The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–1997, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Harold Bloom, who chose the poems.
Bloom selected poems from every entry in the series through 1997, with the exception of the 1996 volume, edited by Adrienne Rich. Bloom criticized the 1996 issue in his introductory essay, claiming that Rich had selected poems based on the "race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, and political purpose of the would-be poet", rather than on aesthetic merit. Lehman wrote in his own introductory essay that he believed a number of Rich's selections would have met Bloom's criteria, and that he disagreed with Bloom's decision to exclude any poems from Rich's editorship .
Critical reaction The Boston Review printed Bloom's preface and in the following issue included responses from, among others, Mark Doty, Ann Lauterbach, Rita Dove, J. D. McClatchy, Donald Revell, Heather McHugh, Thylias Moss, Reginald Shepherd, Carol Muske, Sven Birkerts, and Marjorie Perloff. Web page titled "Boston Review/Editor's Note", apparently an introduction to Bloom's essay as reprinted in The Boston Review, undated, accessed February 2, 2007
Of "Best of" anthologies generally, JoAnn Gutin wrote in Salon.com, "Those who pride themselves on the catholicity or adventurousness of their reading tastes may well take a dim view of the 'Best of' boom. I can envision intellectuals saying, with a certain hauteur, 'I would never allow someone to choose what I read.' These are probably the same people who ask for menu substitutions in nice restaurants...or who walk around looking like the wrath of God under the impression that they have a 'personal style.' My position is, if it's good enough for John Updike or Joyce Carol Oates or Harold Bloom, it's good enough for me."
In a 2025 retrospective of The Best American Poetry series in general, Elisa Gabbert, a poetry columnist for The New York Times, poked fun at Bloom, describing his preface as "wildly, hilariously bitter and reactionary." She also argued that Bloom undermined his own message when he called his selections "a heap of all the best I could find".
Poets and poems included Poet Poem Edition year in which poem previously appearedJonathan Aaron "Dance Mania" 1992A. R. Ammons "Anxiety's Prosody " 1989A. R. Ammons "Garbage" 1993A. R. Ammons from "Strip"" 1997John Ashbery "Baked Alaska" 1993John Ashbery "Myrtle" 1994John Ashbery "The Problem of Anxiety" 1997Elizabeth Bishop "It is Marvellous . . ." 1989George Bradley "The Fire Fetched Down" 1994Lucie Brock-Broido "Inevitably, She Declined" 1992Anne Carson "The Life of Towns" 1990Amy Clampitt "My Cousin Muriel" 1990Douglas Crase "True Solar Holiday" 1989Carolyn Creedon "litany" 1993Thomas M. Disch "The Cardinal Detoxes: A Play in One Act" 1994Irving Feldman "Terminal Laughs" 1995Aaron Fogel "The Printers Error" 1995Alice Fulton "Powers of Congress" 1989Allen Ginsberg "Salutations to Fernando Pessoa" 1995Louise Glück "Celestial Music" 1991Louise Glück "Vespers" 1992Jorie Graham "Manifest Destiny" 1992Jorie Graham "What the Instant Contains" 1993Allen Grossman "The Piano Player Explains Himself" 1988Donald Hall "Prophecy" 1988Donald Hall "The Porcelain Couple" 1997Vicki Hearne "St. Luke Painting the Virgin" 1992Anthony Hecht "Prospects" 1995Edward Hirsch "Man on a Fire Escape" 1992John Hollander "Kinneret" 1989John Hollander "An Old-Fashioned Song" 1990John Hollander "The See-Saw" 1991Richard Howard "Like Most Revelations" 1992Donald Justice "Nostalgia of the Lakefronts" 1988Donald Justice "Invitation to a Ghost" 1993Brigit Pegeen Kelly "The White Pilgrim: Old Christian Cemetery" 1993Jane Kenyon "Three Songs at the End of the Summer" 1989Galway Kinnell "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" 1990Karl Kirchwey "Sonogram" 1995Kenneth Koch "One Train May Hide Another" 1994Yusef Komunyakaa "Facing It" 1990Ann Lauterbach "Psyches Dream" 1988Philip Levine "Scouting" 1990Harry Mathews "Histoire" 1988J. D. McClatchy "An Essay on Friendship" 1991James Merrill "Family Week at Oracle Ranch" 1994James Merrill "The 'Ring' Cycle" 1991James Merrill "A Room at the Heart of Things" 1989W.S. Merwin "The Stranger" 1993Susan Mitchell "Havana Birth" 1990A. F. Moritz "Protracted Episode" 1991Thylias Moss "The Warmth of Hot Chocolate" 1989Brighde Mullins "At the Lakehouse" 1994Molly Peacock "Have You Ever Faked an Orgasm?" 1995Bob Perelman "Movie" 1989Carl Phillips "A Mathematics of Breathing" 1994Kay Ryan "Outsider Art" 1995Grace Schulman "The Present Perfect" 1995David Shapiro "The Seasons" 1991Charles Simic "Country Fair" 1991Charles Simic "The Something" 1997Gary Snyder "Ripples on the Surface" 1993Mark Strand "Reading in Place" 1989Mark Strand from "Dark Harbor" 1993Mark Strand "Morning, Noon, and Night" 1997May Swenson "Sleeping with Boa" 1994Derek Walcott "Omeros" 1991Rosanna Warren "The Cormorant" 1990Rosanna Warren "Diversion" 1997Susan Wheeler "What Memory Reveals" 1988Richard Wilbur "Lying" 1997Richard Wilbur "A Wall in the Woods: Cummington" 1990Charles Wright "Disjecta Membra" 1997Jay Wright "Madrid" 1989Jay Wright "The Cradle Logic of Autumn" 1995
See also 1998 in poetry
Notes
External links Web page for contents of the book, with links to each edition where the poems previously appeared