Customer Reviews (1)

A slow year for poetry?
As with any anthology of poetry, the content largely depends on the editor. However, from the wonderful introduction Jorie Graham provided, I expected an equally wonderful collection in a call of arms for poets tohelp poets realize what they do is equally valid as anything else a writermay write, be it fiction or non-fiction. Unfortunately, I had troublefinding even one poem that was more that just okay. Perhaps it should justbe called American poetry of 1990. I would recommend the 1999 edition ofthis series over the 1990 edition. ... Read more

Product Description

In 1952 Bolivia was transformed by revolution. With the army destroyed from only a few days of fighting, workers and peasants took up arms to claim the country as their own. Overnight, the electorate expanded five-fold. Industries were turned over to worker organizations to manage, and land was distributed to peasant communities. Education became universal and free for the first time in the country's history.

This volume, the result of a conference organized by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies of Harvard University and the Institute for Latin American Studies at the University of London, presents new interpretations of the causes of the events of 1952 and compares them to the great social transformations that occurred in France, Mexico, Russia, China, and Cuba. It also considers the consequences of the revolution by examining the political, social, and economic development of the country, as well as adding important insights to the analysis of revolution and the understanding of this fascinating Andean country.

Product Description
The most recent addition to the series of contemporary American poetry includes the series debut of thirty poets and represents forty-six literary journals and magazines.25,000 first printing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

best in the series
I don't know what was in the water in 1993, but, as someone who has read every year's Best American Poetry anthology, I can say this is definitely the best collection of all. Louise Gluck--who, I admit, I also quite love--does a near-perfect job in her selections. It is true that you will find all of the heavy-hitters here: Merwin, Kunitz, Ammons, Ashbery, Simic, Updike, mixed with the usual delightful surprises (Carolyn Creedon, the late Tim Dlugos, Alice Fogel, the sublime Robert Kelly.) However, Gluck has a knack for finding even the most oblique poet's most direct and elegant pieces, even unearthing an unusually tender gem from Dean Young. This is a great anthology to teach from, filled as it is with compelling pieces and fascinating behind-the-poem anecdotes by the poets. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of more than forty poems probes every intimate angle, good and bad, of love, commitment, marriage, betrayal, divorce, and the ""pleasures of pain and desire."" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Lehmanism
David Lehman runs a reading series, writes criticism, and edits anthologies, but what he does best is write poems, and Valentine Place is a brilliant collection of some of his best work.Lehman's poems are funny, moving, and full of drama.He is a master of many forms, yet the work itself never seems formal or stilted. Read "Wedding Song," the villanelle that opens the book ("Poetry is a criticism of life/As a jailbreak is a criticism of prison"), to sample what the book has to offer."A Little History," "Dark Passage," and the title sequence are among the book's highlights.Sex, love, death, politics, baseball---Valentine Place has it all.My only complaint is that there are none of Lehman's sestinas in this book---he's written some of the best.

valetine place
"Sometimes what you thought was an interruption/Turns out to be your life./And sometimes what you thought was your life/Turns out to have been an interruption./and yet you have to act/As if you were back in the fourthgrade/And knew the right answer was Pittsburgh/But put down Bethlehem justto see what would happen-/How it would be feel to be wrong."

Onereviewer termed the lines facile.They saved my life.

The best collection of thoughts and feelings on love.
Without question, the depth of emotion revealed and examined by this poet is remarkable. I laughed and cried with recognition. The book drew the feelings out of me. I felt the poet's joy pain misery and glorious resolutions and made them my own. No better choice for the lovestruck or lovelorn in this reviewer's opinion. Get it today. ... Read more

Product Description
Now in its ninth year, The Best American Poetry is universally acclaimed as the best anthology in the field. The compilation includes a diverse abundance of poems published in 1995 in more than 40 publications ranging from The New Yorker to The Paris Review to Bamboo Ridge.Amazon.com Review
Adrienne Rich proves to be the most inclusive editor thus farin the Best American Poetry series, drawing from a number ofwriters and journals whose work had not been represented in earlierinstallments. Of course, established poets such as AliciaOstriker and W.S. Merwinare present, alongside newcomers like Ray A. Young Bear and Latif AsadAbdullah. The poems range from the funny (Beth Ann Fennelly's unrhymedsonnet), to the sexy (Deborah Stein'ssteamy contribution), to the poignant (a posthumous inclusion from Jane Kenyon). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

The best of this series
I read all of the Best of ... Poetry until about 2000 when I found the quality had really deteriorated.The series was uneven at best, but the 1996 edition was full of wonderful poetry.I might not find Adrienne Rich's politics or poetry particularly agreeable but her critical sense is impeccable.

Wish I could give it less than 1 star....
Fundamentally, this is the dullest, least interesting collection of poetry I've ever seen.And it's deeply hypocritical of Rich as well; her own poetry reveals a woman who is aware not only of feminist and multicultural criticism, but who is also well-versed in the strengths and mysteriespoetry can offer. ..................... There isn't a single piece worth readingin the entire book.

disappointing
It seems like cultural and gender identities are becoming more important than literature itself when it comes to literary criticism.I am very concerned about people who sees this anthology as a victory of thefeminists and the multiculturalists over the so called 'predominantly whitemale society'.A good literature should appeal to some universalexperiences that we in some way understand as human beings.This is whyHomer and Li-Po(or Rihaku) appeals to us even to this day, despite the factthat they lived in a different cultural settings.As T. S. Eliot says,"Poetry is not the expression of personality, but an escape frompersonality".A good writer knows that it is what is 'behind theexperience that is significant, not the specific content of the experience. To the extent one understands this, they realize the significance ofwriting 'impersonal poetry' that appeals to all kinds of people in anyperiod of time, so long as they have the intelligence to understand this. It is disappointing to see that even this prestigious anthology would fallinto the victim of feminism and multiculturalism, because it is one of thefew anthologies out there that offers some genuine poetry.

disappointing
It seems like cultural and gender identities are becoming more important than literature itself when it comes to literary criticism.I am very concerned about people who sees this anthology as a victory of thefeminists and the multiculturalists over the so called 'predominantly whitemale society'.It is disappointing to see that even this prestigiousanthology would fall into the victim of feminism and multiculturalism,because it is one of the few anthologies out there that offers some genuinepoetry.

disappointing
It seems like cultural and gender identities are becoming more important than literature itself when it comes to literary criticism.I am very concerned about people who sees this anthology as a victory of feministsand multiculturalists over the so called 'predominantly white malesociety'.A good literature should appeal to some universal experiencesthat we in some way understand as human beings.This is why Homer andLi-Po(or Rihaku) appeals to us even to this day, despite the fact that theylived in a different cultural settings.As T. S. Eliot says, "Poetryis not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality". A good writer knows that it is what is 'behind the experience that issignificant, not the specific content of the experience.To the extent oneunderstands this, they realize the significance of writing 'impersonalpoetry' that appeals to all kinds of people in any period of time, so longas they have the intelligence to understand this.It is disappointing tosee that even this prestigious anthology would fall into the victim offeminism and multiculturalism, because it is one of the few anthologies outthere that offers some genuine poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
David Lehman's second book in the Poets on Poetry series confirms his stature as one of our leading literary figures. He is also a literary critic with a rare ability to elucidate thorny ideas and controversial issues in a way that is both entertaining and instructive.
The Big Question leads off with a major essay explaining and exploring the concept of postmodernism. The next sections include pieces about poetry and fiction, lives and letters, and criticism and controversy.
Other "big questions" addressed include political correctness, the genre of literary biography, academic life and deconstruction. There is a humorous piece on poetry "slams" and the whole "downtown" poetry scene, a feisty op-ed column (on the deconstruction of the Gettysburg Address), a pair of wickedly satirical poems, as well as a group of exceptional book reviews.
The subjects covered range from Philip Larkin to Philip Roth- from the greatest poetry hoax of the twentieth century (which took place in Australia during World War II) to Charles Dickens's unfinished last novel- and from nineteenthth-century American poetry to the political career of Martin Heidegger.
David Lehman is a poet and author of Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He is series editor of the celebrated Best American Poetry anthology.
... Read more

Product Description

Started in 1997 by poets David Lehman and Star Black, the KGB Bar poetry series is widely recognized as the hottest and perhaps the best reading series in New York. Located in the hip East Village KGB Bar, these Monday-night readings boast a fantastic variety and quality of internationally known poets from Charles Simic, Molly Peacock, and Katha Pollit to Marie Howe, Mark Strand, and Yusef Komunyakaa.

Now Lehman and Black have gathered work from the first three seasons into a wonderful anthology. Together with a generous supply of photographs and anecdotes from contributors on the most memorable thing ever to happen to them at a poetry reading, this unique book of poems reflects the amazing variety and energy of poetry today.

The poems range in style from Douglas. Crase's "Astropastoral" ("I have seen you on every horizon, how you are stored/And encouraged and brought to the brim/Until the round bounds of one planet could not hold you in") to Anne Porter's "Five Wishes." Offering a wide window into contemporary poetry, The KGB Bar Book of Poems debunks the myth of poetry's ivory tower to reveal the kind of raw, candid reading experience that truly brings poetry to life."The pre-Russian revolutionary locale gives the gathering a committed, not to say conspiratorial air, and it somehow manages to foster a true sense of camaraderie, experimentation, and open exchange between readers and audience. I've seldom enjoyed an evening of poetry and friendship more."--Jonathan Galassi (President of The Academy of American Poets), the KGB Bar poetry series

Every Monday night, the KGB Bar's poetry readings are packed to overflowing. Pulitzer Prize winners bum cigarettes from grad students and martini glasses are refilled between readings, while the best poets in the country share their latest work with a rapt audience.

The KGB Bar is the sexiest and arguably the best venue for poetry in New York City, and now The KGB Bar Book of Poems brings this hot literary series to the page. Icons like John Ashbery and Charles Wright appear here with other favorites such as Molly Peacock and Katha Pollitt. Many of the poets have also written anecdotes about their own most memorable poetry readings.

With dynamic black-and-white photographs throughout, The KGB Bar Book of Poems reflects the dazzling variety and tremendous energy of poetry today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Night life with words
A great intro to contemporary poetry. I say this because the KGB Bar Book of Poems is more than just a collection of poems, its a collection of photographs, and a collection of anecdotes. In some cases, the anecdotesoutshine the poetry. Roberty Bly's account of taking a really smallaudience to a local apartment is charming, and Susan Wheeler's experiencewith a group of convicted criminals is melancholy and thoughtful.Additionally, the photograhs lend a great deal to the atmosphere in thebook. The dark smokey inebriated interior of the bar shines through StarBlack's trained lense. The poets and friends are always jubilant andinviting. While reading, you really feel privy to some specialknowledge.

The poetry itself can be a mixed bag. It brings to mind themaxim, "you can't please all of the people all of the time."Personal favorites for me are "Santa Monica" by Charlie Smith,and David Trinidad's "Of Mere Plastic", a funny but insightfultake-off of "Of Mere Being" by Wallace Stevens. I suggest you bythe book and read these two last. Each poet has a short bio before theirpoem, listing their publications and history, so its a great lead of tosome terrific books. Find a poet you like, and dig into their back-prints.Indeed, people don't read enough poetry these days. And what's a better wayto start than with this seemingly "underground" compilation?

Exciting mischief, urban nights
This is an exciting book. It is a sort of chronicle of the celebrated poetry reading series at the KGB Bar in the East Village of New York City. The place is like a latter-day equivalent of famous 1950s bars like the Cedar Tavern. The book includes poems, photographs, and one of the things Iliked the most, anecdotes from the poets. The book has charm. It has life.And oh yes it has poetry.

Great audiences deserve great books
Reading "The KGB Bar Book of Poems" was awesome -- it captured the experience of being there. The poems are varied, but always interesting and sometimes spectacularly good; the anecdotes are fun, the photographscharming. A great package. Hey, Dave and Star, if you have an open date,how about a reading? My first book is about to come out.

Literary anthology or high school yearbook?
The poems collected here are fine enough for the most part, but there's something jarring about the overall package that contains them.The book is filled with selfcongratulatory preambles and introductions, photographs and observations that are meant to represent the feel of being at a reading at the KGB Bar, but instead it feels as if you are rifling though someone'sold yearbook.You know it matters a lot to the people inside, but thereisn't enough there to hold your interest.I prefer the way in which theoriginal KGB Bar Reader was put together, offering interesting prose without all the fancy wrappings.And has anyone noticed that the essayincluded here by the bar's owner seems to [resemble] the introduction fromthe original book? ... Read more

Product Description
Relfections on poetry by a critic and poet who is also a distinguished literary journalist.
... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Ear, Nose and Throat Journal, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 654 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Impacted pharyngeal fish bone migrating to the retropharynx.(IMAGING CLINIC)
Author: David A. Lehman
Publication: Ear, Nose and Throat Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 84Issue: 11Page: 692(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Ear, Nose and Throat Journal, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2005. The length of the article is 652 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Septal perforation caused by nasal magnetic foreign bodies.(RHINOSCOPIC CLINIC)
Author: David A. Lehman
Publication: Ear, Nose and Throat Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 84Issue: 5Page: 266(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description

The annual publication of The Best American Poetry is an eagerly awaited event among poetry fans across the country. This year's volume in the critically acclaimed series presents American poetry in all its dazzling variety at a moment of extraordinary richness and originality.

Guest editor Robert Hass, a former Poet Laureate and a central figure in the poetry world, brings his passionate intelligence to The Best American Poetry 2001. In his engaging introduction, Hass writes that after sifting through dozens of literary magazines, he "found that there were large numbers of poems that gave me pleasure, seemed to have inventive force, or intellectual passion or surprise." The works he selected are diverse in every way and have only their excellence in common. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, the book features important new poems from Anne Carson, Robert Creeley, Michael Palmer, Robert Pinsky, and Adrienne Rich; rare posthumous works by Elizabeth Bishop and James Schuyler; and poems by marvelous newcomers like Amy England, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Rachel Zucker.

With comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's always entertaining foreword assessing the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2001 is a book every reader of poetry will want to have. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

In the end
Usually the best of the books is in the front but I found these in the end.

Two must read poems:
Apple - Susan Stewart
I stopped writing poetry - Bernard Welt.

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures
"We're bent in the garden planting spring bulbs, pulling up
weeds, and I'm wondering how much longer we'll crouch here
on our knees in the damp soil sorting things out. Guardians
of shrubs and flowers, the first wild cyclamen sipping the sun.
We watch over each other as we watch over our garden,
woolly branches of cacti, fiery pokers of aloes in winter.
Especially during a long drought, after a snowfall, or following
the arcs of missiles on our screen. Flurries of extra caring.
Some mornings we hang on to each other as if we're afraid to let go."
~ pg. 126, Shirley Kaufman

The fascination I currently have with The Best American Poetry series seems born of my curiosity to see how each editor creates a world of poetry they feel possessed to love. The choices made by Robert Hass reflect so accurately his loves and dislikes. You can live in a short moment of his life through reflecting on what it is he enjoys about the selections in this book.

Each poet sees the world so uniquely, but many times they seem to write from a place of loneliness, the desire to speak to another soul of similar substance. This becomes very apparent in the personal stories of pleasure and pain, emotional and real, fresh and trying. At times lines from a poem feel distant and sad while others spring from the page, pouncing on you with the joy of a happy kitten. Poetry has its own rewards and good poetry is the reward for searching through a lot of moments, that while not mediocre to many, may be to you. Your personal taste figures in highly in what you will enjoy and to one person, a poem may mean nothing, and to another, it is the world.

For this reason, I try to view poems from many perspectives. I will say that the poems in this particular volume can be especially perplexing. The truth is, you may read this book one day and feel completely disconnected and come back and read it on another day and wonder what you were thinking.

The mood of this volume is especially intellectual and complex with many literary references, like discussions of the death of Virgina Woolf and the writings of Dostoevsky. The poems are mysteries to be solved and require your full attention and don't seem to immediately welcome you into their intimacy. But then you happen upon a poem like Linda Gregg's "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" and you know you have happened upon a moment of truth that will endure.

"We live our myth in the recurrence,
pretending we will return another day.
Like the morning coming every morning.
The truth is we come back as a choir."

Allen Grossman's "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" has some very intriguing thoughts:

" -a smooth stone
passed in a kiss from the mouth
of a Fate into my open mouth
amidst odors of metal
and slamming doors
at the dark end of a railway car
as the train was leaning
on a curve and slowing
to stop-is lost. Lost"

Alice Noteley's poem must be printed sideways because the lines are so long it can't possibly fit on the pages any other way:

"always near the border and never in the snows come again and the purple sinister sky
so I can die and read the books they leave me always alive the letters and the letters letters."

Robert Pinsky's "Jersey Rain has beautiful images of the moon where he talks about "The chilly liquefaction of day to night." James Richardson writes "Ten-second Essays" that are numbered and give you snippets of moments to enjoy and expand upon in your own mind. A few of the lines are quite funny, like: "Say nothing as if it were news" or witty like: "The road not taken is the part of you not taking the road."

Mary Ruefle's "Furtherness" is especially beautiful in the most poignant of ways as she writes about death. The poem I loved the most was "Apple" by Susan Stewart which made me long for the Apple tree in my grandmother's yard.

"You can roast late apples
in the ashes. You can run
them in slices on a stick.
you can turn the stem to
find the letter of your love."

Most poets will find Bernard Welt's "I stopped writing poetry" rather amusing. I loved his line: "It's a terrible thing to receive exactly the attention you want." The entire poem gives insight into why poets write in the first place and any poet could relate to: "still a breeze reaches me from time to time fragrant of verse."

If you read this book and stopped at page 58, you would miss an entire world! I was so happy I kept reading.

~The Rebecca Review

why nobody reads poetry.
want to know why nobody reads poetry anymore? read the first 58 pages of this book and you will know. 58 pages is all of my free time that i could justify wasting. page after page of dull words thrown up by pretentious people with next to nothing to say. truly horrible.

What is poetry?
There has been much debate over the past ten years of what constitutes poetry. This book involves a broad scope of what is now considered poetry and why very few people "like" poetry. To sum it up, "good grief!"

The usual best and worst of poetry
Nearly every edition in this series contains I like and poems I hate. It really does depend on the editor's tastes. Since Hass is big on ambiguity, language poetry, and fragmented narratives, many of the poems here follow that.My favorites include:Bly, Rich, Lydia Davis,James Galvin. I think overall this is one of the top few books in this series. I can already see that I'm not going to like the 2002 edited by Creeley ... Read more

Product Description
An anthology of poetry features the best work work of poets, many well known, many never before published. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Connection with the Unexpected
"What I like in poems is encountering the unexpected and I enjoy not knowing where I am or what comes next." ~ Charles Bernstein

Reading the entire "Best American Poetry" series would seem a fitting challenge for any poet or lover of poetry. Along the way I've felt various levels of involvement in the emotions presented as images flashed across the inner landscapes of my mind. In "The Best American Poetry 1992" I felt as if I was watching a movie as images came at me in their startling poetic beauty. I mostly felt stunned, in awe of the power of poetry to recreate moments with vivid inflection.

Guest editor Charles Simic presents a highly memorable introduction with images of members of an Amazon tribe, flute players and the sense that poets are in some way writing love letters to God. To be honest, I knew this book would be highly memorable when I held the book in my hands and noticed the artwork on the cover. This book speaks to you before you open the first page. You know that within these pages, mirrors will appear.

My thought while reading this book was mostly about why we long to read poetry. What drives this desire to read books of poetry? Is this our souls longing for a love letter from God or are we seeking some substance from the invisible worlds of thought where at times words describing reality can be more authentic than reality itself?

While reading these poems you may find yourself facing the shock of darkness, the glare of light and something between that is beautiful and shimmering. The desire to share experience, perhaps born of loneliness for words, is so evident.

"There were barred windows glaring at him
from the other side of the street
while the sun deepened into a smoky flare

that scalded the clouds gold-vermillion.
It was just an ordinary autumn twilight--
the kind he had witnessed often before--"
~Man on a Fire Escape

The poems Charles Simic chose for this anthology reveal well researched reflections, complex intricacies and startling beauty presented like a gourmet feast of words. Robert Bly reveals sadness in nature while bringing humor to a bird's tenacity. Daniel Halpern paints images of two cats and their similar desire for attention. Robert Morgan's "Honey" studies a beehive and seems to explore deeper emotional implications. Liam Rector presents a poem about Lighting Bugs that created in me scent memories of freshly cut grass and sweltering summer nights.

David St. John's poem almost left me blind, the way beautiful words all in a row leave me dizzy and intoxicated. Here, he takes us into a woman's "black telescope of the pupil," a mysterious world where he finds beauty and danger:

"Emerging Venus steps up along the scalloped lip
Of her shell, innocent and raw as fate, slowly
Obscured by a fluorescence that reveals her simple, deadly"

I love the end of the poem the most, where he refers back to a line earlier in the poem, tying the story together, a completion of thought that is rather satisfying.

Rachel Srubas writes of marriage and then later describes her feelings about poetry and love: "...in order to comment on the poem, I have to talk about love, which, I've learned, plunges us into our darkest histories and then brings us back up still breathing, with artifacts to show for ourselves."

What is intriguing about this book is the explanations of the inspiration behind the poems, so often missing in many anthologies, well, most of them. The Best American Poetry series gives us a window into which we can peer and what we see often teaches us about the truthfulness of poetry's expression.

"The Best American Poetry 1992" left me a little speechless with its overwhelming creative power. The power to transport you into a poet's world, imaginary or real. That power of connection that makes you feel as if you were there writing at your desk (like Lawrence Raab) when the monster appeared.

"Behind him: the dark scribbles of trees
in the orchard, where you walked alone
just an hour ago, after the storm had passed,
watching water drip from the gnarled branches,
stepping carefully over the sodden fruit.
At any moment he could put his fist
right through that window."
~The Sudden Appearance
of a Monster at a Window

~The Rebecca Review
... Read more

Product Description
The Best American Poetry 1995 once again highlights the dazzling spectrum of style and subject matter to be found in the art today. Guest editor Richard Howard's accent is on discovery and surprise, and he has gleaned the most inventive and searching writing from a wide variety of literary journals. The themes and imagery here are indisputably "American," as our best poets continue to mine personal as well as communal experience for their work. Now in its eighth year, this series has established itself as a rich and vibrant source of new poetry -- celebrated in bookstores and on college campuses. Welcome, once again, the memorable voices and unique pleasures of Best American Poetry.

Featuring:
Margaret Atwood
Sally Ball
Catherine Bowman
Stephanie Brown
Lewis Buzbee
Cathleen Calbert
Rafael Campo
William Carpenter
Nicholas Christopher
Jane Cooper
James Cummins
Olena Kalytiak Davis
Lynn Emanuel
Elaine Equi
Irving Feldman
Donald Finkel
Aaron Fogel
Richard Frost
Allen Ginsberg
Peter Gizzi
Jody Gladding
Elton Glaser
Albert Goldbarth
Beckian Fritz Goldberg
Laurence Goldstein
Barbara Guest
Marilyn Hacker
Judith Hall
Anthony Hecht
Edward Hirsch
Janet Holmes
Andrew Hudgins
T.R. Hummer
Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Karl Kirchwey
Carolyn Kizer
Wayne Koestenbaum
John Koethe
Yusef Komunyakaa
Maxine Kumin
Lisa Lewis
Rachel Loden
Robert Hill Long
James Longenbach
Gail Mazur
J. D. McClatchy
Heather McHugh
Susan Musgrave
Charles North
Geoffrey O'Brien
Jacqueline Osherow
Molly Peacock
Carl Phillips
Marie Ponsot
Bin Ramke
Katrina Roberts
Michael J. Rosen
Kay Ryan
Mary Jo Salter
Tony Sanders
Stephen Sandy
Grace Schulman
Robyn Selman
Alan Shapiro
Reginald Shepherd
Anglea Sorby
Laurel Trivelpiece
Paul Violi
Arthur Vogelsang
David Wagoner
Charles H. Webb
Ed Webster
David Wojahn
Jay Wright
Stephen Yenser ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

somewhat good stuff
some of the peotry is ok in this volume but for this most part they are most too conservative and dry. it is the editing here that reflects the personalities it seems of the two editors and simply did not keep my interest.

one of the better volumes in this series
In each volume of The Best American Poetry, there are usually a handful of really good or great poems, but on a whole, I find them to disappointing. It's generally not the best American poetry in any given year. Nor is 1995's volume the 'best' but it does have a higher number of good or great poems in it. Richard Howard (1995's guest editor) does a better job than most of the other guest editors I've read. You find poems by Margaret Atwood, Rafael Campo, Ginsberg, Marilyn Hacker, Anthony Hecht, Andrw Hudgins, Kizer, Kumin, Mary Jo Salter, and a great series of poems by Molly Peacock. There is also a wonderful poem by Sally Ball. I wish the series would get back up to this level of quality. ... Read more

Product Description

Now celebrating its tenth anniversary, The Best American Poetry is the one indispensable volume for readers eager to follow what's new in poetry today. Sales continue to grow and plaudits keep coming in for this "high-voltage testament to the vitality of American poetry" (Booklist). Selected by prizewinning guest editor James Tate, the seventy-five best poems of the year were chosen from more than three dozen magazines and range from the comic to the cosmic, from the contemplative to the sublime. In addition to showcasing our leading bards -- such as John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, and Mark Strand -- the collection marks an auspicious debut for eye-opening younger poets. With comments from the poets themselves offering insights into their work, The Best American Poetry 1997 delivers the startling and imaginative writing that more and more people have come to expect from this prestigious series.Amazon.com Review
"The daily routine of our lives can be good and evenwonderful, but there is still a hunger in us for the mystery of thedeep waters, and poetry can fulfill that hunger." So writes JamesTate, editor of the 1997 edition of Best American Poetry. The poemsthat follow his essay bear out the claim. Including work by AllenGinsberg, Denise Levertov, Mark Strand, and other first-rate poets,the 1997 collection again delights the reader with the variety andquality of poetry now being written. Here is a taste, from MarkStrand's contribution, "Morning, Noon and Night":"Whatever the starcharts told us to watch for or the maps / Saidwe would find, nothing prepared us for what we discovered. / We toiledin the shadowless depths of noon, / While an alien wind slept in thebranches, and dead leaves / Turned to dust in the streets." Thisseries consistently produces collections that are essential readingfor poetry lovers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

She was like a piece of the sky looking at herself...
"...poetry speaks against an essential backdrop of silence. It is almost reluctant to speak at all, knowing that it can never fully name what is at the heart of its intentions. There is a prayerful, haunted silence between words, between phrases, between images, ideas and lines." ~ pg. 19

Used books hold within their pages additional mysteries and this one was no exception. Also, when the first poem in a book makes you cry, it is almost guaranteed you will be finding additional poems to love. "That Cold Summer" by Nin Andrews is so startling in imaginative beauty and many of the poems seem to flow together with a similar idea.

"Often as children, my friend and I used to pretend we had wings. Attaching towels to our backs with safety pins, we'd leap from sofas and chairs, thudding ungracefully on the floor ...But what is it these angels represent to us if no the ability to lift off the planet, to escape the pull of gravity? And this, I think, is one of the reasons I write." ~ Nin Andrews

The Butterfly Effect by Harry Humes presents ideas to ponder as does Karen Volkman's "Infernal" where she writes:

"The revenant sprawls by the pool
assessing opulent stucco and glossy indigo."

I love the way the poem ends:

"I stay close to the water,
you stay close to the shore."

I thought it was rather intriguing that when I had just read The Best American Poetry book edited by A.R. Ammons, that I should open this book and find a "Worldwide Travel Specialist's" business card right at his poem: "From Strip." While I wouldn't mind a vacation to New Zealand, I do find many of the poetry books by David Lehman to be journeys into many minds and enjoyable escapes into poetry.

"she was, like a piece of the sky looking at herself.
She watched him like a deer caught in the headlights, staring

until he touched her shoulder, and he shuddered.
Colder than snow, she was. Donald said that's why

he invited her in to warm herself. She had a long
wind inside her than fanned the flames a brilliant blue."

~ from Nin Andrew's "That Cold Summer"

~The Rebecca Review

One of the very best in the series
Leave it to James Tate.The poems in this collection are witty, profound, whimsical, and memorable.There isn't one I wouldn't finish reading if I came across it in its original source.

Unlike some of the unpolished PC rants in Rich's collection, these are poems that truly matter because they reflect on what Faulkner called "the verities of the human heart."Unlike some of the fatally over-ambitious poems in Hollander's collection, these poems are less than epic length but more than haiku -- just right.

I'm mostly a library reader, but this is the one I might actually buy.

One of the better volumes in the series
I have been reading this series since 1993 and I feel that this is one of the strongest ones in the series. Some good choices from the better known poets, and wonderful poems by poets I was unfamiliar with, including ThomasSayers Ellis (whose "Atomic Bride" is sure to become a classic).Though the book may drift a little towards the middle in terms of taste,Tate does a good job of mixing different aesthetics into this volume. Also,I think Tate's introduction is the most memorable I've read from theseries.

A collection of strong, widely divergent poets.
This anthology represents the current standardaspiring writers must live up to. I look to this collection for a vivisection of the poetry "mood" prevelant in the past year. It is encouraging tofind such a diversity of writers between the covers of one book. I especially applaud theinclusion of "new" writers such as Bob Hicok. He has been a local favorite in southeastern Michigan for the past couple of years, and I am delighted to see him receiving national attention. I highly recommend this volume of poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
In this lively, enjoyable look at the best American and British detective fiction, David Lehman investigates the mystery of mysteries: the profound satisfactions we get from evil, disorder, mayhem, and deception--that we know will be put right by the last page.
As Lehman shows, the detective story draws deeply from ancient storytelling traditions. The mystery's conventions--the locked room, the clue "hidden" in plain sight, the diabolical double, the villainous least likely subject--work on us as childhood fairy tales do; they prey upon our darkest fears, taking us to the brink of the unbearable before restoring a comforting sense of order. The myth of Oedipus, for example, contains the essential elements of a whodunit, with the twist that the murderer the detective pursues is himself.
With their wisecracking gumshoe heroes, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler fashioned an existential romance out of the detective novel. More recent writers such as Ross MacDonald, P. D. James, and Ruth Rendell have raised the genre to a new level of psychological sophistication. Yet the form evolves still, and Lehman guides us to the epistemological riddles of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco, who challenge the notion of a knowable truth. Originally published in 1989, this new edition features an additional chapter on the mystery novels of the 1990s.
"A lively study of the development and varieties of the detective story since Poe, its relations with other forms high and low, and the latter-day appropriation of its techniques by such writers as Borges and Eco. . . . A thoroughly intelligent and readable book." --Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet
David Lehman is the series editor of both the The Best American Poetry, published by Scribner, and the Poets on Poetry series published by the University of Michigan Press. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, a vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and the author of several books of criticism and collections of poems.
Amazon.com Review
Penzler Pick, May 2000: There have been numerous attempts to provide an overview of the mystery fiction genre in all its diversity. One of the first and, I would argue, the best is Howard Haycraft's Murder for Pleasure, written in 1941 when virtually no one considered it worthwhile to write about this back-of-the-bus literary genre. For its ground-breaking place in literary history; for its readable, lively, and literate prose; and for its comprehensiveness and intelligent insight into the books and authors who would stand the test of time this work towers above all others.

Julian Symons wrote Mortal Consequences in 1972 and it too is brilliant, though far more controversial in its appraisals. (In the copy Symons inscribed to me, he accurately describes it as "material for disagreement and argument," following one of our many disagreements and arguments--the one we had when he failed to accept the enduring brilliance of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels.)

David Lehman's The Perfect Murder was originally published in 1987 and has at last been reissued in paperback, with a new chapter on mystery novels of the 1990s. While Lehman is as opinionated as Symons, he is more generous in his taste and seems to prefer the best writers. (This actually means that his taste coincides with mine, which suggests that it is impeccable!)

Although mainly chronological in structure, The Perfect Murder jumps around some, even including references to modern films while discussing old books. Oddly, the chapter on Sherlock Holmes precedes the chapter on Edgar Allan Poe, but somehow it all makes sense. His list of favorite books at the end is one of the most intelligent selections I've ever encountered--with the exception of The Name of the Rose, which is impenetrable, and The Singing Detective, which just tries too hard to be cool.

If you are interested in mystery fiction but know little beyond the obvious classics, read this to be the biggest expert on your block. If you're already the biggest expert on your block, read it to learn how much you don't know, and be grateful for its perceptive insights. --Otto Penzler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

One of my fav books of all time
David Lehman investigates the development of mystery fiction, defining improvements and refinements, comparing auth
2000
ors, detectives, plots and techniques.

If, as he observes, the murder in the most inspired detective novel is perfect, it's not because of its solution but because of its artful conception. The first clue is in the basic premise of mystery fiction. Speaking, as it does, of such basic matters as life and death, quest and query, fear and the unknown, the detective novel assumes that the puzzles of life can and will be solved. The reader turns from the ordinariness of life to the author's promise that around each corner lurks the possibility of menace, that conspiracy fills the air, that we have every right to be paranoid, but in spite of it all, everything will turn out all right.

Another clue: Reading mystery fiction provides us with a harmless and vicarious way of releasing our homicidal instincts, says Lehman, allowing us to murder again and again without having to suffer the consequences. Thus, he concludes, reading mysteries leads us away from performing the act of murder.

"Our love of mystery is matched only by our longing for certainty," he writes. "and because we find it hard to tolerate the condition of doubt and guilt in shich we are destined to live."

Lehman's love of mysteries and his eagerness to share favorite books and characters lends charm and emphasizes his major points. A chronological bibliography is included and divided into related genres, critical documents and resource books. That proves to be a banquet of delicious additional reading on the subject. Another delight is his review of 15 of his favorite mystery novels.

Read this one to gain new insight and a deeper appreciation for the mystery genre.

Erudite and entertaining
I have a few of books on the crime/mystery genre. Some of them are overly academic (dry and professorial) while others are labors of love written by fans (passionate but not always insightful or even factually correct). Then there are those books that are still wonderful to read but are a bit out of date (the Haycroft, Keating and Symon books, for instance).

Lehman's book avoids all these pitfalls. He's a scholar but his prose moves along and is never fussy. He covers a lot of ground but never sails into vague generalities. And his recommended reading list (always a highlight in this sort of book) is nicely put together, with a good mix of old works and new.

If I had to buy a single volume for someone looking to expand his or her perspective on the history of the crime-mystery story, this would be the one.

Destiny
Finally in paperback, "The Perfect Murder" will provide intriguing delight for both newcomers and accomplished literary detectives.With this new twenty-first-century insight into the murder mystery, Lehman has now made the study of the Detective Novel as morally and historically important as any inliterature today, "not only" in Lehman's words "because of the detective novel's debt to human nature but because of the possibly larger debt that human behavior owes to detective novels."

Whodunit: Superb Sleuthing of the detective novel, itself
His books covers it all: history, stories, the idea of doubles and masks, the resolution of good and evil after World Wars through the detective who resolves to bring order out of chaos.David Lehman talks about the detective novel as one genre that crosses all classes.Given this election and all the open questions, let's delight in some sleuthing.We are asking Whowonit in America.His book is a Whodunit.This book is fun and includes many of David's Favorites throughout history, including Poe's Murder of the Rue Morgue and even spy novels such as LaCarre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.If you delight in detective novels, you'll savor this read. ... Read more

Product Description

Following in the footsteps of such poets as Emily Dickinson, William Stafford, and Frank O'Hara, David Lehman began writing a poem a day in 1996 and found the experience so rewarding that he continued for the next two years. During that time, some of these poems appeared in various journals and on Web sites, including The Poetry Daily site, which ran thirty of Lehman's poems in as many days throughout the month of April 1998.

For The Daily Mirror, Lehman has selected the best of these "daily poems" -- each tied to a specific occasion or situation -- and telescoped two years into one. Spontaneous and immediate, but always finely crafted and spiced with Lehman's signature irony and wit, the poems are akin to journal entries charting the passing of time, the deaths of great men and women, the news of the day. Jazz, Sinatra, the weather, love, poetry and poets, movies, and New York City are among their recurring themes.

A departure from Lehman's previous work, this unique volume provides the intimacy of a diary, full of passion, sound, and fury, but with all the aesthetic pleasure of poetry. More a party of poems than a standard collection, The Daily Mirror presents an exciting new way to think about poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Poem A Day
A magnificent collection of poems -- each one a shiny little jewel! The world comes alive through date references, NYC locales, and the fertile imagination of David Lehman! Who do YOU see in the Daily Mirror?

The Universal Found in the Verse of Particulars
The Daily Mirror is David Lehman's writing at its finest.So many of the poems move as water falling and turning, fluid and full of surprise.His sense of the poetic line and his innovative use punctuation (almost none)blossom into moments that hold and propel the reader.He uses the timingof poetry in concord with the pace of a life moving and moved by people,images, and ideas. The world of particulars in his verse captures a time(our time) that the reader will want to return to again and again. Thesepoems read like a treasure hunt that never ends. Everyone will have theirfavorite day in this book of daily poems.

Absolutely fantastic!
I am not surprised that "The Daily Mirror" is fantastic. I have yet to meet a poem by David Lehman that I don't like.

That being said, I'm still deeply pleased by how much I like this book. These poems are sofull of joie de vivre that every time I read one I find myself smiling.

The poems in "The Daily Mirror" are terrific in part becauseof their immediacy. As daily poems they comprise a kind of poetic journal;they are crafted out of the everyday. What's great is that they alsotranscend the mundane; they're made of ordinary stuff, but they're *poems*,with the heightened consciousness and precise language that poems require.

These poems are witty and intelligent and creative and funny and sad. Irecommend them highly. ... Read more