by David Lehman
Gulf Coast, poetry eds. Luisa Muradyan, Erika Jo Brown, and Henk Rossouw. Department of English, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, TX 77204-3013. gulfcoastmag.org
Harvard Review, poetry ed. Major Jackson. Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. harvardreview.fas.harvard.edu
Hinchas de Poesía, poetry ed. Jim Heavily; guest editor James Cervantes. www.hinchasdepoesia.com
Image, ed. Gregory Wolfe. 3307 Third Avenue West, Seattle, WA 98119. imagejournal.org
jubilat, eds. Kevin González and Caryl Pagel; executive ed. Emily Pettit. www.jubilat.org
The Literary Review, poetry eds. Craig Morgan Teicher and Michael Morse. www.theliteraryreview.org
London Review of Books, poetry ed. Nick Richardson. www.lrb.co.uk
Los Angeles Review of Books, poetry ed. Elizabeth Metzger. lareviewofbooks.org
The Massachusetts Review, poetry eds. Ellen Doré Watson and Deborah Gorlin. Photo Lab 309, 211 Hicks Way, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003. www.massreview.org
Miramar, ed. Christopher Buckley. 342 Oliver Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93109. www.miramarmagazine.org
New England Review, poetry ed. Rick Barot. www.nereview.com
New Letters, ed. Robert Stewart. University of Missouri–Kansas City, University House, 5101 Rockhill Rd., Kansas City, MO 64110. www.newletters.org
New Ohio Review, poetry ed. Jill Rosser. English Dept. 360 Ellis Hall, Ohio University, Athens, OH 5701. www.ohio.edu/nor
The New Yorker, poetry ed. Paul Muldoon. www.newyorker.com
The New York Times Magazine, poetry ed. for 2015, Natasha Trethewey. www.nytimes.com/column/magazine-poem
Paperbag, eds. Cathy Linh Che, Margarita Delcheva, Peter Moysaenko, Levi Rubeck, and Michael Vizsolyi. paperbagazine.com
The Paris Review, poetry ed. Robyn Creswell. 544 W. 27th St., New York, NY 10001. www.theparisreview.org
Parnassus, editor and publisher Herbert Leibowitz; co-editor Ben Downing. 205 W. 89th St. #8F, New York, NY 10024. parnassusreview.com
Ploughshares, poetry ed. John Skoyles. www.pshares.org
Poetry, ed. Don Share. www.poetryfoundation.org
Poetry Daily, eds. Diane Boller and Don Selby. www.poems.com
Prairie Schooner, editor-in-chief Kwame Dawes; poetry eds. Arden Eli Hill and Rebecca Macijeski. 123 Andrews Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334. prairieschooner.unl.edu
Ragazine, poetry ed. Emily Vogel. ragazine.cc
Raritan, editor in chief Jackson Lears. 31 Mine St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901. raritanquarterly.rutgers.edu
River Styx, ed. Richard Newman. 3139A South Grand Boulevard, Suite 203, St. Louis, MO 63118. www.riverstyx.org
The Southern Review, poetry ed. Jessica Faust. 338 Johnston Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. thesouthernreview.org
Subtropics, poetry ed. Sidney Wade. subtropics.english.ufl.edu
Sycamore Review, poetry eds. Julie Henson and Emily Skaja; asst. poetry ed. Rachel Reynolds. sycamorereview.com
Tahoma Literary Review, poetry ed. and publisher Kelly Davio. tahomaliteraryreview.com
Tin House, poetry ed. Matthew Dickman. www.tinhouse.com/home
Valley Voices, ed. John Zheng. libguides.mvsu.edu/valley-voices
Virginia Quarterly Review, www.vqronline.org
Waxwing, poetry eds. Justin Bigos and W. Todd Kaneko. waxwingmag.org
The Yale Review, ed. J. D. McClatchy. Yale University, PO Box 208243, New Haven, CT 06520-8243. yalereview.yale.edu
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
The series editor thanks Mark Bibbins for his invaluable assistance. Warm thanks go also to Danielle Chin, Amy Gerstler, Ron Horning, Stacey Harwood, Sam O’Hana, and Mitch Sisskind; to Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers’ Representatives; and to Ashley Gilliam, David Stanford Burr, Daniel Cuddy, Erich Hobbing, and Jessica Yu at Scribner.
Grateful acknowledgment is made of the magazines in which these poems first appeared and the magazine editors who selected them. A sincere attempt has been made to locate all copyright holders. Unless otherwise noted, copyright to the poems is held by the individual poets.
Christopher Bakken, “Sentence” from Birmingham Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Catherine Barnett, “O Esperanza!” from Tin House. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Rick Barot, “Whitman, 1841” from Waxwing. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jill Bialosky, “Daylight Savings” from The Players. © 2015 by Jill Bialosky. Reprinted by permission of the poet. Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC. Also appeared in Harvard Review.
Paula Bohince, “Fruits de Mer” from Parnassus. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Michelle Boisseau, “Ugglig” from Among the Gorgons. © 2016 by Michelle Boisseau. Reprinted by permission of Tampa Review Press. Also appeared in The Gettysburg Review.
Marianne Boruch, “I Get to Float Invisible” from The Georgia Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
David Bottoms, “Hubert Blankenship” from The Southern Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Joseph Chapman and Laura Eve Engel, “32 Fantasy Football Teams” from 32 Poems. Reprinted by permission of the poets.
Michael Collier, “Last Morning with Steve Orlen” from The Greensboro Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Allison Davis, “The Heart of It All + A Free Beer” from Sycamore Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Olena Kalytiak Davis, “On the Certainty of Bryan” from Alaska Quarterly Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Natalie Diaz, “How the Milky Way Was Made” from American Poets. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Denise Duhamel, “Humanity 101” from The Southern Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Lynn Emanuel, “My Life” from The New York Times Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Claudia Emerson, “Cyst” from Impossible Bottle. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press. Also appeared in Subtropics.
Martín Espada, “Here I Am” from The American Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Peter Everwine, “The Kiskiminetas River” from The Southern Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Alexis Rhone Fancher, “When I turned fourteen, my mother’s sister took me to lunch and said:” from Ragazine. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Charles Fort, “One Had Lived in a Room and Loved Nothing” from Green Mountains Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Emily Fragos, “The Sadness of Clothes” from The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Amy Gerstler, “A Drop of Seawater Under the Microscope” from Valley Voices. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Dana Gioia, “Meet Me at the Lighthouse” from Virginia Quarterly Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jorie Graham, “Reading to My Father” from Boston Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Juliana Gray, “The Lady Responds” from River Styx. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Linda Gregerson, “Font” from Prodigal: New and Selected Poems 1976–2014. © 2015 by Linda Gregerson. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Also appeared in Raritan.
Jennifer Grotz, “Self-Portrait on the Street of an Unnamed Foreign City” from Window Left Open. © 2016 by Jennifer Grotz. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press. Also appeared in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series.
Mark Halliday, “Doctor Scheef” from Copper Nickel. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jeffrey Harrison, “Afterword” from Into Daylight. © 2014 by Jeffrey Harrison. Reprinted by permission of Tupelo Press. Also appeared in The New York Times Magazine.
Terrance Hayes, “Barberism” from How to Be Drawn. © 2015 by Terrance Hayes. Reprinted by permission of Penguin USA. Also appeared in
The New York Times Magazine.
Tony Hoagland, “Bible Study” from Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Cynthia Hogue, “The Unwritten Volume” from Prairie Schooner. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Garrett Hongo, “I Got Heaven . . .” from Miramar. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Erin Hoover, “Girls” from Crab Orchard Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Richard Howard, “85 Off & On” from The Yale Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
T. R. Hummer, “Minutiae” from Hinchas de Poesía. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Ishion Hutchinson, “Morning Tableau” from Connotation Press. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Major Jackson, “Aubade” from Roll Deep. © 2015 by Major Jackson. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Co. Also appeared in The New Yorker.
Lawrence Joseph, “Visions of Labor” from London Review of Books. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Julie Kane, “As If” from Cherry Tree. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Suji Kwock Kim, “Return of the Native” from Ploughshares. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Loretta Collins Klobah, “Tissue Gallery” from The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also appeared in The Paris Review.
John Koethe, “The Swimmer” from The Swimmer. © 2016 by John Koethe. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also appeared in The Paris Review.
Yusef Komunyakaa, “The Fool” from Tin House. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Keetje Kuipers, “We drive home from the lake, sand in our shoes,” from Gulf Coast. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Deborah Landau, “Solitaire” from The Uses of the Body. © 2015 by Deborah Landau. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press. Also appeared in The New Yorker.
Li-Young Lee, “Folding a Five-Cornered Star So the Corners Meet” from Image. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Philip Levine, “More Than You Gave” from The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of the literary estate of Philip Levine.
Larry Levis, “If He Came & Diminished Me & Mapped My Way” from The Darkening Trapeze: Last Poems. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press. Also appeared in The Southern Review.
Robin Coste Lewis, “On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari” from Los Angeles Review of Books. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Thomas Lux, “Ode While Awaiting Execution” from Ploughshares. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Paul Mariani, “Psalm for the Lost” from Image. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Debra Marquart, “Lament” from Small Buried Things. © 2015 by Debra Marquart. Reprinted by permission of New Rivers Press. Also appeared in New Letters.
Cate Marvin, “High School in Schuzou” from Oracle. © 2015 by Cate Marvin. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Co. Also appeared in New England Review.
Morgan Parker, “Everything Will Be Taken Away” from Paperbag. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Hai-Dang Phan, “My Father’s ‘Norton Introduction to Literature,’ Third Edition (1981)” from Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Rowan Ricardo Phillips, “The First Last Light in the Sky” from The Common. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Stanley Plumly, “Variation on a Line from Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Five Flights Up’ ” from Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
James Richardson, “Late Aubade” from During. © 2016 by James Richardson. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press. Also appeared in The Yale Review.
Patrick Rosal, “At the Tribunals” from New England Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
David St. John, “Vineyard” from The Southern Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Brenda Shaughnessy, “But I’m the Only One” from The Literary Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Anya Silver, “Maid Maleen” from Harvard Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Taije Silverman, “Grief” from The Massachusetts Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Tom Sleigh, “Prayer for Recovery” from Station Zed. © 2015 by Tom Sleigh. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press. Also appeared in Raritan.
A. E. Stallings, “Alice, Bewildered” from Virginia Quarterly Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Frank Stanford, “Cotton You Lose in the Field” from What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford. Reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press. Also appeared in The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series.
Susan Stewart, “What Piranesi Knew” from The Paris Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Nomi Stone, “Drones: An Exercise in Awe-Terror” from Tahoma Literary Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Adrienne Su, “Peaches” from The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day feature. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
James Tate, “Dome of the Hidden Temple” from Dome of the Hidden Pavilion. Reprinted by permission of Ecco/HarperCollins. Also appeared in jubilat.
Lee Upton, “The Apology” from The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
C. K. Williams, “Hog” from Selected Later Poems. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also appeared in The New Yorker.
Eleanor Wilner, “To Think of How Cold” from New Ohio Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Al Young, “The Drummer Omar: Poet of Percussion” from Brilliant Corners. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
EDWARD HIRSCH is an American poet and critic. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, which brings together thirty-five years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker calls “a masterpiece of sorrow.” He has also published five prose books about poetry, including How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. He is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City.
DAVID LEHMAN, series editor of The Best American Poetry, is also the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His New and Selected Poems was published in 2013, and Sinatra’s Century, his most recent nonfiction book, appeared in 2015. He teaches in the New School graduate writing program and lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.
Visit the Best American Poetry website at
www.bestamericanpoetry.com
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/David-Lehman
authors.simonandschuster.com/Edward-Hirsch
OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES
John Ashbery, editor, The Best American Poetry 1988
Donald Hall, editor, The Best American Poetry 1989
Jorie Graham, editor, The Best American Poetry 1990
Mark Strand, editor, The Best American Poetry 1991
Charles Simic, editor, The Best American Poetry 1992
Louise Glück, editor, The Best American Poetry 1993
A. R. Ammons, editor, The Best American Poetry 1994
Richard Howard, editor, The Best American Poetry 1995
Adrienne Rich, editor, The Best American Poetry 1996
James Tate, editor, The Best American Poetry 1997
Harold Bloom, editor, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–1997
John Hollander, editor, The Best American Poetry 1998
Robert Bly, editor, The Best American Poetry 1999
Rita Dove, editor, The Best American Poetry 2000
Robert Hass, editor, The Best American Poetry 2001
Robert Creeley, editor, The Best American Poetry 2002
Yusef Komunyakaa, editor, The Best American Poetry
2003
Lyn Hejinian, editor, The Best American Poetry 2004
Paul Muldoon, editor, The Best American Poetry 2005
Billy Collins, editor, The Best American Poetry 2006
Heather McHugh, editor, The Best American Poetry 2007
Charles Wright, editor, The Best American Poetry 2008
David Wagoner, editor, The Best American Poetry 2009
Amy Gerstler, editor, The Best American Poetry 2010
Kevin Young, editor, The Best American Poetry 2011
Mark Doty, editor, The Best American Poetry 2012
Robert Pinsky, editor, The Best of the Best American Poetry: 25th Anniversary Edition
Denise Duhamel, editor, The Best American Poetry 2013
Terrance Hayes, editor, The Best American Poetry 2014
Sherman Alexie, editor, The Best American Poetry 2015
We hope you enjoyed reading this Scribner eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Scribner and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Scribner Poetry
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors’ imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by David Lehman
Foreword copyright © 2016 by David Lehman
Introduction copyright © 2016 by Edward Hirsch
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
Jacket design by Jaya Miceli
