David Lehman's Introductory Essay.
Heather McHugh' Introductory Essay.
Selection criteria.
Poets.
First publication for poems.
BUY:
The Best American Poetry 2007
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The Best American Poetry 2007 begins with an essay by the series editor, David Lehman, introducing this year's guest editor, Heather McHugh.
McHugh writes untranslatable poetry full of English-specific word play. As a result, the issue has a lot of unusual poets and poems for BAP. It turns out to be one of my favorite issues!
Her first BAP appearance was "And What Do You Get" in the 1995 issue. In her introductory essay for the 2007 volume wastes no time on claiming that she has actually picked the "best" poems. Highlights include:
BUY:
The Best American Poetry 2007
|
Among the criteria for attraction (or not!) and thence possible selection in The Best American Poetry 2007 by Heather McHugh:
Notice the birth years of the poets: McHugh has vaulted forward: the mode (most common decade) was the 1940s in the 2006 issue; it's the 1970s in the 2007 issue:
Decade of birth. | 2007 issue. | 2006 issue. |
1995 issue
(year of
Heather McHugh's appearance). |
2000s | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1990s | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1980s | 1 | 0 | 0 |
1970s | 10+6=16 | 10+1=11 | 0 |
1960s | 10+3=13 | 10+2=12 | 7 |
1950s | 10+5=15 | 10+4=14 | 10+10+10=30 |
1940s | 10+5=15 | 10+10+3=23 | 10+10=20 |
1930s | 6 | 10 | 5 |
1920s | 6 | 3 | 10+2=12 |
1910s | 1 | 0 | 0 |
1900s | 0 | 0 | 0 |
BUY:
The Best American Poetry 2007,
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Of the 72 poets whose work is included (three poets get two poems each), we have web pages on:
Best of the best include:
Nicky Beer's Q-and-A sequence Denise Duhamel's hilarious "Language Police Report" Louise Gluck's "Archaic Fragment" Brad Leithauser's "A Good List" Marilyn Nelson's "Etymology" Marya Rosenberg's haiku-senryu-spamku: "If I Tell You You're Beautiful Will You Report Me?": A West Point Haiku Series Alan Shapiro's "Country Western Singer" David Shumate's "Drawing Jesus" Cody Walker's "Coulrophobia" Charles Harper Webb's "Big"
Rosenberg's poem is in her first and only publication, in "Hanging Loose." At first publication, she was 26 years old.
BUY:
The Best American Poetry 2007 Guest Editor Heather McHugh, Series Editor David Lehman |
Acknowledges first publications in only 45 publications. This is a smaller variety (14% less) than the 52 in The Best American Poetry: 2006: and a still smaller variety (25% less) than the 60 in The Best American Poetry: 2005:
Related pages:
Books of Poetry Form. Alphabetic list of poetry forms, etc. Poetry Home. How to Write Poetry. |
Copyright © 2007-2016 by J. Zimmerman, except for quotations.
All rights reserved. |
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