The Best American Poetry 2008
Guest Editor Charles Wright,
Series Editor David Lehman
Poets.
Places of first publication.
Introductory Essays to
The Best American Poetry 2008.
Includes poems by:
-
Robert Bly,
Jorie Graham,
Louise Glück,
W.S. Merwin,
Franz Wright.
-
Frank Bidart,
Carolyn Forché,
Frederick Seidel, Patti Smith,
Kevin Young.
- emerging poets like Joshua Beckman, Erica Dawson, and Alex Lemon.
David Lehman:
- Began
The Best American Poetry series in 1988.
The controversial Best of the title
probably helped the series get even more press
than the worthiness of the contents.
- Continues as the series editor.
- Selected Charles Wright as the 2008 guest editor.
Selection criteria
by editor
Charles Wright
for
The Best American Poetry 2008
Notice the mode (most common) of the birth decades of the poets:
- For the 2006 issue, it was the 1940s.
- For the 2007 issue (guest editor McHugh) it vaulted forward three decades to the 1970s.
- For the 2008 issue (guest editor Charles Wright)
the mode returns to an earlier decade: the 1950s.
In the 2008 issue, quick glances at birth dates give this approximation:
Decade
of birth.
| 2008 issue.
| 2007 issue.
| 2006 issue.
| 1995 issue.
|
2000s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
1990s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
1980s
| 1
| 1
| 0
| 0
|
1970s
| 12
| 10+6=16
| 10+1=11
| 0
|
1960s
| 10
| 10+3=13
| 10+2=12
| 7
|
1950s
| 21
| 10+5=15
| 10+4=14
| 10+10+10=30
|
1940s
| 16
| 10+5=15
| 10+10+3=23
| 10+10=20
|
1930s
| 8
| 6
| 10
| 5
|
1920s
| 6
| 6
| 3
| 10+2=12
|
1910s
| 0
| 1
| 0
| 0
|
1900s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
Poets of
The Best American Poetry 2008.
Of the 75 poets whose work is included (one poems each), we have web pages on:
Best of these Best include:
-
- Charles Bernstein's "Ku(na)hay"
[First appearance of
Hay(na)ku
in the BAP series.]
- Robert Bly's "[Language exists because]"
- Carolyn Forché's "The Museum of Stone"
- Mark Jarman's "Snoring"
- Maxine Kumin's "Though He Tarry"
- Philip Levine's "Of Love and Other Disasters"
- James Tate's "National Security"
- Franz Wright's "Passing Scenes (While Reading Basho)"
- Lynn Xu's "[Language exists because]"
Places of first publication before poems appeared in
The Best American Poetry 2008
Acknowledges first publications in only 45 publications.
This is
Places of first publication for the 2008 collection are:
- 32 poems
- ABZ
- AGNI
- American Poetry Review
- The American Scholar
- Barrow Street
- Bird Dog
- Brilliant Corners
- Crazyhorse
- FIELD
- Five Points
- Fulcrum
- Gulf Coast
- Harvard Review
- The Hudson Review
- The Iowa Review
- The Kenyon Review
- LIT
- London Review of Books
- Lyric
- Meridian
- The Nation
- New American Writing
- New England Review
- The New York Review of Books
- The New Yorker
- Notre Dame Review
- The Paris Review
- Phoebe
- Ploughshares
- Poetry
- Prairie Schooner
- Quarterly West
- Raritan
- Rivendell
- Runes
- Sentence
- Sewanee Theological Review
- The Sienese Shredder
- The Southern Review
- storySouth
- Subtropics
- Verse
- Virginia Quarterly Review
- VOLT
-
Links and Books.
-
[Thanks for visiting.]