The Best American Poetry 2001, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Robert Hass.
Background
In his introduction, Hass wrote, "There are roughly three traditions in American poetry at this point: a metrical tradition that can be very nervy and that is also basically classical in impulse; a strong central tradition of free verse made out of both romanticism and modernism, split between the impulses of an inward and psychological writing and an outward and realist one, at its best fusing the two; and an experimental tradition that is usually more passionate about form than content, perception than emotion, restless with the conventions of the art, skeptical about the political underpinnings of current practice, and intent on inventing a new one, or at least undermining what seems repressive in the current formed style. [...] At the moment there are poets doing good, bad, and indifferent work in all these ranges."
Speaking of the selection process for his editorship, Hass observed that he received "boxes...[of] xeroxes and notations of the indefatigable David Lehman....I had marked for rereading a couple of hundred poems [myself] and I had David's sometimes overlapping lists..." .
Maureen McLane, in a book review in The Chicago Tribune, said of Hass' description that "it's hard to imagine a more judicious account of major tendencies." Hass quoted from his Introduction to The Best American Poetry 2001, by Maureen McLane in "Eclectic collection: A new anthology of American works includes a wide range of forms, styles and themes", a review of the book on page 4 of the Books section of The Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2001, accessed via Newsbank.com Web site, October 13, 2007
"While many charming, witty poems have made it into this anthology, there are plenty of others that would seem to evade not only the perils of being charming but indeed the strictures of being a poem, conventionally understood," McLane wrote. She found the selections by Joshua Clover Thomas Sayers Ellis, Cal Bedient, Robert Bly, Michael Burkard and Claudia Rankine confusing (but not necessarily bad poems for that reason), and praised the work by Brenda Hillman, Louise Glück, Alan Feldman, Bernard Welt, Joshua Clover, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Fanny Howe, Michael Palmer, Lydia Davis, Rachel Rose, David Kirby, Jewelle Gomez, Noelle Kocot and Grace Paley.
Hass also included newly published work by the late Elizabeth Bishop and James Schuyler. Schuyler's poem was discovered by David Lehman in May 1994 in John Ashbery's archive at Harvard's Houghton Library and appeared six years later in "The New Yorker".Lehman correspondence with Ashbery and with New Yorker poetry editor Alice Quinn One of the poems Hass chose for the volume was by his wife, Web page titled "Robert Hass" at the Poets.org Web site of the Academy of American Poets ("He lives in California with his wife, poet Brenda Hillman ..."), accessed October 10, 2007 Brenda Hillman.
Poets and poems included Poet Poem Where poem previously appearedNin Andrews "Notes for a Sermon on the Mount" Another Chicago MagazineRae Armantrout "The Plan" American Poetry ReviewJohn Ashbery "Crossroads in the Past" The New York Review of BooksAngela Ball "Jazz" The Nebraska ReviewMary Jo Bang "Crossed-Over, Fiend-Snitched, X-ed Out" New American WritingCal Bedient "When the Gods Put on Meter" Colorado ReviewElizabeth Bishop "Vague Poem" The New YorkerRobert Bly "The French Generals" The Paris ReviewLee Ann Brown "Sonnet Around Stephanie" VerseMichael Burkard "Notes About My Face" American Poetry ReviewTrent Busch "Heartland" The NationAmina Calil "Blouse of Felt" FaucheuseAnne Carson "Longing, a documentary" The Threepenny ReviewJoshua Clover "Ceriserie" American Poetry ReviewBilly Collins "Snow Day" The Atlantic MonthlyRobert Creeley "En Famille" Boston Book ReviewLydia Davis "A Mown Lawn" McSweeney'sR. Erica Doyle "Ma Ramon" CallalooChristopher Edgar "The Cloud of Unknowing" Boston ReviewThomas Sayers Ellis "T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M." AGNIAmy England "The Art of the Snake Story" Quarter After EightAlan Feldman "Contemporary American Poetry" PoetryJames Galvin "Little Dantesque" FenceLouise Glück "Time" The New YorkerJewelle Gomez "My Chakabuku Mama: a comic tale" CallalooJorie Graham "Gulls" ConjunctionsLinda Gregerson "Waterborne" The Atlantic MonthlyLinda Gregg "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" AGNIAllen Grossman "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" The Southern ReviewDonald Hall "Her Garden" The Times Literary SupplementAnthony Hecht "Sarabande on Attaining the Age of Seventy-Seven" The New YorkerLyn Hejinian "Nights" ConjunctionsBrenda Hillman "The Formation of Soils" The JournalJane Hirshfield "In Praise of Coldness" Tin HouseJohn Hollander "What the Lovers in the Old Songs Thought" The New RepublicRichard Howard "After 65" The Antioch ReviewFanny Howe "Doubt" Seneca ReviewOlena Kalytiak Davis "Sweet Reader, Flanneled and Tulled" The Paris ReviewShirley Kaufman "The Emperor of China" American Poetry ReviewGalway Kinnell "The Quick and the Dead" The New YorkerDavid Kirby "Dear Derrida" The Kenyon ReviewCarolyn Kizer "The Ashes" The Texas ReviewKenneth Koch "To World War Two" Harper'sNoelle Kocot "Consolations Before an Affair, Upper West Side" Another Chicago MagazineJohn Koethe "Songs of the Valley" Southwest ReviewYusef Komunyakaa "Seven Deadly Sins" PoetryMark Levine "Wedding Day" Northwest ReviewSarah Manguso "The Rider" American Letters & CommentaryJ. D. McClatchy "Tattoos" The Paris ReviewColleen J. McElroy "Mae West Chats It Up with Bessie Smith" Crab Orchard ReviewHeather McHugh "My One" jubilatHarryette Mullen "Music for Homemade Instruments" FactureCarol Muske Dukes "Our Kitty" Evansville ReviewAlice Notley "Where Leftover Misery Goes" ChainSharon Olds "His Costume" The New YorkerKathleen Ossip "The Nature of Things" Barrow StreetGrace Paley "Here" The Massachusetts ReviewMichael Palmer "Untitled (February 2000)" ConjunctionsJohn Peck "A Metal Denser Than, and Liquid" AGNILucia Perillo "The Ghost Shirt" PequodCarl Phillips "The Clearing" CallalooRobert Pinsky "Jersey Rain" The Atlantic MonthlyClaudia Rankine "A short narrative of breasts and womb in service of Plot entitled" VerseAdrienne Rich "Architect" The Paris ReviewJames Richardson "Vectors: Forty-five Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays" PloughsharesRachel Rose "What We Heard About the Japanese" and "What the Japanese Perhaps Heard"" VerseMary Ruefle "Furtherness" American Letters & CommentaryJames Schuyler "Along Overgrown Paths" The New YorkerCharles Simic "Night Picnic" Boston ReviewSusan Stewart "Apple" TriQuarterlyLarissa Szporluk "Meteor" The JournalJames Tate "The Diagnosis" LITBernard Welt "I stopped writing poetry..." The Antioch ReviewDean Young "Sources of the Delaware" VoltRachel Zucker "In Your Version of Heaven I Am Younger" American Poetry Review
See also 2001 in poetry
Notes
External links Web page for contents of the book, with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared "The Best I Can Do This Year: Lehman's "Best American Poetry 2001" by Joan Houlihan