Product Description
These poems capture the romance, irony, and pathos of love; they movingly chronicle days in post-9/11 New York and bring a fresh perspective to an array of subjects -- from the Brooklyn Bridge to Gertrude Stein to Buddhism. When a Woman Loves a Man is playful, inventive, and as amusing as it is clever; it is the work of a poet at the height of his lyrical and reflective powers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Radical Play
Central to Lehman's work is a radical playfulness, an essential ingredient of great poetry.He is one of the U.S.'s most inventive writers, particularly in his use of traditional and sui generis forms.Plus, he is funny, which,in a literary world where often only deadly seriousness will win you any respect, can sometimes be a strike against a poet.Read "The Gift," "Wittgenstein's Ladder," "Psalm," "Six Almonds," and "The James Brothers" to see what I mean. Since John Ashbery revitalized the sestina with his "Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape," included in his 1970 book The Double Dream of Spring, sestinas have become all the rage. Lehman is one of the most accomplished practitioners of this exacting form, as the brilliant "Big Hair" and "Sestina," from this new colection, demonstrate. This is Lehman's best book of poems.

... Read more

Product Description

A prose poem is a poem written in prose rather than verse. But what does that really mean? Is it an indefinable hybrid? An anomaly in the history of poetry? Are the very words "prose poem" an oxymoron? This groundbreaking anthology edited by celebrated poet David Lehman, editor of The Best American Poetry series, traces the form in all its dazzling variety from Poe and Emerson to Auden and Ashbery and on, right up to the present. In his brilliant and lucid introduction, Lehman defines the prose poem, summarizes its French heritage, and outlines its history in the United States. Included here are important works from masters of American literature, as well as poems by contemporary mainstays and emerging talents who demonstrate why the form has become an irresistible option for the practicing poet today. Great American Prose Poems is a marvelous collection, a must-have for anyone interested in the current state of the art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Wonderful anthology of 20th century American prose poetry
Lehman's collection of prose poems in this volume is outstanding. He covers a wide expanse of authors, beginning with Poe and Emerson and ending with young poets working today. The selection of poems gives the reader an excellent sense for how this genre/form of poetry has evolved from its very early, experimental days in the late 19th century as 'lyric prose' to its more complex and integrated (almost sui generis) incarnation today. If you find prose poetry, or flash fiction, to be an interesting form of writing, I would definitely recommend this book. I am a college English professor, and I am strongly considering proposing a course on prose poetry in the near future that will take this collection as its central text. The only slightly negative thing I have to say about the book is the fact that Lehman's introductory essay, which is written with his usual insight and clarity (those familiar with the Best American Poetry anthologies for which he is the series editor will know what I'm talking about here), is just not a deep enough study of the form of prose poetry. --As an academic, I am naturally holding Lehman to a higher standard than other readers in terms of his theorizing, and the theoretical cross-pollination that prose poems give rise to is something that interests me (again, academically) a great deal. Even though he gives a good historical accounting of how prose poetry arose as a viable poetic form, the central questions of how we differentiate prose poems from other, non-prose poems and whether or not the prose form of a poem affects how a poem means what it means, are dealt with only cursorily. For those who can and will enjoy these poems non-academically (!), this is pretty much not a concern at all. Dive in and relish them.

Good for learners
I've never known that there has been so many prose poem tradition in American Literature, and, this book is able to show it. Indeed, we can read, and think about, argues and concepts in order to introduce criteria defining what could be prose poetry. This characteristic is reinforced by the chronological approach, and the mix of author styles that was choose being representative of prose poem.

A great exposition to a little known genre
I've always enjoyed reading short stories, but over the years I've started to appreciate their form more than their plot-lines, and a careful and insightful use of language became something I increasingly valued. The first time I came across a prose poem, although I did not know it was called that at the time, was a translation of Czeslaw Milosz poem by Robert Pinsky. I was immediately fascinated by it, but I thought it was just something characteristic Milosz's style. Many years later I came across this book, and I was instantly drawn to it. I've read it and re-read it many times. It contains some of the best prose poems out there, and it helped me discover some new poets that I would have otherwise not known about. Based on that, I am adding new books to my Amazon wish list on a continuing basis. It's definitely worth buying and reading.

'Great American Prose Poems'
David Lehman's 'Great American Prose Poems' gives an interesting and insightful look into the world of the questionable - yet undeniably fascinating - genre of prose poetry. First providing the reader with an engaging introduction on the origins and essentials of prose poetry, Lehman proceeds to include a good basic range of authors. Gertrude Stein has a particularly impressive contribution, as do several others. This is a thought-provoking and highly recommended read for anyone interested in learning about the basics of prose poetry -- my only real annoyance was the absence of Leonard Cohen: while he is not American, he is Canadian, like several others featured in Lehman's collection, and (as an example) his work 'How to Speak Poetry' is utterly classic.

Prose by any other name...
A canny introduction ushers the reader into this hybrid art form. The examples illuminate the form's history and variety. Most of the prose poems are superb; only a few disappoint. And readers previously unfamiliar with the genre (like myself) will likely be introduced to established but little-known writers of tremendous depth, beauty and originality, like Lyn Hejinian and Fanny Howe. I highly recommend this collection. ... Read more

Product Description
In A Fine Romance, David Lehman looks at the formation of the American songbook--the timeless numbers that became jazz standards, iconic love songs, and sound tracks to famous movies--and explores the extraordinary fact that this songbook was written almost exclusively by Jews.

An acclaimed poet, editor, and cultural critic, David Lehman hears America singing--with a Yiddish accent.He guides us through America in the golden age of song, when “Embraceable You,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “My Romance,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “Stormy Weather,” and countless others became nothing less than the American sound track. The stories behind these songs, the shows from which many of them came, and the shows from which many of them came, and the composers and lyricists who wrote them give voice to a specifically American saga of love, longing, assimilation, and transformation.

Lehman’s analytical skills, wit, and exuberance infuse this book with an energy and a tone like no other: at once sharply observant, personally searching, and attuned to the songs that all of us love. He helps us understand how natural it should be that Wizard of Oz composer Harold Arlen was the son of a cantor who incorporated “Over the Rainbow” into his Sabbath liturgy, and why Cole Porter--the rare non-Jew in this pantheon of musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Excellent Gift for Poetry Lovers
Small book, easy to carry and lovely to read.My husband is taking his time, reading each poem and absorbing.Highly recommended for contemporary poetry lovers.

Lehman Does it Again
What a masterpiece!

Did you ever consider that George Gershwin thought up "It Ain't Necessarily So" with the Torah blessing as earworm? (They are identical, although Gershwin adds several different chromatic intervals into the motif.)

Such are the delicious details of this "fine" book -- and David's writing will keep you spellbound as you join him through a nostalgic trip of our parents' generation of music.

A great read, packed with David's wonderful personal anecdotes about family and the Jewish community in which he grew up -- combined with a compelling, rollicking narrative which certainly kept me -- a classically-trained musician -- stoked with stories and details which I had never known before!

I wish he had gone into the actual music part of these genuises a bit more, but that would probably preclude many non-musician readers from enjoying it as much. After all, these guys used the same 12 notes that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven used. There's a book in there somewhere, methinx ... what are the musical reasons behind the power of these great songsters to achieve such satisfactory results in a profession where yesterday's hit is quickly forgotten? Does the lyric make the song great, even if the music isn't quite as brilliant as something else?

Again -- a fantastic read! Enjoy!

Lewis Saul

This Book Is Here to Stay (and should be required reading)
Oh my gosh, this is a good book....no, actually, its a GREAT book.
If you love American standards, the "Great American Songbook", show tunes,
old radio tunes, old movie musicals , then you're gonna love this book.
Incredibly well researched.
Easy to read - and fun - songs keep running through your mind.
As you read, you can hear Ella Fitzgerald, or Frank Sinatra or Fred Astaire
(who sang so many standards in his movies).
Highly, highly recommended.

Really excellent
Remarkably, since the first half of the twentieth century, during the golden age of song writing, most of America's best songs - heard on the radio, on records, TV, movies and on the stage, and sung on the streets, at work and at home - were written by Jews. These include the Christian songs "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade," jazz "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," and the classics "God Bless America," "Embraceable You," "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," and many more.

People will be surprised to learn that the pure American songs of the west - such as the effervescent cowboy rhythms of "The Surrey" in Oklahoma - flowed from the imagination New York Jews; that in Lehman's list of the sixteen best Depression era popular songs only two or three were composed by non-Jews; that the words of many of these songs composed by Jews and their melodies reflect the strivings and hopes of new Jewish immigrants.

This volume is part of the well-received and well-written Jewish Encounter series, which intend and succeeds in promoting Jewish literature, history, culture and ideas. All the books in the series are very good, but this volume has the most substance of those that I read, and it is filled with interesting examples. David Lehman is the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry and The Best of American Poetry, among other books, and knows the subject he is writing about.

Lehman helps us hear and understand the mysterious ingredients of jazziness and blueness, the wail, the wine and exultant notes that permeate the songs written by Jewish song writers. Many of the words in the purely American songs of are Jewish origin and many of the melodies recalls what is heard in the synagogue. The book's title reflects the mixture of joy and sadness in the songs, but also the romance of their writers with America.

The non-Jew Cole Porter, looking for a way to write a successful song, said "I'll write Jewish tunes," and it worked.

Lehman intersperses his history and descriptions with anecdotes from his own life that show his and his friends reactions to the songs. These accounts, as well as the history itself, are composed with humor and spice.
Who was the first to write the "classic American popular song" that stimulated others? Scholars differ. Some say Irving Berlin in 1911; others that it was Jerome Kern in 1914. Both were Jewish. Lehman contends it was Kern. Be this as it may, the stories that Lehman tells about these giants and the history of the time is fascinating.

Lehman is a superb writer. Readers will enjoy his language. His writing surges and soars in chapter 6, where he describes the impact of all this upon the Jewishness of the composers and the vile reactions of some anti-Semites.

Unfortunately, this classic age ended around 1965, after only fifty years. It died when ten year olds had enough money to pick the music they wanted to hear.

On the sunny side of the street
This book is not an academic or scholarly analysis of the Jewish contribution to American popular song. Rather it is American poet David Lehman's personal `riff' on the subject. From Irving Berlin's 'Alexander's Rag- Time Band' in 1911 to Lenny Bernstein's `West Side Story' he tells the story of the Jewish contribution to American song in his own way, anecdotally and personally. Having grown up in a shul in which two of the greats Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg were members, he regales us with story after story about the whole panoply of Jewish - American composers, not simply Berlin and Bernstein but also Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rogers and Larry Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Dorothy Fields,Vernon Duke,Ted Koehler, Frank Loesser,Arthur Schwartz,Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Sammy Cahn,Julie Styne, Howard Dietz, Steven Sondheim,even getting to those with a distinctively different sound, Carole King and Bob Dylan. He in the course of this tells us about their lives and characters, their relations with each other, the general family and social background. He argues that they by and large created an image and dream of America, a largely optimistic dream of America as a land of tremendous hope and energy, one in which love was always just around the corner and in which you could always in one way or another cross over to the sunny side of the street. But he sees them too reflecting other sides of the American reality, as for instance Harburg's producing the great Depression anthem 'Brother Can You Spare a Dime?' Lehman often skats along, combining lines from the songs and making that kind of composition a central part of his text. It is as if he wants to make a kind of song-like text in the spirit of thatmusic which perhaps more than any other, people loved to sing and hum along with.
Thanks to my beloved mother Edith (Itkie) Freedman of blessed memory who so loved this music I grew up with these songs as background to our everyday family life. So reading about so many of the songs I also know line by line was for me an especially great pleasure.
However great my pleasure in reading the book there are things I would take exception to. It would have been better in my opinion for Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael not to have been made into kind of honorary Jews.I do believe he rightly sees in the irony and idiom, the minor key darker register of many of these songs a certain Jewish quality. But he too ackowledges that just as with American Jewish Literature which is far more American than Jewish, so too with the songs created by American Jews. They are 'God Bless America' and 'The House We Live In' and 'The Wizard of Oz' and even when secularized 'White Christmas' and Easter Parade' far more American than Jewish.
I too would have preferred something perhaps impossible in a work of this scope more detailed `readings' of ` individual songs'.
But on the whole this book is filled with treasures of lyric and story. Often just the mention of a certain line gets me to hearing the song once again in my head. Lehman who is such an avid devotee of these songs succeeds in enhancing both the reader's enthusiasm for the music and the world in which they were created.
A wonderful book.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

First-Rate Literary Reportage
In a first-rate piece of literary reportage, David Lehman chronicles the movement known as "deconstructionism" within the larger movement in the humanities known as "critical theory." With more empathy for his subjects than this reviewer can muster, Lehman shows how hubris, greed, parochialism, and elitism led to an "emperor's new clothes" community in which a former Nazi collaborator could become idolized by a generation of impressionable academic lefties.
A must-have addition to all prospective academics who want to retain...if not their souls, may we at least say their individual identities?

The author is not qualified for this job
Lehman is a decent historian of modern poetry, but he is completely out of his depth with the philosophical and theoretical questions raised by deconstruction and other forms of post-structuralism.Far from, as other reviewers imply, offering an impressive defence of objectivity, he actually fails to grasp what the issues are.Robust common sense has its place in everyday life, but is a crude tool with which to tackle technical philosophical problems with which subtle - and qualified - thinkers have been wrestling for centuries.

The supposed scandal about Paul de Man is merely seasoning.Before getting excited about connections between his youthful political errors and his mature theoretical work, it's worth remembering that scientists, logicians, analytical philosophers, professors of law, theologians - and indeed butchers and bakers - have been bedfellows of anti-semitism and fascism.It takes a special kind of ignorance, or prejudice, to suppose that it is a specialty of deconstructionists.

A Genuine Classic That Never Should Have Left Print
"Signs of the Times" is one of those very rare books that can actually change your life by altering your consciousness about perception and reality.It's a fascinating, riveting and funny account of how Yale University deconstruction guru Paul De Man was exposed after his death as an anti-Semite and Nazi collaborator in Belgium during World War II.It does something unusual and extremely valuable: it turns the tables on the professional cynics of academic theory, by subjecting them to the same rigorous skepticism that they assume they alone are worthy to wield.Lehman's wonderful defense of objectivity, historical truth, and ideological non-dogmatism is one of the most entertaining, exhilarating books I've ever read.After reading it I would never again take at face value the relativistic blitherings of university "experts."Lehman's book does something wonderful: it assumes that a common, decently educated reader and citizen can come to know truths about life.What a fabulous, unique concept for contemporary intellectual life!

Insights into the world of academia
This is the story of an intellectual movement built on a foundation of sand.Deconstructionism is yet another literary movement that accompanied the rise of feminist, ethnic, Marxist and liberation literature, movements that swept the academic world.It is dangerous in its implications and startling in its conclusions.Its founder, Paul de Man, taught literature at Yale.

He hid a dirty secret for forty years:He assisted the Nazis in their occupation of France. In deconstructionist fashion, the response to this news was that the Jews themselves were to blame and he was the victim.Deconstructionists claim that the subject cannot be defined - it is a theory or method or even structure.But among gthe disturbing elements are:History is bunk (so we can't believe or learn anything), words control us (not the other way around), the critic is of more importance than the subject, absence is presence and most importantly, language, not knowledge, is true power.

The term itself derives from a call for the destruction of ontolgy, the study of the nature of being.A close look at the advocates of deconstructionism reveals a fascist undertone throughout.Not only was de Man a one-time supporter but so was Vladimir Sokolov (Yale), Heidegger (Germany), Blanchot (France) and Man's number one disciple, Jacque Derrida, the Algerian Frenchman. Derrida has defended de Man (as well as the others) arguing, in deconstructionist terms, that everything is theory yet nothing can be defined - even terms like good and bad.The fact that this group identified with the far Left is indicative of the totalitarian nature of both movements.

The description of the politicalization of academia should be required reading for every tax payer or parent of a prospective college student.This is an important, well-written brilliant study of a tragic event in our nation's history.It should serve as a warning.

Fascinating but . . .
The most fascinating part of the De Man saga is the fact that he lived a lie for roughly forty years, like some sort of film noir of a lie lived in plain sight. Everything he wrote after the war can only be seen in the light of the fact, not only that he was a collaborator, but that he must have known that his past would eventually turn up, and that everything he wrote about guilt and truth and language would eventually be read in that light. His nihilism was in a sense one long exculpation. And why was he never fingered during his life? Was there no other Belgian refugee who said, "Wait a minute, I remember this guy from Le soir vole!" How could a highly visible collaborator survive a very public career in the US without even changing his name? The only way to explain it is by saying that he was Belgian and wrote in Flemish, but even that doesn't explain it. And if he was such a cad, how come none of his Belgian friends--or even his wife, who he deserted--ratted him out? Strangely, Lehman never even mentions that, as if the question never occurs to him. De Man's writing is magisterial and affectless, and it is not hard to understand why his students admired him so greatly. His story reminds me a great deal of that of Leo Strauss, another refugee who came to the US (under very different circumstances) and also founded a sect on the basis of a method of reading, deconstruction in the one case and esotericism in the other. ... Read more

Product Description
David Lehman, a poet of wit, ingenuity, and formidable skill, draws upon his heritage as a grandson of Holocaust victims and offers a stirring autobiographical collection of poems that is his most ambitious work to date. It covers an expansive range of subjects -- from love, sex, and romance to repentance, humility, the meaning of democracy, Existentialism, modern European history, military intelligence, and the rituals associated with faith and prayer. The title poem, "Yeshiva Boys," is a work in twelve parts that blends the elements of espionage fiction, memory, history, and moral philosophy. It reflects David's experience as a student in an orthodox Yeshiva, and it, along with many other poems in the book, explores what it means to be a Jew in America, what is gained and lost in assimilating to secular culture, how to understand the peculiar destiny of the Jewish people, and how to reconcile the existence of God with the knowledge of evil. Beautiful, provocative, and accessible, this is David Lehman's most inspired collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lehman's Very Best
I've read every book of poems Lehman has ever published. The The Daily Mirror was really great because the premise (a poem a day) partially motivated the poet to focus his art without being overly fussy or technical -- the poems fly off the page and into your heart ...

Here comes an even greater feat, in my opinion. While the "daily" poems seemed somewhat improvisatory (although of course they were obviously carefully composed), after several readings of this volume, I feel like I'm scoping out a larger structural dynamic -- each poem is vastly different than its neighbor -- but yet somehow related.

The very first sentence of the very first poem in the book thrilled me:

**

On Purpose

"What is the purpose of your poems?"

**

Two things that most directly hit me:

Lehman loves mystery and seems to equally love subtle humor. You may not "get" the joke, but it's funny nonetheless! And what chill is that creeping up my spine? Sometimes it's just hard to say!

Magnificent

... Read more

Product Description
A landmark work of cultural history--now in paperback--by one of our best critics and chroniclers: the story of how four young poets reinvented literature and turned New York into the art capital of the world.

Greenwich Village, New York, circa 1951. Every night, at a rundown tavern with a magnificent bar called the Cedar Tavern, an extraordinary group or painters, writers, poets, and hangers-on arrive to drink, argue, tell jokes, fight, start affairs, and bang out a powerful new aesthetic. Their style is playful, irreverent, tradition-shattering, and brilliant. Out of these friendships, and these conversations, will come the works of art and poetry that will define New York City as the capital of world culture--abstract expressionism and the New York School of Poetry.

A richly detailed portrait of one of the great movements in American arts and letters, The Last Avant-Garde covers the years 1948-1966 and focuses on four fast friends--the poets Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Lehman brings to vivid life the extraordinary creative ferment of the time and place, the relationship of great friendship to art, and the powerful influence that a group of visual artisits--especially Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, and Fairfield Porter--had on the literary efforts of the New York School.

The Last Avant-Garde is both a definitive and lively view of a quintessentially American aesthetic and an exploration of the dynamics of creativity.Amazon.com Review
Anyone who thinks that avant-garde movements can flourish onlyin Left Bank cafés would do well to read David Lehman's superbnew book. Lehman, an editor, essayist, and poet, zeroes in on fourextraordinary poets--John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, andJames Schuyler--who were friends, rivals, sometime collaborators, andpassionate appreciators of each other's work from the late 1940sthrough the mid 1960s. This "remarkable gang of four" was, in Lehman'sopinion, not only a true avant-garde--collective creators of new,subversive, nonmainstream art--but also "the last authenticavant-garde movement that we have had in American poetry." It's anambitious thesis, but Lehman pulls it off in a narrative compounded ofcultural history, biography, literary analysis, and great gossip.

Most fascinating are Lehman's insights into the inspiration that thepoets found in the lives and works of contemporary painters--waggeringabstract expressionist artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem deKooning and the gentler figurative painters Fairfield Porter, LarryRivers, and Jane Freilicher, who came after them. As Ashbery put it,"The artists liked us and bought us drinks and we ...felt that they... were free to be free in their painting in a way that most peoplefelt was impossible for poetry." But each poet made it possible in hisown way--Ashbery through surreal word collages, Koch through thepursuit of happiness in verse, O'Hara in witty telephonic stream ofconsciousness, and Schuyler by treating his feelings asobjects. Lehman calls his book a study of "the bliss of being aliveand young at a moment of maximum creative ferment," and that blissfairly shimmers on the page. The Last Avant-Garde, a remarkablehybrid, succeeds in being both critically acute and luminouslyexciting. --David Laskin ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

lehman's new york scool fa dummies
providin a broad cultural context fa da poets he emphasizes (ashbery, o'hara, koch, and schuyla), lehman's ang weaves togetha social istory, personal biography, literary criticism, and aesthetic appreciation in a wurk dat offers some insightful readings of specific poems, but da lastin contritubion of which is more likely to be fa da social connections lehman's erbal remedys betweun dis tight-knit group of "playfully serious aesthetes" than fa any specific ruk da book advances. he describes ashbery as a poet of obliquity, fa whom "the subject of ... poetry is consciousness," and fa whom "consciousness is is self, but a self dat is inseparable from da rush of phenomenon dat bombards it on all sides." o'hara is described as da social catalyst of da group and quintessential poet of da everyday, whose wurk, by reorientin criteria fa poetic success away from sincerity, profundity, and depf and toward uma, play, and respect fa da quotidian, established an influential new poetic paradigm. in is least insightful chapta, lehman defends da "critically undervalued" koch as a "serious comic poet," influenced by drama and writin in da tradition of rabelais, byron, lewis carroll, and oscar wilde; and schuyla lehman emphasizes as a more austere and minimal poet of "life outside is window," who "revised da lyric model of da poem as found in whitman, art crane, and william carlos williams." none of dis is particularly startlin to readers at all familiar wiv their wurk, but as a main man and co-conspirata of mostest of da poets he discusses, lehman capitaziles well on is massiv store of anecdotes and offers itherto unrecorded biographical details dat will likely fuel biographical debates fa many years. unfortutanely, is overall thesis-that da new york scool of poets constitutes "the avant-garde-the last avant-garde in american poetry" is supported mostly by impressionistic commentary and mere lists of more recent poets influenced by new york scool aesthetics.

The Four M(o)usketeers
Despite the provocative title, there's nothing especially revealing in this workmanlike overview of the New York School.If you know even a little already about Ashbery, O'Hara & Co.--great poets, all--you'll find Lehman has little new to say.If you don't, his assortment of anecdotes and biographical nuggets isn't much help in capturing the New York that electrified so many major artists in the '50s and '60s.You have to sit still for Lehman's cursory reading of the poems (a whole chapter to tell us Kenneth Koch is funny?) to get to the stories and provocative quotes that justify a book like this, more an appreciation than a study.Lehman's under the impression that the New York School poets haven't gotten their due, and he works hard to make them safe and simple for everyday readers like you and me.But his book reminded me how personal a connection each one makes in their poems, so that Lehman comes off as a genial host interrupting your private conversation with the poet to make sure you're enjoying the party.Do four friends make an avant garde?That Lehman thinks so testifies to how rare a thing literary friendships are, and how widely the circles can ripple when talent gets together, in New York or anywhere else.

Our "Season on Earth"
This bio-philisophical account is a compendium of half the origin of post-modern philosophy and procedure in art. It is admittedly vague when it comes to the Beats, the second half, but the Academics are well introduced and begin to be explained. It is better read as an introduction to post-modern alacrity than a biography. This book should be the post-modern art-history text of highschool and university classrooms. And why? What is more galvanizing than a story of four young poets who fought in a war, attended ivy league schools, lived la vie boheme, and made a literary contribution to the world? We have lost these role models today. We have celebrities that live recklessly and leave feckless leagacys behind them. We also have stiff academics who have forgotten the pleasures of life some where between Dante and Wilbur. The Last Avant-Garde is a perfect demonstration of how our "season on earth" can be both meaningful and well-lived.

nothing new under the sun
This book is fine, it's OK, it's not bad. But there's nothing new here. It's not satisfying as biography -- what we gets feels like tiny fragments -- and the critical argument of the book isn't of much interest. The fact that the author essentially disregards the worth of almost all great 20th century poetry not written by the four men that he chooses to focus on is a huge misstep; he could have easily acknowledged the worth of Barbara Guest, the Language poets, Black Mountain, the Beats, etc. but instead either damns them with faint praise or simply damns them, apparently to make his case for the four New York Schoolers stronger. These are four very important poets, yes, but the author seems to be unable to view them in the greater poetic context of the last 100 years, and this puts the book at a serious disadvantage; it may undermine the reader's belief in him as a critic, and it made me, for one, unwilling to follow him down the rather uninteresting critical paths he was mapping out. The quest to determine what is and is not "avant garde" feels misguided and beside the point; how about actually reading the work in a new or compelling way?

nothing new under the sun
This book is fine, it's OK, it's not bad. But there's nothing new here. It's not satisfying as biography -- what we gets feels like tiny fragments -- and the critical argument of the book isn't of much interest. The fact that the author essentially disregards the worth of almost all great 20th century poetry not written by the four men that he chooses to focus on is a huge misstep; he could have easily acknowledged the worth of Barbara Guest, the Language poets, Black Mountain, the Beats, etc. but instead either damns them with faint praise or simply damns them, apparently to make his case for the four New York Schoolers stronger. These are four very important poets, yes, but the author seems to be unable to view them in the greater poetic context of the last 100 years, and this puts the book at a serious disadvantage; it may undermine the reader's belief in him as a critic, and it made me, for one, unwilling to follow him down the rather uninteresting critical paths he was mapping out. The quest to determine what is and is not "avant garde" feels misguided and beside the point; how about actually reading the work in a new or compelling way? ... Read more

Product Description
The twentieth edition of The Best American poetry series celebrates the rich and fertile landscape of American poetry. Renowned poet Heather McHugh loves words and the unexpected places they take you; her own poetry elevates wordplay to a species of metaphysical wit. For this year's anthology McHugh has culled a spectacular group of poems reflecting her passion for language, her acumen, and her vivacious humor.

From the thousands of poems published or posted in one year, McHugh has chosen seventy-five that fully engage the reader while illustrating the formal and tonal diversity of American poetry. With new work by established poets such as Louise Glück, Robert Hass, and Richard Wilbur, The Best American Poetry 2007 also features such younger talents as Ben Lerner, Meghan O'Rourke, Brian Turner, and Matthea Harvey.

Graced with McHugh's fascinating introduction, the anthology includes the ever-popular notes and comments section in which the contributors write about their work. Series editor David Lehman's engaging foreword limns the necessity of poetry. The Best American Poetry 2007 is an exciting addition to a series committed to covering the American poetry scene and delivering great poems to a broad audience.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

a few pleasures
To Heather McHugh's credit, she's up front in her introduction about what criteria and biases she brings to her selections of the "best" in American Poetry.But that doesn't save the collection from being eminently disappointing.As many others have noted, this is a series of poems that play with sounds (I know, that sounds redundant)--but then it's not much more than that.The formula seems to be: 1) sing some sounds to yourself; 2) when they take the shape of words, write them down; 3) make big margins; 4) publish poem in BAP 2007.("I met the Duck and Duckess of Windsor," Frederick Seidel writes in a typical line from the book.)Some of this is quirky and fun, but after a while it grows tedious and even makes you wonder how original any of this material is if it all sounds so much the same.Each year's collection requires an entire reading to find the gems, but this edition requires much more work than usual.Ultimately it's worth it--there's three or four poems that will please you--but the series editors really need to be more responsible about what they call the book.Granted we will never solve the formula for "best," but "Poems Heather Likes" would be much more accurate.

Horrible
I don't need to say anything else.Wish I could get my money and time back.

Surface and depth
I assisted a stoneworker once in the construction of a foundation. From a large pile of stones he was adept at quickly finding those which the wall required, the shape of substance equal to the shape of absence, soon filled. He said it was largely a matter of having scanned the available material and letting his unconscious mind direct him to a conscious, and mostly correct, choice. Of course, in using language, we do something similar, swiftly rummaging through the word hoard for the thing we wish to say, hoping it will be solid, and something to build on. Heather McHugh delves into thematter itself, its interstices, gaps, and echoes, and into the material of what we mean, and are often unconscious of. The effect can be disquieting, calling the solid into question, shaking the foundation. Attention and alertness are required to read her work, and they are also the reward.The fort in comfort falls, and sometimes, in the landscape that was blocked, the delight of uncertainty and insecurity is revealed, if we are willing to stand it.
So I think McHugh selected poems for the Best American Poetry 2007 with something like this in mind. Are all of them best, or even better? Probably not. Some require more unraveling than I have patience for, some are indulgent, others seek to dazzle but tend to dizzy. That said, I have found the best way to read the book is here and there, now and then, to let accidents have their way with me. "Only surfaces interest me," writes Amit Majmudar in one of my favorite poems. "What depths I sound I sound by accident". But accidents, I think McHugh would agree, and the apparently random, favor the awakened mind.

Some poems are interesting.Most are dull.
There are a few poems in this book that are worth reading-- Milton Kessler's "Comma of God," for example-- but most of them are forgettable or nauseating.Some of the poems are so irritating or inept (or both) that you'll want to shove the book into the shredder.More irritating than the poems, though, is the section that contains the contributors' comments.Here's a sample by Thomas Fink: "By entertaining varied perspectives on interpersonal and intergroup conflict and by disrupting continuity between successive sentences, 'Yinglish Strophes IX,' I hope, foregrounds heterogeneous linguistic elements rather than an individual 'voiceprint.'"

If that's your thing, go buy this book.

Truly unimpressive
I was incredibly disappointed in this work.The selection of poems as "best" in America in 2007 was stunning in its mediocrity, and even outright poverty.If these are truly the best poems in America, we really are in trouble.I have never written a review before but this terrible book just made me want to cry out in protest. ... Read more

Product Description
This unique anthology has as its focus the notion of form in contemporary poetry. No subject has attracted more vigorous discussion within the community of poets and critics in the past ten years. If we are to understand what form is and how it shapes poetic expression, we must turn to the poems themselves for clues. And if we are very lucky, we can listen to the voice of the poets who wrote them.
In Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, contemporary poets have selected one poem, commenting on the occasion of its creation and on the form the poem eventually took. Originally published in 1987 with a selection of 65 poets, this revised and expanded edition adds selections by twenty additional poets. Other revisions include an enlarged glossary of terms, and more expanded biographies of individual poets. The range of contributors is wide, and includes John Ashbery, John Cage, Rita Dove, Alice Fulton, Marilyn Hacker, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Merrill, Thylias Moss, Robert Pinsky, Charles Simic, and Richard Wilbur. Among the new contributions is Wyn Cooper's poem "Fun," which was the basis for Sheryl Crow's Grammy-award winning song "All I Wanna Do."
"Eliot once argued that an important poet creates the conditions under which he will be read and appreciated. The self-reflexive, virtually autobiographical currents in Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms undoubtedly are what render it so indispensible and unprecendented." --Boston Review
"There's an abundance of sonnets, double sonnets, villanelles, pantoums, sestinas, and abecedaria. . . a useful and entertaining anthology." --Washington Post Book World
"[A] generous and sharp-witted anthology . . . an intriguing and unusually informative glimpse into the creative process." --Newsday
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lovers of poetry -- and wannabe poets -- should read this.
This is really a fun book.The structure of it is original and ingenious; 85 poets print one of their poems, and then write a short essay about the process of writing the poem.More than any book I've ever read about"the poet's journey" or "the process of writing poetry"or anything else, this offers insight into the process of writing and theevolution of a work.And it offers 85 different perspectives.I love thisbook. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

A choice pick for anyone serious about then environment and modern science
So with all the debate, scientific advancements, and environmental policies, how is the planet doing overall? "Science Magazine's State of the Planet: 2008-2009" is a collection of scholarly discussions of the current events of science and technology and the debate around it - and the counter-debate. The result is scholarly, intriguing, and bound to make readers consider what they know and learn other options. Editor Donald Kennedy and his crew have put together an up to date primer on the subjects that will enlighten and educate. "Science Magazine's State of the Planet: 2008-2009" is a choice pick for anyone serious about then environment and modern science.
... Read more

Product Description
There is a deep tradition of eroticism in American poetry. Thoughtful, provocative, moving, and sometimes mirthful, the poems collected in The Best American Erotic Poems celebrate this exuberant sensuality.

These poems range across the varied landscapes of love and sex and desire -- from the intimate parts of the body to the end of an affair, from passion to solitary self-pleasure. With candor and imagination, they capture the delights and torments of sex and sexuality, nudity, love, lust, and the secret life of fantasy.

David Lehman, the distinguished editor of the celebrated Best American Poetry series, has culled a witty, titillating, and alluring collection that starts with Francis Scott Key, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane, encompasses Frank O'Hara, Anne Sexton, John Updike, Charles Simic, Billy Collins, Kevin Young, and Sharon Olds, and concludes with the rising stars of a whole new generation of versifiers, including Sarah Manguso, Ravi Shankar, and Brenda Shaughnessy.

In a section of the book that is sure to prompt discussion and further reading, the living poets write about their favorite works of erotic writing.

This book will delight, surprise, and inspire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Exceptional.
This is a great volume of erotic poetry for lover of the genre. I could not recommend it highly enough. Befitting the subject matter some of the poems are very funny too.

Erotic History
If you are looking for titillation this is not the place. If you are looking for an historical review of the genre then here it is. The poems are arranged chronologically by authors' birth date so the history is of the development of erotic thought. You can see not only development of eroticism but you get a good feeling for what was allowable at changing times. Here are all types of poems; sonnets, prose poems, rhymes, free verse, some very short, some several pages. They are uniformly good, some really excellent. And they all have the central erotic theme in common. Most delve the relationships and deep feelings of men and women but there is a reasonable sampling of men and men and women and women, as well as one or two fantasies.

The historical perspective is important and the development of erotic poetry is well displayed. As usual Lehman's selection seems very good. You are sure to find some favorites. If you are interested in intellectual and artistic eroticism you will something of interest here.

Not quite satisfying
I found many of the poems amusing but was finally disappointed that so few include a spirituality of eroticism. The collection is more sexual than erotic, more amusing than evocative. Americans, I suspect, just don't get eroticism. Although the Song of Songs is included in both Protestant and Catholic Bibles, we're too squeamish to read it. So when we finally turn away from the anti-sexual Puritan tradition our sexuality becomes an athletic event or an "experience," a kind of secularized born again. American eroticism is satisfied with mere lust and fails to ache for the mysterious communion of enfleshed spirits. I found my other purchases -- the Everyman Collection of Erotic Poetry and Sam Hamill's The Erotic Spirit -- more rooted in the ancient erotic tradition and more satisfying.

GREAT COLLECTION!ADD THIS ONE TO YOUR LIBRARY SHELVES!
I am normally not a big fan of poetry anthologies, as I much prefer poet specific work, but in this case I will have to make an exception and very much recommend this little offering.This volume contains over 130 works, and includes such poets/authors as Frances Scot Key (love his "On a Young Lady's Going into a Shower Bath"), Poe, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson (you cannot beat the eight lines in "Come slowly - Eden!" #211), Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, E.E. Cummings, Millay, Tennessee Williams, Sylvia Plath and many, many other well known writers, as well as many, many not so well known.

The introduction by David Lehman, is a work within itself and if it were longer, would be worth reading as a separate volume.

Some of these poems are good, some not so good and few....!Now that being said, I am a very strong believer that poetry is completely a matter of taste.If I do not like a specific work, that does not make it bad in any way or form.Likewise, if I find a poem that I think is the beginning and end of all great poetic work that does not mean that the man or women setting next to me will roll their eyes back in complete despair and never read another line of that particular author again.As I said, I very much feel that poetry, like art, is a selfish thing and to each his own. But you're talking to a guy here that likes the poems of Kipling, Browning, Thackeray, Longfellow Yeats, Servant, and yes, even Rod McKuen...no snob here!

This is not a book filled with a bunch of dirty ditties, nor is it a collection of work that you would find on just about every wall of every truck stop restroom in the country.This is not a book filled with nasty, but funny, limericks nor is it filled with poems that are so vague that most readers would have problems figuring just what the poet or poetess was talking about.

What this work is, is a collection of erotic poem dating back to 1980 and working through the present.Quite a number of styles and forms are used here, from the formal, to the ode, to the sonnet, and to free verse (the more modern offerings are more free verse than the rest; big surprise, huh?) and the subject matter covers the entire gambit from illicit love, to gay, lesbian, marital, casual encounter, and unending and enduring love and lust.I liked and enjoyed the variety.I did note, and I think this is why an anthology works so well here, that women are in general better at this genre than are men; more sensitive, and indeed, more graphic.I also noted that the minds of the man or woman of over 100 years ago was just as erotic as that of those today, actually even more so in many ways, to my way of thinking.

Anyone interested in this sort of work could do worse than this volume.I am glad I have this one on my shelf.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Excellent, Sensual Anthology
I checked this book out from the library and after renewing it twice, I figured I ought to break down and buy it.And I did because, happily, it's out in paperback.

Readers, this book was/is NOT a waste of money, no sireeee.It's loaded with passion, veiled hot passages, steamy yearnings, wit, angst, lust/love and even a funny poem that made me laugh out loud.My copy is hilighted and dog-eared and indispensable.

I even sent a spanking new copy to a good friend for her upcoming birthday in July.(Don't buy this book if you're a reviewing friend of mine who loves poetry....you know who you are!LOL!)It's winging its way to you even as I write this review.

Anthologies are the way to go.This one is like a ten course meal with the finest wine and deserts.Buy it, read it, praise it to every poetry lover you know. ... Read more

Product Description

The eagerly awaited follow-up to his critically acclaimed collection The Daily Mirror, The Evening Sun gathers together 150 of David Lehman's favorite "daily poems" from 1999 and 2000 into a brilliant chronicle of a poet's heart and mind as the last century ends and a new one begins. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Goodbye Instructions: Purchase This Book!
Even though I haven't appeared in one of David's poems since 1990's "Cambridge 1972" where I met Becky and mistook Joan Miró for a woman -- you probably haven't either! You should still buy this fantastic book of poems!

David will take you to great baseball games (10/9, 10/16, 4/3); share the best music in nearly EVERY poem -- (Mahler on 7/19; Mingus on 11/30; John Cage, Alban Berg {didn't I *first* play his violin concerto for you so many years ago!} and many more)...

You will laugh you will cry you will giggle you will sigh.

Okay, I'll leave the poetry to David.

This is the E-TICKET ride of poetry books. Get it.

A Journal in Poetry
In the "Evening Sun," David Lehman expresses a poetic sensibility that is rich, deep, and moving. He has captured the personal and the powerful in the memory of days. May 28 and September 18th are my favorites, and it seems odd as one is historical and the other shows the beautiful presence of the poet's voice. I've read a lot of David Lehman's verse and find remarkable here each poem's surprising, powerful, and apropos ending. I closed the "Evening Sun" longing for another poem. I think you will, too. ... Read more

Product Description
This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the state of the art today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year.

With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

assigning imprimaturs in your sleep, muldoon
it is hard to imagine a poet wordier than muldoon, "guest editor," but evidently there are, alphabetically ordered, a platoon of them.importantly though, paul muldoon is surely gifted, or has been in some previous life, some life here shed in evident order to stand naked and distressingly unashamed in the heated gaze of the passle of muldoon-ettes that he ostensibly (it is hard to imagine but is evidently so) has selected as representatives of a year's worth of american poetic effort. Surprise: most of them sound rather like Muldoon. Though it is a Muldoon non compos mentis and otherwise compromised by the blind staggers. Perhaps he was sidelined in recovery somewhere and assigned the rounding up of poets to a sightless underling. With few exceptions the poems aboard this sinking ship specialize in congealed imagery; that is, great slovenly gobbets of verbiage fast frozenat sea in the hope they would "pass." Poems impossible to decipher (by dint of having been composed with clarity farthest from anyone's mind), and unlikely to inspire a reader to try. although i am uncomfortable being so sweepingly condemnatory, i would despise myself the more deeply for scrounging after worth in bedlam...that is, in an atmosphere evidently intolerant of pride while unshrinkingly supportive of an over-riding disdain for communication. My apologies to Mr. Muldoon if it is a case of his name being used without permission.

Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections
"Your burglaries leave no thumbprint
Mine, too, are silent
I do my best imagining at night,
And you do yours with the help of shadows.

Like actors rehearsing a play,
The dark ones withdrew
Into remote corners of the room
The rest of us sat in expectation
Of your burning oratory."

~from Sunlight by Charles Simic

The maturity of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2005 is instantly apparent the moment you read "In View of the Fact" by A.R. Ammons. This is a deeply thoughtful collection of poems best addressed when you are in a contemplative mood. Within the pages there are many surprises, lovely conclusions and especially creative thought patterns. Sexuality and death seem to be themes throughout, but there is also humor and cleverly designed rhymes the wittiest poets must long to master.

"Ants" by Vicki Hudspith is especially comical while Mary Karr's poem about her son is especially heart-warming and leans more towards a serious realization of life's complexity within expectation. Richard Garcia's "Adam and Eve's Dog" lightens a topic most would find quite serious and Edward Field's poem of praise has a beautiful freeing conclusion with metaphorical appeal.

"If I were Japanese I'd write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I'd end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy's castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers."
~ Beth Ann Fennelly, pg. 46

What I am most impressed by in this collection of poems, is the truthfulness and the straightforward invitation into this sincerity. There is a cleverness in the crafting of each idea (I Want to be Your Shoebox) and at times profound lessons can appear through the viewpoint of a poet who sees the world a little more intensely (The Poets March on Washington). Jane Hirshfield's "Burlap Sack" paints an image of bondage and freedom, while Linda Pastan reveals a different type of cultural freedom.

Paul Muldoon's selections also provide a consistent mood and his love for rhyme and complex sentence structures invites you into a world of poems that reveal intricate details of your own life. At times his selections are realistic and edgy with mature considerations and at other times he has selected profound moments to inspire a more heartfelt appreciation for beauty. Both ideas seem to weave together to form a painting of how life is really lived in a realistic setting, as opposed to a more romantic rendering of ideas within a dreamscape of fantasy poems. Now and then, a line in a poem is so highly significant you can read the entire poem and then suddenly awaken upon a stunning moment.

"Wanting the tight buds of my loneliness
to swell and split, not die in wanting.
It was why I rushed through everything,
why I tore away at the perpetual gauze
between me and the stinging world"
~ pg. 133, Chase Twichell

I can also highly recommend the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is enhanced with pop culture references and a distinctly contemporary mood. As with all the books edited by David Lehman, the "Foreword" is well worth reading. David Lehman's experience in the world of poetry reveals ideas that will be of great interest to anyone interested in poetry culture.

~The Rebecca Review

Best of the Best
BAP2005 surely is a high point for the quality of the volume's poetry and the number of internet offerings included.

the best american poetry 2005
first class condition and prompt delivery Thank you ... Read more

Product Description
This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the last word in poetry today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year. "The all-consuming interests of American poetry are the all-consuming interests of poetry all over," writes Muldoon in his incisive introduction to the volume.

The Best American Poetry 2005 features a superb company of artists ranging from established masters of the craft, such as John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Charles Wright, to rising stars like Kay Ryan, Tony Hoagland, and Beth Ann Fennelly.

With insightful comments from the poets elucidating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword addressing the state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Vivid Portraits
"Your burglaries leave no thumbprint
Mine, too, are silent
I do my best imagining at night,
And you do yours with the help of shadows.

Like actors rehearsing a play,
The dark ones withdrew
Into remote corners of the room
The rest of us sat in expectation
Of your burning oratory."

~ from Sunlight by Charles Simic

The maturity of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2005 is instantly apparent the moment you read "In View of the Fact" by A.R. Ammons. This is a deeply thoughtful collection of poems best addressed when you are in a contemplative mood. Within the pages there are many surprises, lovely conclusions and especially creative thought patterns. Sexuality and death seem to be themes throughout, but there is also humor and cleverly designed rhymes the wittiest poets must long to master.

"Ants" by Vicki Hudspith is especially comical while Mary Karr's poem about her son is especially heart-warming and leans more towards a serious realization of life's complexity within expectation. Richard Garcia's "Adam and Eve's Dog" lightens a topic most would find quite serious and Edward Field's poem of praise has a beautiful freeing conclusion with metaphorical appeal.

"If I were Japanese I'd write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I'd end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy's castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers."
~ Beth Ann Fennelly, pg. 46

What I am most impressed by in this collection of poems, is the truthfulness and the straightforward invitation into this sincerity. There is a cleverness in the crafting of each idea (I Want to be Your Shoebox) and at times profound lessons can appear through the viewpoint of a poet who sees the world a little more intensely (The Poets March on Washington). Jane Hirshfield's "Burlap Sack" paints an image of bondage and freedom, while Linda Pastan reveals a different type of cultural freedom.

Paul Muldoon's selections also provide a consistent mood and his love for rhyme and complex sentence structures invites you into a world of poems that reveal intricate details of your own life. At times his selections are realistic and edgy with mature considerations and at other times he has selected profound moments to inspire a more heartfelt appreciation for beauty. Both ideas seem to weave together to form a painting of how life is really lived in a realistic setting, as opposed to a more romantic rendering of ideas within a dreamscape of fantasy poems. Now and then, a line in a poem is so highly significant you can read the entire poem and then suddenly awaken upon a stunning moment.

"Wanting the tight buds of my loneliness
to swell and split, not die in wanting.
It was why I rushed through everything,
why I tore away at the perpetual gauze
between me and the stinging world"
~ pg. 133, Chase Twichell

I can also highly recommend the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is enhanced with pop culture references and a distinctly contemporary mood. As with all the books edited by David Lehman, the "Foreword" is well worth reading. David Lehman's experience in the world of poetry reveals ideas that will be of great interest to anyone interested in poetry culture.

~The Rebecca Review

matt yeager is awesome
I enjoyed this book immensely.Quality entries from the usual suspects - Ashbery, Simic, Tate, Ammons - are complimented nicely by a slew of entries from lesser known poets.I won't get into each one, but I will discuss one in particular.I was most fond of Matt Yeager's narrative poem about a giant tin foil ball.It possessed a creativity that seems to me to be dwindling in most American art.You're probably saying, "a giant tin foil ball?"Trust me, this is a great work and I can't wait to see more from this young poet.

BETTER AMERICAN POETRY THAN 2004
I find that the Best American Poetry is always enjoyable.Sometimes it is enjoyable because the poems astonish and delight, and sometimes it is enjoyable to hate.2005 is surprisingly good.What one would identify as the more traditional of poetic virtues are openly on display.While certain of the poems felt gimmicky or cute, there was, running through it, an emotional intelligence and attention to the music of words that's been missing in recent volumes.This isn't surprising when one considers that its editor, Paul Muldoon, is as musically deft as any poet in the language today.

There are offerings from many of the familiars: Ashbery, Simic, Tate, Kinnell.There are also offerings from several of our great dead poets (Ammons, Justice, Bukowski), who somehow continue to be producing quality verse.This seems somewhat unfair, but perhaps poets truly are better off dead.Ammons's poem, where he mentions the flurry of death in his own life alongside other things that happen in bunches (marriages, first children) and Justice's poem about an old fisherman dancing by himself on a dock were possibly the two most moving pieces of work in the volume.Other highlights for me were Matthew Yeager's narrative poem about the huge tinfoil ball in the small city apartment (which my seven year old son also enjoyed) and Stephen Dunn's poem "Five Roses in the Morning."

Overall, I would pick this volume up.



... Read more

Product Description
Special issue featuring self-portraits in poems and art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Beautiful publication
A diverse collection of art and poetry exploring the theme of "self-portrait". The poetry is honest and powerful. There are highly published as well as lesser-known poets featured, which provides a nice mix. This is a beautiful publication, well worth the purchase price.

Theme and Variations: A very special Poets and Artists Concept
This is an issue of Poets and Artists that is very much a tribute to publisher/editor Didi Menendez' ingenuity.The Self Portraits of artists are excellent and easy to understand, but it is the self portraits by poets that are startling and insightful. A series of will-o-the-wisp thoughts that grab you later, after thinking, after smiling, and after the first run through. She even got those of us who review to come forward!Grady Harp, September 09 ... Read more

Product Description

"Poetry encourages us to have dialogue through the observed, the felt, and the imaginary," writes editor Yusef Komunyakaa in his thought-provoking introduction to The Best American Poetry 2003. As a black child of the American South and a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Komunyakaa brings his singular vision to this outstanding volume. Included here is a diverse mix of senior masters, crowd-pleasing bards, rising stars, and the fresh voices of an emerging generation. With comments from the poets elucidating their work and series editor David Lehman's eloquent foreword assessing the state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2003 is a must-have for readers of contemporary poetry.

Jonathan Aaron • Beth Anderson • Nin Andrews • Wendell Berry • Frank Bidart • Diann Blakely • Bruce Bond • Catherine Bowman • Rosemary Catacalos • Joshua Clover • Billy Collins • Michael S. Collins • Carl Dennis • Susan Dickman • Rita Dove • Stephen Dunn • Stuart Dybek • Charles Fort • James Galvin • Amy Gerstler • Louise Glück • Michael Goldman • Ray Gonzalez • Linda Gregg • Mark Halliday • Michael S. Harper • Matthea Harvey • George Higgins • Edward Hirsch • Tony Hoagland • Richard Howard • Rodney Jones • Joy Katz • Brigit Pegeen Kelly • Galway Kinnell • Carolyn Kizer • Jennifer L. Knox • Kenneth Koch • John Koethe • Ted Kooser • Philip Levine • J. D. McClatchy • W. S. Merwin • Heather Moss • Stanley Moss • Paul Muldoon • Peggy Munson • Marilyn Nelson • Daniel Nester • Naomi Shihab Nye • Ishle Yi Park • Robert Pinsky • Kevin Prufer • Ed Roberson • Vijay Seshadri • Alan Shapiro • Myra Shapiro • Bruce Smith • Charlie Smith • Maura Stanton • Ruth Stone • James Tate • William Tremblay • Natasha Trethewey • David Wagoner • Ronald Wallace • Lewis Warsh• Susan Wheeler • Richard Wilbur • C. K. Williams • Terence Winch • David Wojahn Robert Wrigley • Anna Ziegler • Ahmos Zu-Bolton II ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Another Exceptional Read
I will say once again,

David Lehman is one of the most facinating writers, poets, and editors that I have ever read. He is the author of The Daily Mirror, a wonderful and well penned selection of poems.
I believe his perspective and talent for finding the best poets lies in his experience. Mr.Lehman is a great editor and any reader who chooses to pick up and read this book will be thankful.

One can learn so much from the writers and makers of The Best American Poetry books. I also recommend, his most recent book, The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets. I give all these books 5 stars!

One of the Better of the Best
It seems a general rule of thumb that if you enjoy the guest editor's work, you will enjoy most of their selections. I enjoy Koumunyakaa and his choices for this years best poetry. I especially enjoyed his introduction talking about the lack of content in many poems today.As with most books in this series, there are many familiar names such as Merwin, Williams, Kizer, Levine, Philips, but also some new and hopefully upcoming poets, such as Joy Katz.There are a few September 11th poems, but most of them are readable.This is one of the best in the series that I have read.

another mediocre volume
What we have here is another mediocre volume in what should be a great series. And this year's looked promising, but you'll find very few poems worth noting inside.

THANK-YOU'S
Thank you, David Lehman, for having chosen Yusef Komunyakaa to edit THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2003, the most interesting since Adrienne Rich edited THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 1996. And thank you, Yusef Komunyakaa, for not shuffling the same old, worn cards again! Congratulations to all! ... Read more

Product Description
The sestina is a traditional poetic form that has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity, which promises to expand further with this witty illustrated cycle of poems. Casting themselves as poetic superheroes, authors Jim and Dave take on Osama Bin Laden and various other rogues and luminaries, defeating the "Masked Man" in the end to the cheering of appreciative crowds at the "sestina bar." As the two sestina-meisters take turns writing individual poems (and collaborating on one together), the mild-mannered bespectacled lad and the dashing superhero that coexist inside both Cummins and Lehman rescue the form from the clutches of everyday life and transform it into something fantastic. In this ambitious work, even the table of contents is written in sestina form. Adding to the fun are 39 vivid illustrations by Archie Rand and cameo appearances by Marvin Bell, Anne Sexton, Walt Whitman, Ted Berrigan, Gary Snyder, Arthur Rimbaud, Grace Paley, and others. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Title, Very Disappointing Poems
There are amazing illustrations in this little book. It's disappointing the poem sequence gets tired so quickly. This is an incredibly well-produced looking book whose poems would have been better-served in a chapbook. Lehman and Cummins' offerings are very forgettable and not much fun or funny--what a disappointment. Soft Skull press skimps on books by young poets like Danielle Pafunda and Jennifer L. Knox and does a first-class job producing a book of throw away poems here. What a waste. ... Read more

Product Description

The 1999 edition of The Best American Poetry will exceed the expectations of the many thousands of readers who eagerly await the annual arrival of this "truly memorable anthology" (Chicago Tribune). Guest editor Robert Bly, an award-winning poet and translator -- famous, too, for his leadership role in the men's movement and his bestselling book, Iron John -- has made selections that present American poetry in all its dazzling originality, richness, and variety. The year's poems are striking in their vibrancy; they all display that essential energy that Bly calls "heat," whether the heat of friendship, the heat of form, or the heat that results when a poet "brings the soul up close to the thing" he or she is contemplating. With comments from the poets illuminating their work, The Best American Poetry 1999 reflects the most exciting and memorable poetry being written at the end of the millennium. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Sea of Faith
David Lehman's Forewords in The Best American Poetry books are especially fun to read if you have any interest in how poetry infuses our culture with creativity. The foreword in the 1999 anthology is no exception and is a rather scintillating read with numerous pop culture references and examples of how poetry appears in movies, TV shows and magazines.

Robert Bly's introduction is stunning and his poetry selections have a vibrancy, humor and depth that is rare in many poetry collections. His discussion about how we analyze poetry or meet the words soul to soul continues with stunning wisdom:

"So he or shewho loves art and culture will honor all these Chambers of the Mind. But at the moment an artist is about to set down his or her poem, the wise artist will let them all go, bless them with gratitude and rejection, until nothing is left but the snowfall touching the soul."

Dick Allen's "The Selfishness of the Poetry Reader" is humorous although it seems to speak of a frustration or a loneliness at being so interested in poetry that he quotes lines at breakfast and keeps books by his bed. No one else seems to understand...

"And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns
a house with bookshelves,
who drives to work without a CD player,
taking the long way, by the ocean breakers."

"Sea of Faith" by John Brehm has a comforting conclusion with images of magical blue waters and a life that is easier to live when all your questions have been answered. Billy Collins' poem "Dharma," about his dog, is one of my favorite poems and I felt compelled to read it to my husband, who thought at first I was referring to a TV show.

John Haines' "The Last Election" paints an image of a world at peace, it is an interesting idea, but seems to speak of a world where everyone becomes much more intimate with their own worlds, turning off the TV. Interesting thoughts and not watching the news as often does make one less stressed.

Tony Hoagland's somewhat sardonic poem "Lawrence" will amuse anyone familiar with the writings of D.H. Lawrence. At times while reading this book I had the feeling of how disappointing it must be to know so much about an author and to walk in a world that runs hurriedly by with callous disregard. Some of the poets even feel lonely walking amongst their peers, as they are so deep in thought about the world and have so many literary references to draw from. David Ray seems to make a study of Hemingway's Garden and William Kulik takes us into a comedy with "The Triumph of Narcissus and Aphrodite."

Jennifer Michael Hecht's "September" is startling in beauty with casual ideas flowing from the page, winding their way right around your heart. One line struck me as especially poignant:

"Tonight, there are people who are so happy,
that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow."

The beauty of The Best American Poetry series is that each year a different guest editor helps to select the poems and now and then you will fall in love with the same poems. This book was especially fun to read and is one of my favorites from the 90s.

If you enjoy poems by Billy Collins, I can also highly recommend "Picnic, Lightning, look for the poem "I Go Back to the House for a Book" and "Questions About Angels," which has the most brilliant of lines in a poem: "I would feel the pages of books turning inside me like butterflies." I also loved "The Art of Drowning." OK, I admit, I love all his books.

~The Rebecca Review

Refreshingly accessible
I look forward to each new installment of the BAP series, and I appreciate the unique gloss that each guest editor puts on "their" edition. I enjoy some volumes more than others, and Bly's is one of my favorites. I wearied of the political stridency in Adrienne Rich's 1996 volume, and John Hollander's 1998 volume was a bit too formalistic. Bly's volume, though, contains a nice selection of accessible, incisive and sparkling poems--crisp, pungent and immediate.

Great start, then downhill
I was excited by the first few poems in this collection because I admire formalism and precision in poetry.But I also admire life, surprise, human voices, and raw power in poetry, and the more I read of this collection, the more I felt the need to open a window for some air.Too many of these poems were left-brain exercises in language, but language as divorced from life.And the lengths!There wasn't a single long poem in this collection that I had any interest in continuing with after the first three pages, and to my dismay, many of these went on considerably beyond three pages.(One was at least 30 pages, or was I hallucinating?)

a good book
Anthologies are always hard to review because they contain such varied works from such varied writers.The 1999 version of this book is very good indeed, with lots of easy-to-read works.Most of the poems inside are simple and to the point, with nothing too abstract or creative.I must admit I didn't enjoy reading this book as much as I do anthologies with more varied styles, but if you're looking for a good book to curl up with over a cup of tea then this book will be a real treat.

"safe"
I always enjoy reading volumes in this series.I even enjoyed reading Bloom's anthology, though I am fiery trajectory away from his strange reactionary stancecademic approach...

THIS volume, is subtle, a pleasantread...but alas, "safe."With some notable exceptions which Iwill not explicitly note here...the poems are warm milk before bed time,with a slightly pleasing taste of the fragrance of grass of this particularfield, that particular pasture.

Safe is nice...and of course has acertain beauty....With an anthology like those in this series however,I'd like a few showers of fish and frogs on my Spring morning walk...a fewbeautifully sharp briars scratching my shins... ... Read more

Product Description

A mid an "explosion in the interest of poetry nationwide" (The New York Times), The Best American Poetry 2000 delivers one of the finest volumes yet in this renowned series. Guest editor Rita Dove, a distinguished figure in the poetry world and the second African-American poet ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, brings all of her dynamism and well-honed acumen to bear on this project. Dove used a simple yet exacting method to make her selections: "The final criterion," she writes in her introduction, "was Emily Dickinson's famed description -- if I felt that the top of my head had been taken off, the poem was in." The result is a marvelous collection of consistently high-quality poems diverse in form, tone, style, stance, and subject matter. With comments from the poets themselves illuminating their poems and a foreword by series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2000 is this year's must-have book for all poetry lovers.Amazon.com Review
In her introduction to The Best American Poetry 2000, Rita Dove offers the key to honest appreciation: read the work for itself, not for its creator's name and rank on the great chain of poetic being. With luck it will take the top of your head off, though some poems may only elicit a tingle the first time around. Put those away and come back another time, in another mood. "A poem must sing," she writes, "even if the song elicits horror." And the 75 she ultimately chose--by such poetic senior citizens as Lucille Clifton, Thom Gunn, W.S. Merwin, and the as yet unacknowledged--both sing and explode. Her harvest is as varied and abundant as the garden (and gardener!) Stanley Plumley celebrates in "Kunitz Tending Roses":

Still, there he is, on any given day,
talking to ramblers, floribundas, Victorian
perpetuals, as if for beauty and to make us
glad or otherwise for envy and to make us
wish for more--if only to mystify and move us.

Some poems are definitely augmented by their creators' explanations--and their prose is often as eloquent as their verse. Others require none. Yet what threatens to steal the poetic show occurs after these comments. The series wizard, David Lehman, asked past and present guest editors to cite their top 15 20th-century American poems, in alphabetical order. It's impossible not to gravitate to this section and silently argue with some selections, approve others wholeheartedly, discover a few for the first time, and remonstrate over certain absences. How marvelous, if unsurprising, to see so many poets voting for Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop (who scores particularly high), and two whom John Hollander wittily terms "the transatlantic problematics," Auden and Eliot. If only Lehman had asked each editor to expound on his or her choices. In this list context, Louise Glück's refusal to "prefer merely fifteen" proves as inspiring as others' elections. Still, it's amusing to watch such poets as Mark Strand, A.R. Ammons, and Lehman himself look for loopholes and stuff the ballot box with also-rans. --Kerry Fried ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A volume of prose, not poetry
This has to be the most underwhelming selection of The Best American Poetry (TBAP) to date. Word after word, it reads as a thoughtless selection of prose poems; even the free verse seems to have been only randomly broken into various line breaks.Not one challenge to form, structure, white-spaces between words, nor much thought in the linebreaks, and even the big name writers are represented by weak pieces. I read the book cover to cover, hoping to find something worth relishing, yet nothing in the poems inspired enjoyment. I really don't think the guest editor Rita Dove has much sophistication when it comes to poetry. As with her other accolades, Dove seems again to be an Affirmative Action recipient editor.This volume sucks!

An Exceptional Read
David Lehman is one of the most facinating writers, poets, and editors that I have ever read. He is the author of The Daily Mirror, a wonderful and well penned selection of poems.

I believe his perspective and talent for finding the best poets lies in his experience. Mr.Lehman is a great editor and any reader who chooses to pick up and read this book will be thankful.

One can learn so much from the writers and makers of The Best American Poetry books. I also recommend, his most recent book, The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets. I give all these books 5 stars!

American Poems That The Editor Really Liked
Above is my proposed title for this series; as you can see, I am not a marketing genius.The series is called "Best of" because it needs to sell, and I am all for that if it gets a few more copies off the shelves.I would propose one more change other than the title, although related: replace the Contributors' Comments (though not the Notes) with comments by the editor.The "Best" anthologies are fun not just for the poems included, but also as a reflection the editors' taste.A paragraph or two explaining the merits of each poem and the reason for inclusion would not only create a small portrait of the editor, but would provide another way to consider the anthology as a whole.The Introduction is too short, and the poets' often banal comments about their own work add nothing to a form that should stand self-contained and alone.

Didn't like this one
This was suppose to be a collection of the best poetry in 2000, but i don't feel the same way, I couldn't get into the poetry that was picked for this collection of poetry. I give it two stars because of the poems by Frank X. Gaspar, Forrest Hamer, and Cathy Song.

Author knows a winner
As the author of Blue Street, a new book of romantic poetry, I know how important it is to read other writers' work and absorb other styles.The Best American Poetry is a great collection of works and reading it helped define my style.I recommend it to anyone. ... Read more

Product Description

The Best American Poetry 2004 celebrates the vitality and richness of poetry in the United States and Canada today. Guest editor Lyn Hejinian, acclaimed for her own innovative writing, has chosen seventy-five important new poems and contributed a provocative introductory essay. Through her selections, Hejinian has created an essential nexus -- a meeting place for readers to encounter an extraordinary range of poets. With illuminating comments from the writers, and series editor David Lehman's insightful foreword evaluating the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2004 is an indispensable addition to a series that has established itself as the first word on what's new and noteworthy in the poetry of our times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Not much of a good read
I'd heard of "langauge poetry" from some literary friends and picked this up to see what one of its advocates was up to. Prof. Hejinian may be a fine teacher and person, but most every time I waded into this volume, the results were disappointing. Many of her selections seemed to like the sound and juxtapositions of certain phrases, but their meaning often escaped me, overall. Without that, this reader wondered what was the point.

elephants and blind men
I have loved poetry ever since childhood; my first favorite poem started, "Once there was an elephant who tried to use the telephant."As I've matured, so has my taste in poetry. Rather than ranting against this poetry as I've done on another review I've decided to accept that this poetry is cutting edge and a little over my head right now. A book of The Best American Poetry should seek out poems that are the highest state of the art and not put out a book of the best liked poems. So, -feeling some envy of those who can enjoy such poems, I will spend my time, as I have for years, on those poets in between the Best and the Worst.

Unless you're into language poetry...
don't buy this.I'm sure these poets are very good at what they do, but I derive no pleasure from this volume.I usually dust this book off when unsuspecting undergraduates gripe about Yeats or B.H. Fairchild.After I dropped "State of the Union" on them, they were much more appreciative of my syllabus content.

Worse Than Magnet Poetry
There's difficult poetry, and then there's unreadable poetry--most of this book is the latter.

With a few exceptions (about five of the seventy-five poems), the poems in the anthology revel in extreme post-structuralist, avant-garde, or Language poetry obfuscation, resting largely on the philosophy that language conveys no meaning, so therefore any attempt by a writer to impart something other than meaninglessness to the reader is futile.

Obviously, one can debate such a philosophy, but I don't have the space for it here.However, there's nothing novel about such an approach to poetry; it's been done for over thirty years.

For a more scholarly assessment of such poetry, I recommend Joan Houlihan's "Three Invitations to a Far Reading" on the Contemporary Poetry Review website.

Generally incomprehnsible
With few exceptions these poems show the arrogance of poets who think conveying any sort of meaning is a cliche.
Read Ted Kooser's Delights and Shadows for an anitdote. (Thank God we have a poet laureate from the Plains!) ... Read more

Product Description
David Wagoner writes about regular lives with plain grace and transcendent humanity, and the seventy-five poems he has chosen for the 2009 edition of The Best American Poetry grapple with life, celebrate freedom, and teem with imaginative energy. With engaging notes from the poets, Wagoner's superb introductory essay, series editor David Lehman's astute foreword about the current state of poetry and criticism, and cover art from the beloved poet John Ashbery, The Best American Poetry 2009 is a memorable and delightful addition to a series dedicated to showcasing the work of poets at their best. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Diversity and Creativity
It takes work to put together an anthology like "The Best American Poetry 2009." The editor, in this case David Wagoner, reads scores of literary journals (online and print), general publications, and books of poetry, sifting through literally thousands of poems to select 75 that he or she considers the best of the year.

Wagoner, a poet, former poet editor and university professor, has chosen works by poets both well known and not-so-well-known, works that are simple and works that are complex, poems that vary in style and substance and subject and purpose. Represented here are established and broadly recognized poets like John Ashbery, Billy Collins, Adrienne Rich and Philip Levine, and younger and newer poets as well.

It's inevitable, in a collection like this, that a reader will find favorites. One of mine is "In Winter" by P. Hurshell, which begins this way:

I know the crooked at once. How it tries
to circle, catch a sudden pale gleam,
how it sparks a pearly surprise
against the sky, its silhouette
making a little bend

just before the sun is visible. The straight
is harder. No curves, no beckoning,
just unendingly in the place

we're used to. It's not exactly
boring..."

Another favorite is "Open Field" by Phillis Levin, which ends this way:

O, said the crow,
but didn't you know:

I
am a drop

Of the bottomless well,
you are a mark in the snow.

There's "Red" by Mary Oliver, in which she describes the finding of gray foxes on separate mornings on the highway; she removes them to a nearby field "while the cars kept coming." And a story poem entitled "On Mercy" by Kevin Prufer, which begins with a man being executed by firing squad and then proceeds to explore the relationships enfolding the dead man. And a poem by Jeanne Murray Walker called "Holding Action" that's about memory and mortality and includes lines like these:

Years from now I want to remember
how we walked the splendid earth
and saw it. When children read this
and smile at its old-fashioned vision,
then words, stubborn little boxcars

lugging meaning across the rickety
wood bridge to the future, hold,
hold...

What a delightfully insightful way to describe words - "stubborn little boxcars lugging meaning."

David Wagoner has done well in making his selections, illustrating the diversity and creativity that is American poetry today. (And a hat tip to series editor David Lehman, who started this series in 1988, for selecting Wagoner for 2009 and for carrying this project on for more than two decades.)

par for the course
This is just more of the same. There are a few spectacular poems, but Wagoner does the same mediocre job that the previous editors have done. When is Lehman gonna get a Dana Gioia, R.S. Gwynn, Kim Addonizio, Dave Mason, or AE Stallings to bring this series up to what it should be?

Yes and a little no
for here and now, this is how - yes and a little no.
good price good text, interesting but not always inspiring.
Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing:
Power and majesty, praise to the King.
Mountains bow down and the seas will roar
At the sound of Your name.

A few smiles, but mostly forgettable
It's been three or four years since I last read in this series, so I can't speak to whether it's an improvement over its most recent predecessors. This edition lacks long poems or anything particularly moving, arresting, or, for that matter, infuriating. At best there were a few that made me smile (among them Denise Duhamel, Richard Howard, James Richardson (albeit with a very arch, very The New Yorker poem), Matthew Zapruder (the ending)), and a couple that were formally clever (Ronald Wallace, especially). There are also some duds by famous names (e.g., Derek Walcott, Adrienne Rich and Mary Oliver), with W.S. Merwin's more admirable than lovable and John Ashberry's entertaining but, by his own admission, sort of lazy. Billy Collins's contribution did not impress me as much as it did other reviewers. A few poems inspired by the Holocaust, the Iraq War or other awful historical events were among the weakest. And some of the contributors' notes tell you more than you need to know. The book is more of a palate-cleanser than a main course; you'll be able to get through most or all of it on a cross-country flight, which seems like an appropriate venue for reading it.

My indifference to most of this anthology may have been biased by the fact that I had been dipping into Montale's early work (Ossi di seppia/Cuttlefish Bones) a few days before picking up this book. To say that's a much better way to spend your time (e.g., in Jonathan Galassi's bilingual version) is a wild understatement, but maybe you'll find it a helpful steer nonetheless.

More of the same
Poetry's inexorable drift toward the chatty and mundane--as well as its obsession with politicized art--is as perfectly demonstrated in this anthology as any other today.Of course, these days poetry just makes us yawn, and we pause only infrequently to waste time building up an angry head of steam.What's the point, after all?Form and elequence, understatement with a nod to anything like a universal audience is just so passé, dahling.Poets (but mostly their editors) have snarked, harangued and marginalized themselves out of a popular audience.

But still the anthologies keep coming, because nobody has the $50 to subscribe to obscure little journals anymore.Poets have to publish SOMEWHERE.And since there are so many now, unconstrained by talent or...heck, restraint, they're dressed up here, ready to be given for the holidays.

A couple of them are even good.I liked Lance Larsen's "Why Do You Keep Putting Animals In your Poems?", and if his title smacks of smug self-reference, his language doesn't."Badgers rarely invent stories to make them / Sad about their bodies", he smiles. And he goes on, beautifully: "My happiness / Is like a flock of sparrows that scatters when a bus / Drives by, then restrings itself two blocks away".Isn't that lovely?

Denise Duhamel's "How It Will End" defies the modern trend.Its universal theme and delicious ending strike a Billy Collins delight in absurdity.Collins, too, is here (isn't he always?) and my son smiled when I read him Collins' "The Great American Poem".Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.Maybe "The Lanyard" is the G.A.P.And that was years ago.

The Contributers' Comments and Notes are, predictably and tellingly, thicker than the poems.In them, poets hold forth, filling you in on that trip to Venice, or the time the cat caught a mouse and they cried.The stand-alone poem--where we possess all the societal commonality we need to relate to it,where the language, form and metaphor wrap us in the divine, and when each time in our lives we read it, we grow a little more--is, for the first time in Western history, a long-gone dream.I fear we will never see its like again.



... Read more