The Best American Poetry 2011
Guest Editor Kevin Young,
Series Editor David Lehman
Kevin Young's Introductory Essay.
Poets.
Places of first publication.
Introductory Essays to
The Best American Poetry 2011
David Lehman: Series Editor
- 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 Kevin Young as the 2011 guest editor.
Kevin Young: Guest Editor
Poets of
The Best American Poetry 2011
Of the 75 poets whose work is included (one poems each), see our web pages on:
Best of the "Best" poems include:
- Beckian Fritz Goldberg's "Everything Is Nervous".
- Benjamin S. Grossberg's "The Space Traveler Talks Frankly About Desire".
- Jennifer Grotz' "Poppies".
- Bob Hicok's "Having Intended to Merely Pick on an Oil Company,
the Poem Goes Awry".
- Katha Pollitt's "Angels".
- Gretchen Steele Pratt's "To my father on the anniversary of his death".
- Mary Ruefle's "Provenance".
- James Schuyler's "The Smallest".
- Rachel Wetzsteon's "Time Pieces".
At the end of the book, 44 pages are allocated for poets' comments.
Often a poet's comments considerably illuminate —
or are even more interesting than —
the poem.
Birth Decades of the Poets
Notice the mode (most common) of the birth decades of the poets:
- For the 2011 issue (guest editor Kevin Young): the mode is the 1960s (after taking into account the four
coy poets who declined to state their birth year for BAP despite their birth years being published
on the Web; two are from the 1940s and two from the 1960s).
- For the 2010 issue (guest editor Amy Gerstler): again the mode returns to an earlier decade: the 1950s.
- For the 2009 issue (guest editor David Wagoner): bimodal with the 1940s (as for the 2006 issue)
and the 1960s (the strongest represented that the 60s have been).
- For the 2008 issue (guest editor Charles Wright)
the mode returns to an earlier decade: the 1950s.
- For the 2007 issue (guest editor Heather McHugh) it vaulted forward three decades to the 1970s.
- For the 2006 issue (guest editor Billy Collins, b. 1941), it was the 1940s.
In the 2006 to 2011 issues, quick glances at birth dates give this approximation:
Decade
of birth.
| 2011 issue.
| 2010 issue.
| 2009 issue.
| 2008 issue.
| 2007 issue.
| 2006 issue.
| 1995 issue.
|
2000s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
1990s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
1980s
| 6
| 2
| 3
| 1
| 1
| 0
| 0
|
1970s
| 10+3=13
| 10+1=11
| 9
| 10+2=12
| 10+6=16
| 10+1=11
| 0
|
1960s
| 10+6+2=18
| 10+7=17
| 10+8=18
| 10
| 10+3=13
| 10+2=12
| 7
|
1950s
| 10+6=16
| 10+10+1=21
| 10+3=13
| 10+10+1=21
| 10+5=15
| 10+4=14
| 10+10+10=30
|
1940s
| 9+2=11
| 10+5=15
| 10+9=19
| 10+6=16
| 10+5=15
| 10+10+3=23
| 10+10=20
|
1930s
| 5
| 4
| 6
| 8
| 6
| 10
| 5
|
1920s
| 6
| 5
| 6
| 6
| 6
| 3
| 10+2=12
|
1910s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 1
| 0
| 0
|
1900s
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
| 0
|
Places of first publication before poems appeared in
The Best American Poetry 2011
Acknowledges first publications in 53 publications,
which is also the mean of totals for the previous five years
Places of first publication for the 2011 collection are:
- 32 Poems
- AGNI
- American Poetry Review (The)
- American Scholar (The)
- Atlantic (The)
- At Length
- Believer (The)
- Beloit Poetry Journal
- Black Warrior Review
- Boston Review
- Boulevard
- Cave Wall
- Cincinnati Review (The)
- Court Green
- Denver Quarterly
- DMQ Review
- Ecotone
- Green Mountains Review
- Gulf Coast
- Hanging Loose
- Iowa Review (The)
- Iron Horse Literary Review
- jubilat
- Kenyon Review (The)
- LIT
- Literary Review (The)
- London Review of Books
- Maggy
- McSweeny's
- Michigan Quarterly Review
- Nation (The)
- New Criterion (The)
- New England Review
- New Ohio Review
- New South
- New Yorker (The)
- New York Quarterly (The)
- Paris Review (The)
- Ploughshares
- Poetry
- Poetry Daily
- Post Road
- Prairie Schooner
- Rattle
- River Styx
- Salmagundi
- Sentence
- Sewanee Review (The)
- Southwest Review
- Sycamore Review
- upstreet
- Virginia Quarterly Review (The)
- Yale Review (The)
-
Links and Books.
-
[Thanks for visiting.]