginia Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Field, Gettysburg Review, and Poetry Daily, as well as numerous anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2011 (edited by Kevin Young). He is currently Professor of English and Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading through the biography section of “Best New Poets 2006,” one comes to realize that the adjectives “new” and “emerging” are mere technicalities in this instance. Although none of the poets included here have published a full-length book of poetry, many are MFA students or graduates, chapbook authors and most have already seen some of their poems published in the most renowned and exclusive journals in North America..

The 50 selections included in “Best New Poets 2006" were winnowed from the approximately 2,000 poems initially received from the recommendations of dozens of writing programs and poetry journals as well as work submitted directly to the competition site.

The result is a remarkably diverse mix of poems. Some of them, such as “Chekhov’s Photograph” by Quinn Lattimer, are deeply philosophical:

Was his love for her
simply his imagination come suddenly lose,
like some steamer off Yalta released from its pier
and set adrift into fog, and so into wild, terrible
being? These are very elementary questions, but
they interest me. When one is left alone
in love, these questions become important.

Others, like Gretchen Primack’s “Colors,” read more like stream-of-consciousness. Primack’s poem describes the color ecru thus:

Circle here, aliens! Take the field!
The jaw goes slack. Lips dry
among the stalks. Nothing left
to talk about.

One of my absolute favorites is Autumn Watts’ “Dry Lake, Nevada, 1983,” which, under twelve different headings, including “MORNING,” “BOMBS,” AND “TEETH,” paints a word picture that manages to capture a time and a place simply and beautifully. Another favorite, just for its economy and surprise value, is Andrew Allport’s “An Unknown Shore: Variations on a Fragment by Oppen” which at first seems like a mere word play but ends with a short but powerful commentary on European aggression during the age of exploration.

There is much to please and surprise in this diverse collection of poems.

(This review also appeared at BookPleasures.com).

[Bernadette · Rating 4 out of 5]

when they were good, they were very-very good, but when they were bad...