The Best American Poetry 2007, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by poet Heather McHugh, guest editor, who made the final selections, and David Lehman, the general editor for the series.
This book is the 20th volume in the most popular annual poetry anthology in the United States. Along with popular poets who have often appeared in previous editions, such as Billy Collins, Louise Gluck and Galway Kinnell, the book includes poets of "off-center traditions" such as Rae Armantrout and Christian Bok. Some of McHugh's selections from newer poets "tend toward the experimental," according to a review in Publishers Weekly, which pointed to poems from Ben Lerner and Danielle Pafunda as evidence of this. Publishers Weekly called it a "riskier than usual volume."Brief book review, "The Best American Poetry 2007" in Publishers Weekly, July 30, 2007
Richard Wakefield, reviewing the volume in The Seattle Times, wrote that McHugh's selections were "as eccentric, sometimes as unabashedly goofy, as any in the series' two decades," but among them were a couple of dozen "very fine" poems. Wakefield in particular praised the poems by Carmine Starnino and Brad Leithauser, but called the Nicky Beer selection merely "clever prose arranged as questions and answers," and that poem's inclusion probably due to a common "weakness" among poets for wordplay. McHugh's essay introducing the volume was briefer than those of most of her predecessors, according to Wakefield, but was itself almost worth the cost of the book and contains some phrasing "as good as anything in the volume." Via Newsbank Web site: Wakefield, Richard, "'Bestov, schmestov,' but these poems are pretty darned good", book review, The Seattle Times, September 23, 2007, accessed October 6, 2007
In her review of the book for The Tampa Tribune, Karen Haymon wrote that the poems by established poets generally outshone the work of the lesser-known writers, with plenty of poems "good and worth reading" by established names such as Billy Collins, Donald Hall, and Robert Hass. However, Haymon called a poem by Brian Turner, an Iraq veteran, a pleasant discovery. Via Newsbank Web site: Long, Karen Haymon, "Best Of The Best 2007 Poems / Come From Familiar Poets", The Tampa Tribune, Tampa, Florida, September 16, 2007, accessed October 6, 2007
Poets and poems included Listed in alphabetical order by author's name: Poet Poem Publication where poem previously appearedKazim Ali "The Art of Breathing" Barrow StreetJeannette Allee "Crimble of Staines" FieldRae Armantrout "Scumble" American PoetMary Jo Bang "The Opening" VerseNicky Beer "Still Life with Half-Turned Woman and Questions" Beloit Poetry JournalMarvin Bell "The Method" CrazyhorseChristian Bok "Vowels" New American WritingLouis E. Bourgeois "A Voice from the City" SentenceGeoffrey Brock "Flesh of John Brown's Flesh: Dec. 2, 1859" SubtropicsMatthew Byrne "Let Me Count the Ways" Poet LoreMacgregor Card "Duties of an English Foreign Secretary" FenceJulie Carr "marriage" POOLMichael Collier "Common Flicker" TriQuarterlyBilly Collins "The News Today" BookforumRobert Creeley "Valentine for You" CrazyhorseLinh Dinh "Continuous Bullets over Flattened Earth and A Super-Clean Country" New American WritingMike Dockins "Dead Critics Society" Atlanta ReviewSharon Dolin "Tea Lay" New American WritingDenise Duhamel "Language Police Report" SentenceStephen Dunn "Where He Found Himself" Iowa ReviewRussell Edson "See Jack" SentenceElaine Equi "Etudes" the tinyLandis Everson "Lemon Tree" American Poetry ReviewThomas Fink "Yinglish Strophes IX" Barrow StreetHelen Ransom Forman "Daily" Michigan Quarterly ReviewLouise Gluck "Archaic Fragment" PoetryAlbert Goldbarth "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" New LettersDonald Hall "The Master" American Poetry ReviewMark Halliday "Best Am Po" POOLForrest Hamer "Initiation" American Poetry ReviewMatthea Harvey "From The Future of Terror/Terror of the Future Series" BombRobert Hass "Bush's War" American Poetry ReviewJane Hirshfield "Critique of Pure Reason" PloughsharesDaniel Johnson "Do Unto Others" Barrow StreetRichard Kenney "Auguries" Southwest ReviewMilton Kessler "Comma of God" SentenceGalway Kinnell "Hide-and-Seek, 1933" Beloit Poetry JournalDavid Kirby "Ode to the Personals" Five PointsJulie Larios "What Bee Did" The Cortland ReviewBrad Leithauser "A Good List" The New CriterionBen Lerner "From Angle of Yaw" Beloit Poetry JournalJoanie Mackowski "When I was a dinosaur" POOLAmit Majmudar "By Accident" The Antioch ReviewSabrina Orah Mark "The 10 Stages of Beatrice" ConduitCampbell McGrath "Ode to the Plantar Fascia" POOLLeslie Adrienne Miller "On Leonardo's Drawings" The Kenyon ReviewMarilyn Nelson "Etymology" Literary ImaginationMeghan O'Rourke "Peep Show" The Kenyon ReviewEd Ochester "Voltaire at Cirey, 1736" Barrow StreetGregory Orr "From Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved" RATTLEDanielle Pafunda "Dear Pearce & Pearce, Inc." Denver QuarterlyChad Parmenter "A Tech's Ode to Genome Computer" The Kenyon ReviewSusan Parr "Swooping Actuarial Fauna and Ecstatic Cling" Alaska Quarterly ReviewPeter Pereira "Nursmaid's Elbow" New England ReviewRobert Pinsky "Stupid Meditation on Peace" The New YorkerRobert Pinsky "Louie Louie" American Poetry ReviewDavid Rivard "The Rev. Larry Love is Dead" TriQuarterlyMarya Rosenberg "If I Tell You You're Beautiful, Will You Report Me?: A West Point Haiku Series" Hanging LooseNatasha Saje "F" Beloit Poetry JournalFrederick Seidel "The Death of the Sha" Raritan Quarterly ReviewAlan Shapiro "Country Western Singer" The Virginia Quarterly ReviewDavid Shumate "Drawing Jesus" Gulf CoastCarmine Starnino "Money" New American WritingBrian Turner "What Every Soldier Should Know" American PoetArthur Vogelsang "The Family" Colorado ReviewCody Walker "Coulrophobia" Tarpaulin SkyKary Wayson "Flu Song in Spanish" Alaska Quarterly ReviewCharles Harper Webb "Big" Michigan Quarterly ReviewJoe Wenderoth "The Home of the Brave" Sacramento News & ReviewRichard Wilbur "From Opposites and More Opposites" American PoetGeorge Witte "At Dusk, the Catbird" The Vocabula ReviewTheodor Worozbyt "An Experiment" CrazyhorseHarriet Zinnes "Remiss Rebut" Colorado Review
Publishing information The book is published by Scribner.
224 pages
Hardcover:
Paperback:
See also 2007 in poetry
Notes
External links Web page for the book