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toniclark's review against another edition
3.0
There are a few really wonderful poems here and a lot more that are not so wonderful -- and many that I'm sure many people would say, not even good. The catch, of course, is that what I think were the good ones may not be the ones you'd pick. Ain't it the truth? I seem to have a bias against long poems, so wouldn't even try to comment on them. Weirdly, I thought that most of the poems whose authors' last names begin with P were quite good (e.g., Pankey, Pierce, Pollitt, Pratt). Also liked Armantrout, Essbaum, Goldberg, and Wetzsteon. The real standout for me was Trethewey's "Elegy" (for her father).
You can read it here in the New England Review.
You can read it here in the New England Review.
sylvia_flora's review against another edition
4.0
It had post-confessional poetry by Olena K. Davis, 'nuff said.
queerbillydeluxe's review against another edition
5.0
"To abandon language is to stop
creating a place other than your own life
in which to live. It is to enter
the terrible certainty of the flesh. Even god
is only possible through language
-Jude Nutter, "Word"
creating a place other than your own life
in which to live. It is to enter
the terrible certainty of the flesh. Even god
is only possible through language
-Jude Nutter, "Word"
xmooniex's review against another edition
2.0
Perhaps it was because I'd just gotten out of a frustrating poetry workshop, but I was fairly unimpressed with a lot of the poetry here.
I loved "Dead Ass," though :)
I loved "Dead Ass," though :)
b_p's review
3.0
Overall, I would give this collection a B average (technically an 86.1% avg.) as far as the quality of the poems contained. I know that attempting to quantify poetic effect/value is a ridiculous gesture, but I am simply a ridiculous person. Of course, this is purely based off of my own tastes and will not necessarily reflect your average satisfaction rate. I started a mission in October of 2016 to read the entire Best American Poetry series so that I can begin to get a better sense of A) what my taste in poetry is, and B) my own poetic voice.
BAP 2011 was better than the 2012 edition, but it did not reach the heights of the 2016, 2014, and 1997 editions that I have read. I am starting to at least see that I have a few preferences and beliefs about what makes good poetry. Although, my beliefs about what I don't like to see in poetry may be more clearly defined. What I know that I don't like to see in a poem is perfectly embodied in a few of the poems in this 2011 edition.
Stephen Yenser's "Cycladic Idyll: An Aplogia" is perhaps the best example of what I feel is the worst kind of modern poetry. The worst kind of modern poetry tries too hard to revive the urbane modernism of Pound and Eliot. It is filled with pretentious allusions that assume that every reader is well-versed in classical history and literature. To be clear, I too am reasonably educated in these things and I thoroughly enjoy the work of Pound and Eliot, but I feel that poetry is being held back and confined to academia by poems like Yenser's that take their (often dated) artistic sentiments much too far. That and the awkward, unwieldy, mid-size length of "Cycladic" is enough to turn off any non-poetry readers from ever wanting to try again.
The stick is up this poem's ass and its lack of a clear thematic throughline and genuine emotion, make this poem structurally unsound. Every longer poem needs a clearer foundation that includes the two latterly mentioned traits, or else it will not stand erected in the reader's mind for years to come. If a poet is to venture into a longer form, then they damn well better ensure that their audience likes them enough to go along for the ride. If this cannot be accomplished, poems must aim to as memorable and crystalline efficient as possible. If poetry is ever to break out of the halls of academia and back into the mainstream, poets must remember their audience. They must make the kind of allusions that are welcoming or at least encourage quick hypertextual reading and not a four-year liberal arts degree from the Ivy League (Which one? Who cares).
I say this in hopes that I do not come off an anti-intellectual or anti-classicist, but as a pro-poetry and pro-classicism. There are ways to write poems that make modern readers actually want to learn more about the allusions that poets are making. I strive for this in my own poetry. I feel that Padgett, Carver, and Collins are excellent models for what I am talking about. There are far too many wannabe modernists (that glorious age is over, let us study these masters but we do not ALL need to emulate them in every poem we write) and flighty postmodernists (hit or miss). Let's just focus, as poets, to try and write something that makes people want to feel for and with others, learn about our world, and read more poetry.
That being said, there are many poems in this edition (and other editions of BAP) that do attain, or at leats come much closer, to achieving what is necessary to truly resuscitate poetry for modern American audiences. The niche culture of poets and poetry readers (although these are hardly mutually exclusive populations) is all well and good, but there will always be a niche for everything. We must as poets work to bring poetry into the hands of the many. Its beauty can no longer be confined and scorned.
Masterpieces (8)
"Dead Ass" by Michael Cirelli
"In November" by Alan Feldman
"The Cloudy Vase" by Jane Hirshfield
"Notebooks" by Allison Joseph
"Angels" by Katha Pollitt
"The Smallest" by James Schuyler
"Motown Crown" by Patricia Smith
"The Poem of the Spanish Poet" by Mark Strand
Masterful (11)
"Valediction" by Sherman Alexie
"When at a Certain Party in NYC" by Erin Belieu
"Here and There" by Billy Collins
"My Strip Club" by Denise Duhamel
"Poppies" by Jennifer Grotz
"Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91" by L. S. Klatt
"The Complaint Against Roney Laswell's Rooster" by Maurice Manning
"Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays " by James Richardson
"Provenance" by Mary Ruefle
"The Afterlife" by Mary Jo Salter
"Elegy" by Natasha Trethewey
Masters Candidates (10)
"Three Sonnets" by Olena Kalytiak Davis
"Everything is Nervous" by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
"Dear Gaybashers" by Jill McDonough
"Word" by Jude Nutter
"Cogitatio Mortis" by Eric Pankey
"Nineteen Thirty-Eight" by Charles Simic
"Thoreau and the Lightning" by David Wagoner
"Time Pieces" by Rachel Wetzsteon
"A Hundred Bones" by C. K. Williams
"Mix Tape to Be Brought to Her in Rehab" by David Wojahn
Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 38% of the poems contained in this volume.
BAP 2011 was better than the 2012 edition, but it did not reach the heights of the 2016, 2014, and 1997 editions that I have read. I am starting to at least see that I have a few preferences and beliefs about what makes good poetry. Although, my beliefs about what I don't like to see in poetry may be more clearly defined. What I know that I don't like to see in a poem is perfectly embodied in a few of the poems in this 2011 edition.
Stephen Yenser's "Cycladic Idyll: An Aplogia" is perhaps the best example of what I feel is the worst kind of modern poetry. The worst kind of modern poetry tries too hard to revive the urbane modernism of Pound and Eliot. It is filled with pretentious allusions that assume that every reader is well-versed in classical history and literature. To be clear, I too am reasonably educated in these things and I thoroughly enjoy the work of Pound and Eliot, but I feel that poetry is being held back and confined to academia by poems like Yenser's that take their (often dated) artistic sentiments much too far. That and the awkward, unwieldy, mid-size length of "Cycladic" is enough to turn off any non-poetry readers from ever wanting to try again.
The stick is up this poem's ass and its lack of a clear thematic throughline and genuine emotion, make this poem structurally unsound. Every longer poem needs a clearer foundation that includes the two latterly mentioned traits, or else it will not stand erected in the reader's mind for years to come. If a poet is to venture into a longer form, then they damn well better ensure that their audience likes them enough to go along for the ride. If this cannot be accomplished, poems must aim to as memorable and crystalline efficient as possible. If poetry is ever to break out of the halls of academia and back into the mainstream, poets must remember their audience. They must make the kind of allusions that are welcoming or at least encourage quick hypertextual reading and not a four-year liberal arts degree from the Ivy League (Which one? Who cares).
I say this in hopes that I do not come off an anti-intellectual or anti-classicist, but as a pro-poetry and pro-classicism. There are ways to write poems that make modern readers actually want to learn more about the allusions that poets are making. I strive for this in my own poetry. I feel that Padgett, Carver, and Collins are excellent models for what I am talking about. There are far too many wannabe modernists (that glorious age is over, let us study these masters but we do not ALL need to emulate them in every poem we write) and flighty postmodernists (hit or miss). Let's just focus, as poets, to try and write something that makes people want to feel for and with others, learn about our world, and read more poetry.
That being said, there are many poems in this edition (and other editions of BAP) that do attain, or at leats come much closer, to achieving what is necessary to truly resuscitate poetry for modern American audiences. The niche culture of poets and poetry readers (although these are hardly mutually exclusive populations) is all well and good, but there will always be a niche for everything. We must as poets work to bring poetry into the hands of the many. Its beauty can no longer be confined and scorned.
Masterpieces (8)
"Dead Ass" by Michael Cirelli
"In November" by Alan Feldman
"The Cloudy Vase" by Jane Hirshfield
"Notebooks" by Allison Joseph
"Angels" by Katha Pollitt
"The Smallest" by James Schuyler
"Motown Crown" by Patricia Smith
"The Poem of the Spanish Poet" by Mark Strand
Masterful (11)
"Valediction" by Sherman Alexie
"When at a Certain Party in NYC" by Erin Belieu
"Here and There" by Billy Collins
"My Strip Club" by Denise Duhamel
"Poppies" by Jennifer Grotz
"Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91" by L. S. Klatt
"The Complaint Against Roney Laswell's Rooster" by Maurice Manning
"Even More Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays " by James Richardson
"Provenance" by Mary Ruefle
"The Afterlife" by Mary Jo Salter
"Elegy" by Natasha Trethewey
Masters Candidates (10)
"Three Sonnets" by Olena Kalytiak Davis
"Everything is Nervous" by Beckian Fritz Goldberg
"Dear Gaybashers" by Jill McDonough
"Word" by Jude Nutter
"Cogitatio Mortis" by Eric Pankey
"Nineteen Thirty-Eight" by Charles Simic
"Thoreau and the Lightning" by David Wagoner
"Time Pieces" by Rachel Wetzsteon
"A Hundred Bones" by C. K. Williams
"Mix Tape to Be Brought to Her in Rehab" by David Wojahn
Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 38% of the poems contained in this volume.
librarydino's review
5.0
"To abandon language is to stop
creating a place other than your own life
in which to live. It is to enter
the terrible certainty of the flesh. Even god
is only possible through language
-Jude Nutter, "Word"
creating a place other than your own life
in which to live. It is to enter
the terrible certainty of the flesh. Even god
is only possible through language
-Jude Nutter, "Word"
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