The Best American Poetry 2013

David Lehman

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781476708133
• eBook ISBN:
  9781476708140
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Beloved and inventive poet Denise Duhamel selects the poems for the 2013 edition of The Best American Poetry, “a ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title” (Chicago Tribune).

Over the last twenty-five years, the Best American Poetry series has become an annual rite of autumn, eagerly awaited and hotly debated: “an essential purchase” (The Washington Post). This year, guest editor Denise Duhamel brings her wit and enthusiasm and her commitment to poetry in all its wide variety to bear on her choices for The Best American Poetry 2013. These acts of imagination—from known stars and exciting newcomers—testify to the vitality of an art form that continues to endure and flourish, defying dour predictions of its demise, in the digital age.

This edition of the most important poetry anthology in the United States opens with David Lehman’s incisive “state of the art” essay and Denise Duhamel’s engagingly candid discussion of the seventy-five poems that made her final cut. Reflecting the vibrant state of our country’s contemporary poetry scene, The Best American Poetry 2013 includes such eminences as John Ashbery, Louise Gluck, James Tate, and Richard Wilbur, as well as the fast-rising hot poets Sherman Alexie, Nin Andrews, Anna Maria Hong, Timothy Donnelly, Mary Ruefle, and Major Jackson.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Foreword by David Lehman
• Introduction by Denise Duhamel
• Kim Addonizio, “Divine”
• Sherman Alexie, “Pachyderm”
• Nathan Anderson, “Stupid Sandwich”
• Nin Andrews, “The Art of Drinking Tea”
• John Ashbery, “Resisting Arrest”
• Wendy Barker, “Books, Bath Towels, and Beyond”
• Jan Beatty, “Youngest Known Savior”
• Bruce Bond, “The Unfinished Slave”
• Traci Brimhall, “Dear Thanatos,”
• Jericho Brown, “Hustle”
• Andrei Codrescu, “Five One-Minute Eggs”
• Billy Collins, “Foundling”
• Martha Collins, “[white paper 24]”
• Kwame Dawes, “Death”
• Connie Deanovich, “Divestiture”
• Timothy Donnelly, “Apologies from the Ground Up”
• Stephen Dunn, “The Statue of Responsibility”
• Daisy Fried, “This Need Not Be a Comment on Death”
• Amy Gerstler, “Womanishness”
• Louise Glück, “Afterword”
• Beckian Fritz Goldberg, “Henry’s Song”
• Terrance Hayes, “New Jersey Poem”
• Rebecca Hazelton, “Book of Forget”
• Elizabeth Hazen, “Thanatosis”
• John Hennessy, “Green Man, Blue Pill”
• David Hernandez, “All-American”
• Tony Hoagland, “Wrong Question”
• Anna Maria Hong, “A Parable”
• Major Jackson, “Why I Write Poetry”
• Mark Jarman, “George W. Bush”
• Lauren Jensen, “it’s hard as so much is”
• A. Van Jordan, “Blazing Saddles”
• Lawrence Joseph, “Syria”
• Anna Journey, “Wedding Night: We Share an Heirloom Tomato on Our Hotel Balcony Overlooking the Ocean in Which Natalie Wood Drowned”
• Laura Kasischke, “Perspective”
• Victoria Kelly, “When the Men Go Off to War”
• David Kirby, “Pink Is the Navy Blue of India”
• Noelle Kocot, “Aphids”
• John Koethe, “Eggheads”
• Dorothea Lasky, “Poem for Anne Sexting”
• Dorianne Laux, “Song”
• Amy Lemmon, “I take your T-shirt to bed again . . .”
• Thomas Lux, “Outline for My Memoir”
• Anthony Madrid, “Once upon a Time”
• Sally Wen Mao, “XX”
• Jen McClanaghan, “My Lie”
• Campbell McGrath, “January 17”
• Jesse Millner, “In Praise of Small Gods”
• D. Nurkse, “Psalm to Be Read with Closed Eyes”
• Ed Ochester, “New Year”
• Paisley Rekdal, “Birthday Poem”
• Adrienne Rich, “Endpapers”
• Anne Marie Rooney, “Lake Sonnet”
• J. Allyn Rosser, “Intro to Happiness”
• Mary Ruefle, “Little Golf Pencil”
• Maureen Seaton, “Chelsea/Suicide”
• Tim Seibles, “Sotto Voce: Othello, Unplugged”
• Vijay Seshadri, “Trailing Clouds of Glory”
• Peter Jay Shippy, “Western Civilization”
• Mitch Sisskind, “Joe Adamczyk”
• Aaron Smith, “What It Feels Like to Be Aaron Smith”
• Stephanie Strickland, “Introductions”
• Adrienne Su, “On Writing”
• James Tate, “The Baby”
• Emma Trelles, “Florida Poem”
• David Trinidad, “from Peyton Place: A Haiku Soap Opera, Season Two, 1965–1966”
• Jean Valentine, “1945”
• Paul Violi, “Now I’ll Never Be Able to Finish That Poem to Bob”
• David Wagoner, “Casting Aspersions”
• Stacey Waite, “The Kind of Man I Am at the DMV”
• Richard Wilbur, “Sugar Maples, January”
• Angela Veronica Wong and Amy Lawless, “It Can Feel Amazing to Be Targeted by a Narcissist”
• Wendy Xu, “Where the Hero Speaks to Others”
• Kevin Young, “Wintering”
• Matthew Zapruder, “Albert Einstein”
• Contributors’ Notes and Comments
• Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright