The Best American Poetry 2014

David Lehman, Terrance Hayes

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781476708171
• eBook ISBN:
  9781476708188
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

National Book Award–winning poet Terrance Hayes selects the poems for the 2014 edition of The Best American Poetry, “a ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title” (Chicago Tribune).

The first book of poetry that Terrance Hayes ever bought was the 1990 edition of The Best American Poetry, edited by Jorie Graham. Hayes was then an undergrad at a small South Carolina college. He has since published four highly honored books of poetry, is a professor of poetry at the University of Pittsburgh, has appeared multiple times in the series, and is one of today’s most decorated poets. His brazen, restless poems capture the diversity of American culture with singular artistry, grappling with facile assumptions about identity and the complex repercussions of race history in this country.

Always eagerly anticipated, the 2014 volume of The Best American Poetry begins with David Lehman’s “state-of-the-art” foreword followed by an inspired introduction from Terrance Hayes on his picks for the best American poems of the past year. Following the poems is the apparatus for which the series has won acclaim: notes from the poets about the writing of their poems.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Foreword by David Lehman
• Introduction by Terrance Hayes
• Sherman Alexie, “Sonnet, with Pride”
• Rae Armantrout, “Control”
• John Ashbery, “Breezeway”
• Erin Belieu, “With Birds”
• Linda Bierds, “On Reflection”
• Traci Brimhall, “To Survive the Revolution”
• Lucie Brock-Broido, “Bird, Singing”
• Jericho Brown, “Host”
• Kurt Brown, “Pan del Muerto”
• CAConrad, “wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon”
• Anne Carson, “A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways”
• Joseph Ceravolo, “Hidden Bird”
• Henri Cole, “City Horse”
• Michael Earl Craig, “The Helmet”
• Philip Dacey, “Juilliard Cento Sonnet”
• Olena Kalytiak Davis, “It Is to Have or Nothing”
• Kwame Dawes, “News from Harlem”
• Joel Dias-Porter, “Elegy Indigo”
• Natalie Diaz, “These Hands, if Not Gods”
• Mark Doty, “Deep Lane”
• Sean Thomas Dougherty, “The Blues Is a Verb”
• Rita Dove, “The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude”
• Camille Dungy, “Conspiracy (to breathe together)”
• Cornelius Eady, “Overturned”
• Vievee Francis, “Fallen”
• Ross Gay, “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian”
• Eugene Gloria, “Liner Notes for Monk”
• Ray Gonzalez, “One El Paso, Two El Paso”
• Kathleen Graber, “The River Twice”
• Rosemary Griggs, “SCRIPT POEM”
• Adam Hammer, “As Like”
• Bob Hicok, “Blue prints”
• Le Hinton, “No Doubt About It (I Gotta Get Another Hat)”
• Tony Hoagland, “Write Whiter”
• Major Jackson, “OK Cupid”
• Amaud Jamaul Johnson, “L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83”
• Douglas Kearney, “The Labor of Stagger Lee: Boar”
• Yusef Komunyakaa, “Negritude”
• Hailey Leithauser, “In My Last Past Life”
• Larry Levis, “Elegy with a Darkening Trapeze inside It”
• Gary Copeland Lilley, “Sermon of the Dreadnaught”
• Frannie Lindsay, “Elegy for My Mother”
• Patricia Lockwood, “Rape Joke”
• Nathaniel Mackey, “Oldtime Ending”
• Cate Marvin, “An Etiquette for Eyes”
• Jamaal May, “Masticated Light”
• Shara McCallum, “Parasol”
• Marty McConnell, “vivisection (you’re going to break my heart)”
• Valzhyna Mort, “Sylt I”
• Harryette Mullen, “Selection from Tanka Diary”
• Eileen Myles, “Paint Me a Penis”
• D. Nurkse, “Release from Stella Maris”
• Sharon Olds, “Stanley Kunitz Ode”
• Gregory Pardlo, “Wishing Well”
• Kiki Petrosino, “Story Problem”
• D. A. Powell, “See You Later.”
• Roger Reeves, “The Field Museum”
• Donald Revell, “To Shakespeare”
• Patrick Rosal, “You Cannot Go to the God You Love with Your Two Legs”
• Mary Ruefle, “Saga”
• Jon Sands, “Decoded”
• Steve Scafidi, “Thank You Lord for the Dark Ablaze”
• Frederick Seidel, “To Philip Roth, for His Eightieth”
• Diane Seuss, “Free Beer”
• Sandra Simonds, “I Grade Online Humanities Tests”
• Jane Springer, “Forties War Widows, Stolen Grain”
• Corey Van Landingham, “During the Autopsy”
• Afaa Michael Weaver, “Passing Through Indian Territory”
• Eleanor Wilner, “Sowing”
• David Wojahn, “My Father’s Soul Departing”
• Greg Wrenn, “Detainment”
• Robert Wrigley, “Blessed Are”
• Jake Adam York, “Calendar Days”
• Dean Young, “Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns”
• Rachel Zucker, “Mindful”
• Contributors’ Notes and Comments
• Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published
• Acknowledgments
• About Terrance Hayes and David Lehman
• Copyright