The Best American Poetry 1990, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Jorie Graham. The book contains seventy-five poems with a range of poet-authors from a college freshman to the 1990 United States Poet Laureate. David Lehman publicly commented that poetry in America retains its vitality for both the poet and reader, after the 1989 series book attained bestseller status.
Graham chose, as one of the best American poems published in the 12-month period, a work by her husband"X Marks the West: James Galvin" at the MiPoesias literary magazine website ("He was married to Jorie Graham for about 25 years, until they broke up in 2000."), accessed October 9, 2007 at the time, James Galvin.
Poets and poems included Poet Poem Where poem previously appearedA. R. Ammons "The Damned" The Yale ReviewJohn Ash "The Sweeping Gesture" BroadwayJohn Ashbery "Notes from the Air" The New YorkerMarvin Bell "Victim of Himself" The Atlantic MonthlyStephen Berg "First Song/Bankei/1653/" Denver QuarterlyMei-mei Berssenbrugge "Jealousy" EmpathyHayden Carruth "Crucifixion" American Poetry ReviewAnne Carson "The Life of Towns" Grand StreetRaymond Carver "Wake Up" Michigan Quarterly ReviewAmy Clampitt "My Cousin Muriel" The New YorkerKillarney Clary "'Boys on street corners in Santa Ana...'" Who Whispered Near MeRobert Creeley "Thinking" Harvard MagazineChristopher Davis "Dying in Your Garden of Death to Go Back into My Garden" The Tyrant of the Past and the Slave of the FutureThomas M. Disch "The Crumbling Infrastructure" Southwest ReviewNorman Dubie "Of Politics & Art" American Poetry ReviewAaron Fogel "The Chessboard Is on Fire" BoulevardJames Galvin "To the Republic" New LettersSuzanne Gardinier "This Land" Grand StreetAmy Gerstler "The Ice Age" The Paris ReviewLinda Gregg "The War" New LettersThom Gunn "Duncan" The Threepenny ReviewDonald Hall "Praise for Death" The Gettysburg ReviewDaniel Halpern "Bell & Capitol" Ontario ReviewRobert Hass "Berkeley Eclogue" Human WishesSeamus Heaney "Crossings" The New YorkerAnthony Hecht "Eclogue of the Shepherd and the Townie" The Sewanee ReviewEmily Hiestand "On Nothing" The Hudson ReviewBrenda Hillman "No Greener Pastures" FortressJohn Hollander "An Old-Fashioned Song" The New RepublicVirginia Hooper "Climbing Out of the Cage" Denver QuarterlyRichard Howard "The Victor Vanquished" AntaeusFanny Howe "Perfection and Derangement" o•blékRodney Jones "On the Bearing of Waitresses" Transparent GesturesGalway Kinnell "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" The Atlantic MonthlyEdward Kleinschmidt "Gangue" The Gettysburg ReviewYusef Komunyakaa "Facing It" Dien Cai DauDenise Levertov "Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell" American Poetry ReviewPhilip Levine "Scouting" Western Humanities ReviewThomas Lux "Time" American Poetry ReviewNathaniel Mackey "Slipped Quadrant" AvecKevin Magee "Road" HamboneThomas McGrath "Afternoon of a McGrath" The NationLynne McMahon "Barbie's Ferrari" American Poetry ReviewJane Mead "Concerning That Prayer I Cannot Make" The Virginia Quarterly ReviewJames Merrill "Quatrains for Pegasus" The NationW. S. Merwin "The Morning Train" The New YorkerJane Miller "Adoration" Black Warrior ReviewSusan Mitchell "Havana Birth" PloughsharesPaul Monette "The Worrying" Love AloneLaura Moriarty "La Malinche" TemblorThylias Moss "There Will Be Animals" Pyramid of BoneMelinda Mueller "Teratology" Fine MadnessLaura Mullen "They" The Threepenny ReviewAlice Notley "(2 pages from a long poem in progress)" How(ever)Michael Palmer "Six Hermetic Songs" SulfurRobert Pinsky "Pilgrimage" AntaeusJendi Reiter "Service Includes Free Lifetime Updating" Hanging LooseJoan Retallack "Japanese Presentation, I & II" o•blékDonald Revell "The Old Causes" BoulevardAdrienne Rich "Living Memory" American Poetry ReviewMichael Ryan "Switchblade" God HungerJames Schuyler "Haze" The New YorkerFrederick Seidel "AIDS Days" These DaysCharles Simic "The Initiate" AntaeusGustaf Sobin "Transparent Itineraries: 1984" Voyaging PortraitsElizabeth Spires "Primos" American Poetry ReviewDavid St. John "Last Night with Rafaella" The Gettysburg ReviewGerald Stern "Saving My Skin from Burning" Iowa ReviewMark Strand "Orpheus Alone" The New YorkerJames Tate "Distance from Loved Ones" Denver QuarterlySidney Wade "Aurora Borealis and the Body Louse" Grand StreetRosanna Warren "The Cormorant" BoulevardRichard Wilbur "A Wall in the Woods: Cummington" The New YorkerEleanor Wilner "Reading the Bible Backwards" Sarah's ChoiceCharles Wright "Saturday Morning Journal" Antaeus
Most represented publications in this volume The following publications were represented more than once in this year's volume: American Poetry Review 7The New Yorker 7Antaeus 4Grand Street 3Denver Quarterly 3The Atlantic Monthly 2The Gettysburg Review 2o•blék 2The Threepenny Review 2
See also 1990 in poetry
Notes
External links Web page for contents of the book, with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared