The Best American Poetry

By: Creeley, Robert

Book Overview

Since its inception in 1988, The Best American Poetry series has achieved brand-name status in the literary world as the preeminent showcase of each year's most important contributions to American poetry. This year's exceptional volume, edited by Robert Creeley, a figure revered across teh wide spectrum of American poetry, features a diverse mix of established masters, rising stars and the leading lights of a younger generation. The...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743203860
• ISBN13: 9780743203869
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

The Best Anthology Ever

For a great many years now, I have been buying and reading cover to cover the annual issues of "Great American Poetry." This is by far the best example the anthology has had to offer. Every poem is unique, powerful with a vast command of language and nuance, and they each invite rereading after rereading. These gems are diverse and yet extraordinary in their methods. The poets are seen at their finest. 2001-2002 must have been a highly creative year.

Never mind the bollocks, buy this book!

For many years, I have been taking the Best American Poetry books down from the shelf at the local bookstore for a peek, but I never felt compelled to buy one until I read the 2002 version selected by Robert Creeley. I've always had more respect than affection for Creeley, finding it hard to get into his stuff, but I loved the synergy (Marketing stole this word from the Greeks--I'm stealing it back) produced by the juxtaposition of devil-may-care experimentation with the best of more traditional, "mainstream" offerings in this volume. My favorite examples of these divergent impulses here are Jenny Boully's "The Body," a poem in the form of footnotes to blank pages (this poem has been ridiculed in other reviews found here, but I find it daring and exhilirating--in fact, I wish I had thought of it first) and Donald Hall's "Affirmation," an astonishingly straightforward and devastating poem that is one of my favorites from his body of work and one that should warm (freeze?) the heart of the most esthetically conservative reader. Even though I received a B.A. in English with a focus on creative writing ten years ago, I have only recently begun to understand the struggle between those who would keep poetry at a place it never was (the "School of Quietude" in Ron Silliman's terms--you MUST read his blog, it's good whether you agree or not, just as long as you care about poetry) and those who want poetry to continue to evolve (not "improve"), no matter what unexpected and scary turns it may take (what Mr Silliman calls, in our time, the "post-avant"). This book seems to have frightened most of the reviewers who felt compelled to contribute their opinions here, which frightened state they express as distaste. Just know that the most innovative and forward poetry that has lasted was seen in its time as "eccentric" or "inaccessible" or "repugnant" or "unreadable" or "incomprehensible," ad nauseam, from Euripides to T.S. Eliot, who, despite of his conversion to stultifying artistic conservatism and his weird adoption by "the Establishment" (and weirder disinheritance by "the anti-Establishment"), told us, if I remember correctly, that meaning should not be sought when first reading poetry that is new to us, but rather an understanding of the qualities of language the poet is presenting to us. [This may be a complete misrepresentation of Eliot; I'm sorry I don't remember where I read his statement about reading for meaning. Anyway, people who hate this book will respond that there is no quality to the language here, the good old days were the best, blah blah blah etc etc, but this is as good a place as any to end this review.]

People can get so hostile

Maybe too many aspiring poets hold inclusion in "The Best American Poetry" as being the pinnacle of having "arrived." This reasoning makes for a lot of frustrated poets, who feel as if their work is more deserving, which in turn makes for negative reviews. There are a lot of talented writers in this volume, writers whose work might have been overlooked or lost on readers, because so many poets don't turn to literary journals--they turn to this anthology to see who's who. I'm sure that younger poets (and very talented poets) such as Sarah Manguso and Jenny Boully benefited from this anthology because their work suddenly found hundreds of new readers. Of course, there is also bad, very bad poetry in this collection. However, I'm willing to take the good with the bad if it means having a yearly summary of the current poetry scene.

crazy

I don't think anybody but Robert Creeley & David Lehman would have compiled this selection of poems, & it's an essential volume, full of all kinds of crazy experiments in modern poetry & a few incredibly beautiful brilliant more formalist poems. I think books in the Best American Poetry series are a great way to get to know some of modern poetry, & if you're a writer, to find some journals to submit your work to.

finally!

it seems as though many of the readers have some issue with the brand of poems in this book. to them i say: return to these poems a few times - some of them will stick. the great robert creeley is guest editor of this volume of the popular series and, not surprisingly, a good number of the poems lean towards the more experimental and avant-garde side of things. thank god. the usual "Best of" suspects are still here - Rich, Hall, Myles, Armantrout, etc., along with dozens of newcomers to the series. i have customarily purchased this series just to see what someone thinks the "best american poetry" of a given year was, knowing full well that i would not like most of the poems included. in this case, i am relieved that it is a great collection from a great poet. mr. creeley is in his mid-70's and i am glad to receive any material he has anything to do with. purchase this collection if you are open-minded to what poetry can be. if you wish to remain in the 19th century, then this will not be for you.