The Best American Poetry 2020

David Lehman, Paisley Rekdal

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781982106607
• eBook ISBN: 9781982106614
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

The 2020 edition of contemporary American poetry returns, guest edited by Paisley Rekdal, the award-winning poet and author of Nightingale, proving that this is “a ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title” (Chicago Tribune).

Since 1988, The Best American Poetry anthology series has been “one of the mainstays of the poetry publication world” (Academy of American Poets). Each volume in the series presents some of the year’s most remarkable poems and poets.

Now, the 2020 edition is guest edited by Utah’s Poet Laureate Paisely Rekdal, called “a poet of observation and history...[who] revels in detail but writes vast, moral poems that help us live in a world of contraries” by the Los Angeles Times. In The Best American Poetry 2020, she has selected a fascinating array of work that speaks eloquently to the “contraries” of our present moment in time.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Julia Alvarez, “Saving the Children”
• Brandon Amico, “Customer Loyalty Program”
• Rick Barot, from “The Galleons”
• Kaveh Bassiri, “Invention of I”
• Reginald Dwayne Betts, “A Man Drops a Coat on the Sidewalk and Almost Falls into the Arms of Another”
• Ryan Black, “Nothing Beats a Fair”
• Bruce Bond, “Bells”
• William Brewer, “Orange”
• Lucie Brock-Broido, “Tender”
• Victoria Chang, “Obit [Privacy—died]”
• Heather Christle, “The Waking Life”
• Ama Codjoe, “Becoming a Forest”
• Meg Day, “In Line to Vote on Our Future Climate”
• Timothy Donnelly, “All Through the War”
• Hazem Fahmy, “In Which the Devil Asks Me for My Name”
• Vievee Francis, “The Shore”
• Rachel Galvin, “Little Death”
• Julian Gewirtz, “To X (Written on This Device You Made)”
• Regan Good, “Birches Are the Gods’ Favorite Tree”
• Christine Gosnay, “Sex”
• Jorie Graham, “It Cannot Be”
• Samuel Green, “On Patmos, Kneeling in the Panagia”
• BC Griffith, “Big Gay Ass Poem”
• Rachel Eliza Griffiths, “Good Mother”
• Jennifer Grotz, “The Conversion of Paul”
• Camille Guthrie, “During the Middle Ages”
• Janice N. Harrington, “Putting the Pieces Together”
• Tony Hoagland, “Sunday at the Mall”
• Kimberly Johnson, “Fifteen”
• Troy Jollimore, “The Garden of Earthly Delights”
• Ilya Kaminsky, “In a Time of Peace”
• Douglas Kearney, “Sho”
• Donika Kelly, “I Never Figured How to Get Free”
• Christopher Kempf, “After,”
• Steven Kleinman, “Bear”
• Jennifer L. Knox, “The Gift”
• Yusef Komunyakaa, “The Jungle”
• Nick Lantz, “After a Transcript of the Final Voicemails of 9/11 Victims”
• Shara Lessley, “On Faith”
• Steven Leyva, “When I Feel a Whoop Comin’ On”
• Cate Lycurgus, “Locomotion”
• Khaled Mattawa, “Qassida to the Statue of Sappho in Mytilini”
• Jennifer Militello, “The Punishment of One Is the Love Song of Another”
• Susan Leslie Moore, “Night of the Living”
• John Murillo, “A Refusal to Mourn the Deaths, by Gunfire, of Three Men in Brooklyn”
• Hieu Minh Nguyen, “Chasm”
• Sharon Olds, “Hyacinth Aria”
• Matthew Olzmann, “Letter to the Person Who, During the Q&A Session After the Reading, Asked for Career Advice”
• Paul Otremba, “Climate Is Something Different”
• Cecily Parks, “The Seeds”
• Carl Phillips, “Something to Believe In”
• Stanley Plumly, “At Night”
• Jana Prikryl, “Fox”
• Kevin Prufer, “Archaeology”
• Ariana Reines, “A Partial History”
• Max Ritvo, “The Poorly Built House”
• Clare Rossini, “The Keeper Will Enter the Cage”
• Robyn Schiff, “American Cockroach”
• Brandon Som, “Shainadas”
• Jon William Stout, “Dysphonia”
• Arthur Sze, “Sprang”
• James Tate, “The Prayer”
• Brian Teare, “Sitting Isohydric Meditation”
• Craig Morgan Teicher, “I Am a Father Now”
• Lynne Thompson, “She talk like this ’cause me Mum born elsewhere, say”
• Matthew Thorburn, “The Stag”
• Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad, “Isfahan, 2010”
• Corey Van Landingham, “Recessional”
• Rosanna Warren, “Samson, 1674”
• Robert Wrigley, “Machinery”
• Ryo Yamaguchi, “Reading Not Reading”
• John Yau, “The President’s Telegram”
• Emily Yong, “Opioid, Alcohol, Despair”
• Monica Youn, “Study of Two Figures (Pasiphaë/Sado)”
• Matthew Zapruder, “My Life”
• Contributors’ Notes and Comments
• Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Copyright