The Best American Poetry 2001

by Alex Brown

Book Overview

The annual publication of "The Best American Poetry" is an eagerly awaited event among poetry fans across the country. This year's volume in the critically acclaimed series presents American poetry in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743203844
• ISBN13: 9780743203845
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures

"We're bent in the garden planting spring bulbs, pulling up weeds, and I'm wondering how much longer we'll crouch here on our knees in the damp soil sorting things out. Guardians of shrubs and flowers, the first wild cyclamen sipping the sun. We watch over each other as we watch over our garden, woolly branches of cacti, fiery pokers of aloes in winter. Especially during a long drought, after a snowfall, or following the arcs of missiles on our screen. Flurries of extra caring. Some mornings we hang on to each other as if we're afraid to let go." ~ pg. 126, Shirley Kaufman The fascination I currently have with The Best American Poetry series seems born of my curiosity to see how each editor creates a world of poetry they feel possessed to love. The choices made by Robert Hass reflect so accurately his loves and dislikes. You can live in a short moment of his life through reflecting on what it is he enjoys about the selections in this book. Each poet sees the world so uniquely, but many times they seem to write from a place of loneliness, the desire to speak to another soul of similar substance. This becomes very apparent in the personal stories of pleasure and pain, emotional and real, fresh and trying. At times lines from a poem feel distant and sad while others spring from the page, pouncing on you with the joy of a happy kitten. Poetry has its own rewards and good poetry is the reward for searching through a lot of moments, that while not mediocre to many, may be to you. Your personal taste figures in highly in what you will enjoy and to one person, a poem may mean nothing, and to another, it is the world. For this reason, I try to view poems from many perspectives. I will say that the poems in this particular volume can be especially perplexing. The truth is, you may read this book one day and feel completely disconnected and come back and read it on another day and wonder what you were thinking. The mood of this volume is especially intellectual and complex with many literary references, like discussions of the death of Virgina Woolf and the writings of Dostoevsky. The poems are mysteries to be solved and require your full attention and don't seem to immediately welcome you into their intimacy. But then you happen upon a poem like Linda Gregg's "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" and you know you have happened upon a moment of truth that will endure. "We live our myth in the recurrence, pretending we will return another day. Like the morning coming every morning. The truth is we come back as a choir." Allen Grossman's "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" has some very intriguing thoughts: " -a smooth stone passed in a kiss from the mouth of a Fate into my open mouth amidst odors of metal and slamming doors at the dark end of a railway car as the train was leaning on a curve and slowing to stop-is lost. Lost" Alice Noteley's poem must be printed sideways because the lines are so long it can't possibly fit on the pages any

Beauty that is poetry...!

...And if there is a democracy in writing, indeed, it is poetry. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a compilation of great poems from various writers and covers wide range of subjects, from sad to happy and from abstract to everyday situation proems are covered in this great book. Some poems touch your heart, others make you laugh, and some leave an everlasting impact upon you... best part is that all of them co-exist in this great book. This book is the best companion that a young developing poet can have, this book is the best refenrence a mature poet could use... and this very book is something that a very common man can refer to. Poetry starts where prose ends, it can say one paragraph in a few words... it can summarize an article into a stanza. It can trigger a war of words and it has the power to hold great romance in form of sonnets. Poetry is something that all of us associate to... some refer to it in the hour of crisis, the others turn to it in the moment of celebration. This book is indeed deep... it could well be termed a perfect mosaic, an extraordinary collage, a magically colourful painting... one that has been completed by many great artists, and it is a book that could leave an impact of many young writers who could well be the future artists. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a must to read - Its somethig that we have to keep!

Poetry to the Rescue

In a time of struggle we turn to poems, at least I do, and there are poems here that make me feel that poetry has so many disguises, so many different "looks," that it mirrors the vast diversity of this great land in that noble respect. No one can like them all equally but we can be glad they exist. I love the comic poems, poems of charm and wit, and am less crazy about the dry academic "languagey" poems, but that's just me. The essay by Robert Hass is superb and the foreword by the series editor has so much energy and information it's a delight. Maybe no poem in the book is as great as Auden's "September 1, 1939," but if you read Ashbury, or Donald Hall, or Adrienne Rich, or Robert Creeley, or Olena Kalytiak Davis, you'll feel in your heart of hearts that indeed "we must love one another and die," and for as noble a cause as freedom, if not joy, poetry and life itself. Heartily recommended.

Another fantastic installment

BAP 2001 continues the tradition established by previous volumes by presenting great poetry from well-known, lesser-known, and unknown American poets.True, no annual volume of poetry can collect all of the "best" poems published that year, but the BEST AMERICAN POETRY series comes awfully close. This collection is just as diverse as past collections: John Ashbery shuffles alongside Thomas Sayers Ellis, Billy Collins plays in the snow, Anne Carson longs, watching Christopher Edgar drifting in the clouds. Donald Hall's poem "Her Garden" is heartbreaking and nearly perfect. Yusef Komunyakaa, Haryette Mullen, and Robert Bly also show up and there's a beautiful banter abounding.David Lehman has written another funny and insightful foreword and Robert Hass fulfills the guest editor's job of distancing himself as much as possible from the claim of the series' title.This is a fantastic collection, an indespensible series, and one that should be read if you want to discover the current, vibrant, thriving state of American poetry.

Not a Scholarly Review

This book and books like this one are probably the best way to come in contact with modern poets. Many people know the time-honored favorites and even a few who garnered acclaim through the sixties, but resources like this book make it possible to see what is considered 'great' in modern works. The presentation is perfect; the poems are arranged alphabetically and without comment leaving the reader to make up his or her mind as to whether or not this poem is truly great.