The Best American Poetry 1997, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor James Tate.
Poets and poems included Poet Poem Where poem previously appeared Ai "Back in the World" Quarterly West Sherman Alexie "The Exaggeration of Despair" Urbanus Agha Shahid Ali "Return to Harmony 3" Verse A. R. Ammons from "Strip" The Paris Review Nin Andrews "That Cold Summer" Ploughshares L. S. Asekoff "Rounding the Horn" American Poetry Review John Ashbery "The Problem of Anxiety" Arshile Marianne Boruch "Camouflage" Shenandoah Catherine Bowman "No Sorry" TriQuarterly Joseph Brodsky "Love Song" The New Republic Stephanie Brown "Feminine Intuition" American Poetry ReviewJoshua Clover "The Map Room" Iowa Review Billy Collins "Lines Lost Among Trees " Poetry Gillian Conoley "The Sky Drank In" American Letters & Commentary Jayne Cortez "The Heavy Headed Dance" Hanging Loose Robert Creeley "Won't It Be Fine?" Grand StreetCarl Dennis "History" The New Republic William Dickey "The Death of John Berryman" Poetry Robert Dow "How Should I Say This?" The Massachusetts Review Thomas Sayers Ellis "Atomic Bride" Ploughshares Irving Feldman "You Know What I'm Saying?" Poetry Herman Fong "Asylum" The Gettysburg Review Dick Gallup "Backing into the Future" The World Martin Galvin "Introductions" Poetry Amy Gerstler "A Fan Letter" American Poetry Review Allen Ginsberg "Is About" The New Yorker Dana Gioia "The Litany" The Hudson Review Elton Glaser "Smoking" Shenandoah Kate Gleason "After Fighting for Hours" Green Mountains Review Albert Goldbarth "Complete with Starry Night and Bourbon Shots" Quarterly West Jorie Graham "Thinking" The New Republic Donald Hall "The Porcelain Couple" The New Yorker Daniel Halpern "Her Body" Ploughshares Robert Hass "Interrupted Meditation" Colorado Review Bob Hicok "Heroin" Indiana Review Paul Hoover "California" The New Republic Christine Hume "Helicopter Wrecked on a Hill" Denver Quarterly Harry Humes "The Butterfly Effect" The Gettysburg Review Don Hymans "Passacaglia" Colorado Review Lawson Fusao Inada "Making It Stick" Many Mountains Moving Richard Jackson "The Poem That Was Once Called "Desperate" But Is Now Striving to Become the Perfect Love Poem" North American Review Gray Jacobik "Dust Storm" Ploughshares George Kalamaras "Mud" New Letters Jennifer L. Knox "The Bright Light of Responsibility" Exquisite Corpse (magazine) Philip Kobylarz "A Bill, Posted" Poetry Yusef Komunyakaa "Jeanne Duval's Confession" Black Warrior Review Elizabeth Kostova "Suddenly I Realized I Was Sitting" Another Chicago Magazine Denise Levertov "The Change" Seneca Review Larry Levis "Anastasia and Sandman" American Poetry Review Matthew Lippman "Hallelujah Terrible" Seneca Review Beth Lisick "Empress of Sighs" Clockwatch Review Khaled Mattawa "Heartsong" Ploughshares William Matthews "Vermin" The New Yorker Josip Novakovich "Shadow" Another Chicago Magazine Geoffrey Nutter from "A Summer Evening" Denver Quarterly Catie Rosemurgy "Mostly Mick Jagger" Cream City Review Clare Rossini "Valediction" Poetry Mary Ruefle "Topophilia" American Poetry Review Hillel Schwartz "Recruiting Poster" Shenandoah Maureen Seaton "Fiddleheads" Green Mountains Review Vijay Seshadri "Lifeline" The Paris Review Steven Sherrill "Katyn Forest" Another Chicago Magazine Charles Simic "The Something" The New Yorker Charlie Smith "Beds" Poetry Leon Stokesbury "Evening's End" The Kenyon Review Mark Strand "Morning, Noon and Night" The Times Literary Supplement Jack Turner "The Plan" Poetry Karen Volkman "Infernal" Chelsea Derek Walcott "Italian Eclogues" The New York Review of Books Rosanna Warren "Diversion" The New Republic Lewis Warsh "Downward Mobility" The World Terence Winch "Shadow Grammar" The World Eve Wood "Recognition" Santa Monica Review Charles Wright "Disjecta Membra" American Poetry Review Dean Young "Frottage" The Gettysburg Review
See also 1997 in poetry Connie Hart The heart is forever
Notes
External links Web page for contents of the book, with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared