by David Lehman
Birmingham Poetry Review, featured poet editor Gregory Fraser. 1720 2nd Avenue South, HB 203, Birmingham, AL 35294-1260.
Blackbird, eds. Gregory Donovan, Mary Flinn, William Tester. www.blackbird.vcu.edu
Boston Review, poetry eds. Timothy Donnelly and Barbara Fischer. PO Box 425786, Cambridge, MA 02142. www.bostonreview.net
Brilliant Corners, ed. Sascha Feinstein. Lycoming College, 700 College Place, Williamsport, PA 17701.
The Carolina Quarterly, poetry ed. Lee Norton. CB # 3520 Greenlaw Hall, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520.
The Cincinnati Review, poetry ed. Don Bogen. PO Box 210069, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0069.
Court Green, eds. CM Borroughs, Tony Triglio, and David Trinidad. Department of Creative Writing, Columbia College, 600 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.
Crazyhorse, poetry ed. Emily Rosko. crazyhorse.cofc.edu
Cream City Review, poetry eds. Kara van de Graaf and C. McAllister Willams. www.creamcityreview.org
Denver Quarterly, ed. Laird Hunt. University of Denver, Department of English, 2000 E. Asbury, Denver, CO 80208.
FIELD, eds. David Young and David Walker. www.oberlin.edu/ocpress/field
Green Mountains Review, poetry ed. Elizabeth Powell. greenmountains review.com
Gris-Gris, eds. Jay Udall and Scott Banville. www.nicholls.edu/gris-gris
Gulf Coast, poetry eds Patrick Clement James, Michelle Oakes, and Justine Post. gulfcoastmag.org/
The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, ed. Nathaniel Perry. Box 66, Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943
Hanging Loose, eds. Robert Hershon, Dick Lourie, and Mark Pawlak. 231 Wyckoff St., Brooklyn, NY 11217.
Harvard Review, poetry ed. Major Jackson. Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Hayden’s Ferry Review, poetry eds. Dexter Booth and Hugh Martin. haydensferryreview.blogspot.com/
The Iowa Review, poetry ed. Nikki-Lee Birdsey. 308 EPB, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242.
jubilat, eds. Kevin González and Caryl Pagel. www.jubilat.org
The Kenyon Review, poetry ed. David Baker. www.kenyonreview.org
The Literary Review, poetry eds. Renée Ashley and Craig Morgan Teicher. www.theliteraryreview.org
Little Patuxent Review, poetry ed. Laura Shovan. littlepatuxentreview.org
London Review of Books, ed. Mary-Kay Wilmers. 28 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HN, England.
MAKE Literary Magazine, poetry ed. Joel Craig. makemag.com
MiPOesias, poetry eds. Sarah Blake, Emma Trelles, and Didi Menendez. mipoesias.com
The Missouri Review, poetry ed. Chun Ye. 357 McReynolds Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211.
The Nation, poetry ed. Ange Mlinko. 33 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003.
New Letters, editor-in-chief Robert Stewart. University House, University of Missouri–Kansas City, 5101 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110.
The New Yorker, poetry ed. Paul Muldoon. 4 Times Square, New York, NY 10036.
The Normal School, poetry ed. Stacey Balkun. 5245 North Backer Avenue, M/S PB 98, California State University, Fresno, CA 93740-8001.
Painted Bride Quarterly, eds. Kathleen Volk Miller and Marion Wrenn. pbq.drexel.edu
The Paris Review, poetry ed. Robyn Creswell. 544 West 27th St., New York, NY 10001.
Pleiades, poetry eds. Wayne Miller and Kathryn Nuernberger. Department of English, Martin 336, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO 64093.
Ploughshares, poetry ed. John Skoyles. Emerson College, 120 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116-4624.
Poet Lore, eds. Jody Bolz and E. Ethelbert Miller. c/o The Writer’s Center, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda, MD 20815.
Poetry, ed. Don Share. poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine
Poetry Daily, eds. Don Selby and Diane Boller. www.poems.com
Prairie Schooner, ed. Kwame Dawes. University of Nebraska, 123 Andrews Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334.
A Public Space, poetry ed. Brett Fletcher Lauer. 323 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217.
Rattle, ed. Timothy Green. 12411 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604.
Southern Indiana Review, poetry ed. Marcus Wicker. Orr Center #2009, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd., Evansville, IN 47712.
The Southern Review, poetry ed. Jessica Faust. 3rd Floor, Johnston Hall, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.
Southwest Review, ed. Willard Spiegelman. PO Box 750374, Dallas, TX 75275-0374.
Spillway, ed. Susan Terris. spillway.org
Terminus Magazine, eds. Katie Chaple and Travis Denton. PO Box 54423, Atlanta, GA 30308.
The Threepenny Review, ed. Wendy Lesser. PO Box 9131, Berkeley, CA 94709.
Tin House, poetry ed. Matthew Dickman. PO Box 10500, Portland, OR 97210.
Tongue, eds. Adam Wiedewitsch, Colin Cheney, and R. A. Villanueva. tongueoftheworld.org
Vinyl Poetry, poetry ed. Phillip B. Williams. vinylpoetry.com
Willow Springs, poetry ed. Kristin Gotch. willowsprings.ewu.edu
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
The series editor thanks Mark Bibbins for his invaluable assistance. Warm thanks go also to Nora Brooks and Stacey Harwood; to Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers’ Representatives; and to Daniel Burgess, David Stanford Burr, Daniel Cuddy, Ashley Gilliam, Erich Hobbing, and Gwyneth Stansfield at Scribner.
“Priapus” by Alan Dugan (1923–2003), which Terrance Hayes quotes in his introduction, is reprinted with permission. The poem was handed out for critique in the summer of 1992 at the Castle Hill workshop that Dugan ran from 1976 through 2001. Alan Feldman uncovered the poem—in Dugan’s hand, not a Xerox—among the papers his daughter, Rebecca, brought home from the workshop. For permission to use the poem, and for their various efforst to recover and disseminate it, we are grateful to Keith Althaus and Ezra Shahn, co-executors, estate of Judith Shahn, as well as to Alan Feldman, John Skoyles, and the editors of Ploughshares.
For permission to reproduce the diagram by Jacques Maritain that appears in Terrance Hayes’s introduction, we are grateful to Princeton University Press: Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. © 1953 Trustees of the National Gallery of Art. Reproduced by permission of Princeton University Press.
Grateful acknowledgment is made of the magazines in which these poems first appeared and the magazine editors who selected them. A sincere attempt has been made to locate all copyright holders. Unless otherwise noted, copyright to poems is held by the individual poets.
Sherman Alexie, “Sonnet, with Pride” from What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned. © 2013 by Sherman Alexie. Reprinted by permission of Hanging Loose Press. First appeared in Hanging Loose.
Rae Armantrout, “Control” from A Public Space. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
John Ashbery, “Breezeway” from The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Erin Belieu, “With Birds” from The Normal School. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Linda Bierds, “On Reflection” from The Atlantic. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Traci Brimhall, “To Survive the Revolution” from The Kenyon Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Lucie Brock-Broido, “Bird, Singing” from Stay, Illusion. © 2013 by Lucie Brock-Broido. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. First appeared in Boston Review.
Jericho Brown, “Host” from Vinyl Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Kurt Brown, “Pan Del Muerto” from Terminus Magazine. Reprinted by permission.
CAConrad, “wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon” from Denver Quarterly. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Anne Carson, “A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways” from London Review of Books. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Joseph Ceravolo, “Hidden Bird” from Collected Poems. © 2013 by the Estate of Joseph Ceravolo. Reprinted by permission of We
sleyan University Press. Also appeared in The Nation.
Henri Cole, “City Horse” from The Threepenny Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Michael Earl Craig, “The Helmet” from jubilat. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Philip Dacey, “Juilliard Cento Sonnet” from New Letters. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Olena Kalytiak Davis, “It Is to Have or Nothing” from Green Mountains Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Kwame Dawes, “News from Harlem” from Hayden’s Ferry Review and Poetry Daily. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Joel Dias-Porter, “Elegy Indigo” from Brilliant Corners. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Natalie Diaz, “These Hands, if Not Gods” from Poets.org. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Mark Doty, “Deep Lane” from Ploughshares. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Sean Thomas Dougherty, “The Blues Is a Verb” from Spillway. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Rita Dove, “The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude” from Poet Lore. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Camille Dungy, “Conspiracy (to breathe together)” from The American Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Cornelius Eady, “Overturned” from Terminus Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Vievee Francis, “Fallen” from Prairie Schooner. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Ross Gay, “To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian” from The American Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Eugene Gloria, “Liner Notes for Monk” from Tongue. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Ray Gonzalez, “One El Paso, Two El Paso” from Barrow Street. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Kathleen Graber, “The River Twice” from Painted Bride Quarterly. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Rosemary Griggs, “SCRIPT POEM” from MAKE Literary Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Adam Hammer, “As Like” from Pleiades. Reprinted by permission.
Bob Hicok, “Blue prints” from The Believer. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Le Hinton, “No Doubt About It (I Gotta Get Another Hat)” from Little Patuxent Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Tony Hoagland, “Write Whiter” from The Paris Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Major Jackson, “OK Cupid” from Tin House. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson, “L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83” from Crazyhorse. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Douglas Kearney, “The Labor of Stagger Lee: Boar” from Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Yusef Komunyakaa, “Negritude” from Gris-Gris. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Hailey Leithauser, “In My Last Past Life” from Southwest Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Larry Levis, “Elegy with a Darkening Trapeze inside It” from Blackbird. Reprinted by permission.
Gary Copeland Lilley, “Sermon of the Dreadnaught” from MiPOesias. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Frannie Lindsay, “Elegy for My Mother” from Our Vanishing. Reprinted by permission of Red Hen Press. First appeared in FIELD.
Patricia Lockwood, “Rape Joke” from Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals. © 2014 by Patricia Lockwood. Reprinted by permission of Penguin USA. First appeared on The Awl.
Nathaniel Mackey, “Oldtime Ending” from Poet Lore. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Cate Marvin, “An Etiquette for Eyes” from Willow Springs. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jamaal May, “Masticated Light” from Hum. © 2013 by Jamaal May. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Alice James Books. First appeared in Ploughshares.
Shara McCallum, “Parasol” from The Southern Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Marty McConnell, “vivisection (you’re going to break my heart)” from The Carolina Quarterly. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Valzhyna Mort, “Sylt I” from Collected Body. © 2011 by Valzhyna Mort. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press. Also appeared in New Letters.
Harryette Mullen, “Selection from Tanka Diary” from Urban Tumbleweed. © 2013 by Harryette Mullen. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press. First appeared in Harvard Review.
Eileen Myles, “Paint Me a Penis” from Green Mountains Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
D. Nurkse, “Release from Stella Maris” from FIELD. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Sharon Olds, “Stanley Kunitz Ode” from Harvard Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Gregory Pardlo, “Wishing Well” from Painted Bride Quarterly. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Kiki Petrosino, “Story Problem” from The Baffler. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
D. A. Powell, “See You Later.” from The Iowa Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Roger Reeves, “The Field Museum” from The Cincinnati Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Donald Revell, “To Shakespeare” from The Literary Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Patrick Rosal, “You Cannot Go to the God You Love with Your Two Legs” from Gulf Coast. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Mary Ruefle, “Saga” from Court Green. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jon Sands, “Decoded” from Rattle. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Steve Scafidi, “Thank You Lord for the Dark Ablaze” from ABZ. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Frederick Seidel, “To Philip Roth, for His Eightieth” from London Review of Books. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Diane Seuss, “Free Beer” from The Missouri Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Sandra Simonds, “I Grade Online Humanities Tests” from The Awl. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jane Springer, “Forties War Widows, Stolen Grain” from Birmingham Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Corey Van Landingham, “During the Autopsy” from Antidote. © 2013 by Corey Van Landingham. Reprinted by permission of Ohio State University Press. First appeared in The Southern Review.
Afaa Michael Weaver, “Passing Through Indian Territory” from The New Yorker. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Eleanor Wilner, “Sowing” from The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
David Wojahn, “My Father’s Soul Departing” from AGNI. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Greg Wrenn, “Detainment” from Centaur. © 2013 by Greg Wrenn. Reprinted by permission of The University of Wisconsin Press. First appeared in Cream City Review.
Robert Wrigley, “Blessed Are” from Southern Indiana Review. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Jake Adam York, “Calendar Days” from The Missouri Review. Reprinted by permission.
Dean Young, “Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns” from Poetry. Reprinted by permission of the poet.
Rachel Zucker, “Mindful” from The Pedestrians. © 2014 by Rachel Zucker. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Wave Books. First appeared in The Kenyon Review.
Guest editor TERRANCE HAYES is the author of Lighthead, winner of the 2010 National Book Award in Poetry; Wind in a Box; Hip Logic, which won the 2001 National Poetry Series and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Muscular Music, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, the poet Yona Harvey, and their family.
DAVID LEHMAN, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, is also the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include New and Selected Poems, When a Woman
Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. His latest work of prose is A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs. He teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School and lives in New York City and in Ithaca, New York.
Visit the Best American Poetry website at
www.bestamericanpoetry.com
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
authors.simonandschuster.com/Terrance-Hayes
authors.simonandschuster.com/David-Lehman
OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES
John Ashbery, editor, The Best American Poetry 1988
Donald Hall, editor, The Best American Poetry 1989
Jorie Graham, editor, The Best American Poetry 1990
Mark Strand, editor, The Best American Poetry 1991
Charles Simic, editor, The Best American Poetry 1992
Louise Glück, editor, The Best American Poetry 1993
A. R. Ammons, editor, The Best American Poetry 1994
Richard Howard, editor, The Best American Poetry 1995
Adrienne Rich, editor, The Best American Poetry 1996
James Tate, editor, The Best American Poetry 1997
Harold Bloom, editor, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–1997
John Hollander, editor, The Best American Poetry 1998
Robert Bly, editor, The Best American Poetry 1999
Rita Dove, editor, The Best American Poetry 2000
Robert Hass, editor, The Best American Poetry 2001
Robert Creeley, editor, The Best American Poetry 2002
Yusef Komunyakaa, editor, The Best American Poetry 2003
Lyn Hejinian, editor, The Best American Poetry 2004
Paul Muldoon, editor, The Best American Poetry 2005
Billy Collins, editor, The Best American Poetry 2006
Heather McHugh, editor, The Best American Poetry 2007
Charles Wright, editor, The Best American Poetry 2008
David Wagoner, editor, The Best American Poetry 2009
Amy Gerstler, editor, The Best American Poetry 2010
Kevin Young, editor, The Best American Poetry 2011
Mark Doty, editor, The Best American Poetry 2012