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kelseymay's review against another edition
3.0
Content warning / mention of assault
I borrowed the 2014 edition of Best American Poetry before the library closed and have finally been digging in.
In it is the most fantastic poem I've read this year: "Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood.
There are also more than a dozen other gems in these pages (although there are also some I don't care for, important to note just to point out that everyone's taste varies). Favorites included work by Traci Brimhall, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jericho Brown, Kurt Brown, Joseph Ceravolo, Henri Cole, Michael Earl Craig, Natalie Diaz, Rita Dove, Camille Dungy, Ross Gay, Yusef Komunyakaa, Larry Levis, Valzhyna Mort, Sharon Olds, Gregory Pardlo, and Dean Young.
Thankful to be exposed to new poets I haven't read before and thankful for the inspiration I had to write four new poems!
I borrowed the 2014 edition of Best American Poetry before the library closed and have finally been digging in.
In it is the most fantastic poem I've read this year: "Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood.
There are also more than a dozen other gems in these pages (although there are also some I don't care for, important to note just to point out that everyone's taste varies). Favorites included work by Traci Brimhall, Lucie Brock-Broido, Jericho Brown, Kurt Brown, Joseph Ceravolo, Henri Cole, Michael Earl Craig, Natalie Diaz, Rita Dove, Camille Dungy, Ross Gay, Yusef Komunyakaa, Larry Levis, Valzhyna Mort, Sharon Olds, Gregory Pardlo, and Dean Young.
Thankful to be exposed to new poets I haven't read before and thankful for the inspiration I had to write four new poems!
raynerayne's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars.
As I review the collections in this series, I think I'm just going to be putting in notes. This time, gifs are included (under spoiler tags for formatting reasons). Oh yeah, I've become that kind of Goodreads member. Oh yeah, baby. Buckle up, 'cause we're going for a ride! (It's not that kind of ride, though. It's going to be very tame.)
~ In "With Birds," Erin Belieu writes: "the exact shade of an aubade". As soon as I read that I was like:
...then I looked the definition up and was like:
...gorl
~ CAConrad's "wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon." Was just. So. Confusing.
~ Anne Carson's "A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways" o...kay?
~ Adam Hammer's "As Like" Literally contained the phrase "in times of the most extreme potatoes"... like, wtf?? why?? *~art~* or whatever, I guess.
Anyway, moving on to poems I did like. There were (and I was pleasantly surprised by this) many I liked in this anthology.
~ "To Survive the Revolution" by Traci Brimhall -- no idea WTF it was about, to be honest. But it did sound purty.
~ "Host" by Jericho Brown -- this one was so effing good. I am not a gay black man, but man did Jericho Brown paint a picture for me. In the "Contributors' Notes and Comments" section, Jericho Brown describes the appeal of this poem in a way more eloquent than I could ever put into words: "I am ever fascinated by all the people who like 'Host' but have never met a man via jack'd, grindr, or adam4adam.com. I'm hoping this poem's appearance here lends power to my conviction that there is very little universal about poetry other than the marvelous music it makes in the mind and the mouth. And I trust this poem speaks for itself in its attempt to investigate desire, sexuality, and masculinity." Click here to read this really good fucking poem.
~ Philip Dacey's "Julliard Cento Sonnet"
~ Sean Thomas Dougherty's "The Blues Is a Verb"
~ "All wisdom is afterthought, a sort of helpless relief."- Rita Dove, The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude
~ So many poems in this collection were "eh"-not good, not bad. But Cornelius Eady's "Overturned" was both until it wasn't: it became fun because of its word-mincing, ie "pickle wince".
~ Major Jackson's "OK Cupid" was fun. It was just fun. It's a good poem to read out loud, too.
~ Amaud Jamaul Johnson's "L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83" - I love poems about history because they always have a more personal, human element to them when they're narrated in poem form and in this poem you can really feel the pain of the people who lived in L.A. in the 80s and 90s around the time of the L.A. riots.
~ Patricia Lockwood's "Rape Joke" - went into the collection having heard a lot of things said about this piece (mostly positive) so I was naturally a little wary of it. Ended up liking it.
As I review the collections in this series, I think I'm just going to be putting in notes. This time, gifs are included (under spoiler tags for formatting reasons). Oh yeah, I've become that kind of Goodreads member. Oh yeah, baby. Buckle up, 'cause we're going for a ride! (It's not that kind of ride, though. It's going to be very tame.)
~ In "With Birds," Erin Belieu writes: "the exact shade of an aubade". As soon as I read that I was like:
Spoiler
...then I looked the definition up and was like:
Spoiler
...gorl
Spoiler
~ CAConrad's "wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon." Was just. So. Confusing.
~ Anne Carson's "A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways" o...kay?
~ Adam Hammer's "As Like" Literally contained the phrase "in times of the most extreme potatoes"... like, wtf?? why?? *~art~* or whatever, I guess.
Anyway, moving on to poems I did like. There were (and I was pleasantly surprised by this) many I liked in this anthology.
~ "To Survive the Revolution" by Traci Brimhall -- no idea WTF it was about, to be honest. But it did sound purty.
~ "Host" by Jericho Brown -- this one was so effing good. I am not a gay black man, but man did Jericho Brown paint a picture for me. In the "Contributors' Notes and Comments" section, Jericho Brown describes the appeal of this poem in a way more eloquent than I could ever put into words: "I am ever fascinated by all the people who like 'Host' but have never met a man via jack'd, grindr, or adam4adam.com. I'm hoping this poem's appearance here lends power to my conviction that there is very little universal about poetry other than the marvelous music it makes in the mind and the mouth. And I trust this poem speaks for itself in its attempt to investigate desire, sexuality, and masculinity." Click here to read this really good fucking poem.
~ Philip Dacey's "Julliard Cento Sonnet"
~ Sean Thomas Dougherty's "The Blues Is a Verb"
~ "All wisdom is afterthought, a sort of helpless relief."- Rita Dove, The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude
~ So many poems in this collection were "eh"-not good, not bad. But Cornelius Eady's "Overturned" was both until it wasn't: it became fun because of its word-mincing, ie "pickle wince".
~ Major Jackson's "OK Cupid" was fun. It was just fun. It's a good poem to read out loud, too.
~ Amaud Jamaul Johnson's "L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates Dead at 83" - I love poems about history because they always have a more personal, human element to them when they're narrated in poem form and in this poem you can really feel the pain of the people who lived in L.A. in the 80s and 90s around the time of the L.A. riots.
~ Patricia Lockwood's "Rape Joke" - went into the collection having heard a lot of things said about this piece (mostly positive) so I was naturally a little wary of it. Ended up liking it.
earlgreybooks's review against another edition
4.0
I have found so many poets whose work I am interested in reading from this. In fact, I am basically drowning in poetry right now.
wandering_not_lost's review against another edition
2.0
A variety of voices and styles, but unfortunately in 2014 evidently the styles didn't agree with me. Nothing caught my eye.
b_p's review
4.0
Overall, I would give this collection a high B average (technically an 87.08% 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 a few months ago to read the last few entries in the 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. I am finding so far that I am all over the map and impressionable in both areas (I am only an amateur poet at this point, if that).
I was overjoyed to see that Hayes included Charles Kinbote (of Pale Fire fame) in his introduction. It was easily the best introduction of the BAP series that I have read so far. As far the selection, I am pleased with the political and racial relevance of some of the pieces. It feels good to be able to contextualize the work of poet's in your own time without having to take a course about their historical and biographical background. Living with the poet and being able to relate to the history that they are chronicling in real time is a refreshing change of pace from my college delving into poets from previous centuries. I, of course, enjoy reading both immensely. I will also commend Hayes on selecting what may be my favorite poem I have come across yet in a BAP - Sherman Alexie's "Sonnet with Pride."
Masterpieces (9)
"Sonnet with Pride" by Sherman Alexie
"Control" by Rae Armantrout
"SCRIPT POEM" by Rosemary Griggs
"White Writer" by Tony Hoagland
"Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood
"Selection from Tanka Diary" by Harryette Mullen
"Wishing Well" by Gregory Pardlo
"Free Beer" by Diane Seuss
"Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns" by Dean Young
Masterful (11)
"Breezeway" by John Ashbery
"Host" by Jericho Brown
"Conspiracy (to breathe together)" by Camille Dungy
"Overturned" by Cornelius Eady
"As Like" by Adam Hammer
"In My Last Past Life" by Hailey Leithauser
"Elegy with a Darkening Trapeze inside It" by Larry Levis
"Decoded" by Jon Sands
"I Grade Online Humanities Tests" by Sandra Simonds
"Detainment" by Greg Wrenn
"Blessed Are" by Robert Wrigley
Masters Candidates (10)
"With Birds" by Erin Belieu
"On Reflection" by Linda Bierds
"wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon" by CAConrad
"A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways" by Anne Carson
"Juilliard Cento Sonnet" by Philip Dacey
"News from Harlem" by Kwame Dawes
"These Hands, if Not Gods" by Natalie Diaz
"No Doubt About It (I Gotta Get Another Hat)" by LE Hinton
"One El Paso, Two El Paso" by Ray Gonzalez
"During the Autopsy" by Corey Van Landingham
Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 40% of the poems contained in this volume.
I started a mission a few months ago to read the last few entries in the 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. I am finding so far that I am all over the map and impressionable in both areas (I am only an amateur poet at this point, if that).
I was overjoyed to see that Hayes included Charles Kinbote (of Pale Fire fame) in his introduction. It was easily the best introduction of the BAP series that I have read so far. As far the selection, I am pleased with the political and racial relevance of some of the pieces. It feels good to be able to contextualize the work of poet's in your own time without having to take a course about their historical and biographical background. Living with the poet and being able to relate to the history that they are chronicling in real time is a refreshing change of pace from my college delving into poets from previous centuries. I, of course, enjoy reading both immensely. I will also commend Hayes on selecting what may be my favorite poem I have come across yet in a BAP - Sherman Alexie's "Sonnet with Pride."
Masterpieces (9)
"Sonnet with Pride" by Sherman Alexie
"Control" by Rae Armantrout
"SCRIPT POEM" by Rosemary Griggs
"White Writer" by Tony Hoagland
"Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood
"Selection from Tanka Diary" by Harryette Mullen
"Wishing Well" by Gregory Pardlo
"Free Beer" by Diane Seuss
"Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns" by Dean Young
Masterful (11)
"Breezeway" by John Ashbery
"Host" by Jericho Brown
"Conspiracy (to breathe together)" by Camille Dungy
"Overturned" by Cornelius Eady
"As Like" by Adam Hammer
"In My Last Past Life" by Hailey Leithauser
"Elegy with a Darkening Trapeze inside It" by Larry Levis
"Decoded" by Jon Sands
"I Grade Online Humanities Tests" by Sandra Simonds
"Detainment" by Greg Wrenn
"Blessed Are" by Robert Wrigley
Masters Candidates (10)
"With Birds" by Erin Belieu
"On Reflection" by Linda Bierds
"wondering about our demise while driving to Disneyland with abandon" by CAConrad
"A Fragment of Ibykos Translated 6 Ways" by Anne Carson
"Juilliard Cento Sonnet" by Philip Dacey
"News from Harlem" by Kwame Dawes
"These Hands, if Not Gods" by Natalie Diaz
"No Doubt About It (I Gotta Get Another Hat)" by LE Hinton
"One El Paso, Two El Paso" by Ray Gonzalez
"During the Autopsy" by Corey Van Landingham
Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 40% of the poems contained in this volume.
jamescroaljackson's review
3.0
I liked a lot of the poems, though only a few stand out to me– in particular the stunning, haunting, horrifying "Rape Joke" by Patricia Lockwood, which I literally cannot read without sobbing. You can also find it at http://www.theawl.com/2013/07/rape-joke-patricia-lockwood ... Other standouts included Sherman Alexie's "Sonnet, with Pride" and Jon Sands's "Decoded".
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