The Best American Poetry 2012

Series Editor David Lehman

Mark Doty, David Lehman, David Lehman

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781439181546
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Mark Doty brings the vitality and imagination that illuminate his own work to his selections for the twenty-fifth volume in the Best American Poetry series. He has chosen poems of high moral earnestness and poems in a comic register; poems that tell stories and poems that test the boundaries of innovative composition. This landmark edition includes David Lehman's keen look at American poetry in his foreword, Mark Doty's gorgeous introduction, and notes from the poets revealing the germination of their work. Over the last twenty-five years, The Best American Poetry has become an annual rite of the poetry world, and this year's anthology is a welcome and essential addition to the series. SHERMAN ALEXIE * KAREN LEONA ANDERSON * RAE ARMANTROUT * JULIANNA BAGGOTT * DAVID BAKER * RICK BAROTt REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS * FRANK BIDART * BRUCE BOND * STEPHANIE BROWN * ANNE CARSON * JENNIFER CHANG * JOSEPH CHAPMAN * HEATHER CHRISTLE * HENRI COLE * BILLY COLLINS * PETER COOLEY * EDUARDO C. CORRAL * ERICA DAWSON * STEPHEN DUNN * ELAINE EQUI * ROBERT GIBB * KATHLEEN GRABER * AMY GLYNN GREACEN * JAMES ALLEN HALL * TERRANCE HAYES * STEVEN HEIGHTON * BRENDA HILLMAN * JANE HIRSHFIELD * RICHARD HOWARD * MARIE HOWE * AMORAK HUEY * JENNY JOHNSON * LAWRENCE JOSEPH * FADY JOUDAH * JOY KATZ * JAMES KIMBRELL * NOELLE KOCOT * MAXINE KUMIN * SARAH LINDSAY * AMIT MAJMUDAR * DAVID MASON * KERRIN McCADDEN * HONOR MOORE * MICHAEL MORSE * CAROL MUSKE-DUKES * ANGELO NIKOLOPOULOS * MARY OLIVER * STEVE ORLEN * ALICIA OSTRIKER * ERIC PANKEY * LUCIA PERILLO * ROBERT PINSKY * DEAN RADER * SPENCER REECE * PAISLEY REKDAL * MARY RUEFLE * DON RUSS * KAY RYAN * MARY JO SALTER * LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ * FREDERICK SEIDEL * BRENDA SHAUGHNESSY * PETER JAY SHIPPY * TRACY K. SMITH * BRUCE SNIDER * MARK STRAND * LARISSA SZPORLUK * DANIEL TOBIN * NATASHA TRETHEWEY * SUSAN WHEELER * FRANZ WRIGHT * DAVID YEZZI * DEAN YOUNG * KEVIN YOUNG

SHERMAN ALEXIE

Terminal Nostalgia

The music of my youth was much better

Than the music of yours. So was the weather.

Before Columbus came, eagle feathers

Detached themselves for us. So did the weather.

During war, the country fought together

Against all evil. So did the weather.

The cattle were happy to be leather

And made shoes that fit. So did the weather.

Before Columbus came, eagle feathers

Were larger than eagles. So was the weather.

Every ball game was a double-header.

Mickey Mantle was sober. So was the weather.

Before Adam and Eve, an Irish Setter

Played fetch with God. So did the weather.

Before Columbus came, eagle feathers

Married Indians. So did the weather.

Indians were neither loaners nor debtors.

Salmon was our money. So was the weather.

Back then, people wrote gorgeous letters

And read more poetry. So did the weather.

On all issues, there was only one dissenter,

But we loved him, too. So did the weather.

Before Columbus came, eagle feathers

Gave birth to eagles. So did the weather.

We all apprenticed to wise old mentors

And meditated for days. So did the weather.

We were guitar-players and inventors

Of minor chords and antibiotics. So was the weather.

Every person lived near the city center

And had the same income. So did the weather.

Before Columbus, eagle feathers

Lived in the moment. So did the weather.

from Green Mountains Review

KAREN LEONA ANDERSON

Receipt: Midway Entertainment Presents

Two kinds of fair: carnie and perambulator

of the local: shiny peppers on paper plates

and buttercream silk goats: Lizabet & Hope

among the floral displays gone south:

please enter again, this was very strong,

next year. A staged race of pigs in felt coats:

picked out in red, green, blue around a track,

shivering a ring of fat kids used to this

easy choice: commercial, delicious

fries or the sad white bread of the VFW barbeque.

Right among the sloe-eyed dirty cow hose-down,

a tired show horse to pet. Sort of oversold

at the 5 buck K9 demonstration; 4H got a thousand

for a rough old hog in red second-place satin.

Dad explains: Claire’s photos won because

Claire’s photos were best. It’s that fair, the big gray

hair of a tufted chicken, the mascaraed rabbit that

no one gets are supposed to mold you from the fantastic

to the rational: I would like to thank God for this medal.

Down at the midway end past the chainsaw bears,

the Old People Tap Dance Show, and the bee man

in the ag tent, madly pointing at the holes

in his rigged up hive, Mom inspects busted latches

and the blanks between boards and wires,

the scuffed blue of the Tilt-A-Whirl’s shelf; on which

is the kind of fair you could get used to;

all places being equal to the blast of bad rock

and the rust metal floor; a flat coke no one would want;

ordinary; just one boy’s or one girl’s sweaty hands

on offer, unspecial.

from Seneca Review

RAE ARMANTROUT

Accounts

for Brian Keating

Light was on its way

from nothing

to nowhere.

Light was all business

Light was full speed

when it got interrupted.

Interrupted by what?

When it got tangled up

and broke

into opposite

broke into brand-new things.

What kinds of things?

...