This is a solid anthology of more traditional modern poetry assembled by Dana Giola. The editor introduces the reader to poets that are not as well known in order to bring light to a wider variety of perspectives and topics.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of a good half of the poetry in this collection. I feel like I read plenty of better poetry from 2018 that was not in this book. The other half was real quality stuff.

This collection is remarkably diverse. I found myself exploring new approaches to classic themes, and savoring the many, many ways that contemporary American poets are playing with language. Clearly, editor Dana Gioia cast a wide net to build an anthology where each poem calls out in a creative and distinct voice. Includes newcomer poets and old favorites. What a breath of fresh air that Gioia read lesser-known literary journals to find so many exciting poems. Back matter delivers detailed poet biographies with notes on their inspiration and /or process behind each poem. The thematic and stylistic range of poems make it a valuable reference/teaching resource.

This was a decent collection of poetry, but not one that I connected with too much. I skipped last quite a few that I was really not interested in. However, I really enjoyed about 5 or 6 of the poems, enough to give this collection 3 stars.

There are a ton of different topics that it touches upon by a variety of poets which I liked, but the poems chosen just didn't sit with me the way I wish they would have.

Amazing collection of poetry. This inspired me to start writing poems again. Thanks for the review copy.

“Best American Poetry 2018” offers a truly wonderful selection of poems in one of the best such anthologies available. Highly recommended! 5/5

Pub Date 18 Sep 2018   

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#BestAmericanPoetry2018 #NetGalley

A great collection of poetry. Diverse authors some old and new. I'll definitely be recommending this one to patrons.

I should first admit that the Best American Poetry series is one of the annual volumes that I most look forward to each year. Each year I open its pages in search of some new poet that I didn’t know was missing from my life until I read their poem here. At the same time, each year, as one might expect, I am left wondering “is this really the best American poetry of the year”? Yes, I know, I’m one person judging one person’s view of the best poetry and all the complexities involved in making the selection. But I still wonder.

Ok, let’s dig in.

To start with in the opening essays, there was yet another discussion that is basically summed up in the saying “Poetry is dead! Long live poetry!” Can we all admit that this discussion is the proverbial dead horse. Stop kicking it already. I mean seriously. It’s not a thing. On the flip side, I did enjoy the open discussion about the evolution of poetry mediums and our struggle to break our old paradigms and recognize them and the creators in those spaces.

Now, onto the poems. Considering just 75 poems are included in this collection, the fact the 55 different sources are used is stellar. Gioia wasn’t kidding when he said he spent all of his time reading every poem he could find. For the curious among you, the top 3 sources were Poetry (5), The New Yorker (4), and The New Criterion (3). If there is anything to be judged from the top sources, I’ll leave that to the you.

On the plus side, I was pleased to see my favorite poet of the year, Kaveh Akbar. That pretty much made the collection and we were only 2 poets in. Yes, there were a fair share of solid poets that I enjoyed, like Terrance Hayes, Joy Harjo, Terry Hoagland, Ilya Kaminsky, Robin Coste Lewis, Tracy K Smith, Jacqueline Osherow, Nkosi Nkululeko, Suji Kwock Kim, and Donika Kelly.

On the other hand, I was definitely disappointed by the amount of more traditional rhyming poetry that really feel flat for me and seemed more enamored by the idea of rhyming than by the idea of combining rhyme with great ideas and imagery and creativity and making great poetry. I know Gioia loves him some rhyme and traditional forms, so I don’t fault him for trying to reintroduce us to it. I just wish that the selection had been stronger.

All-in-all, it was a mixed bag, but that is how I usually feel. So did I find a new poet or two to make it worth the slog? I did. And that has made all the difference.

This was a great collection of new poetry. I loved the way it was organized and the editors made great choices about what to include.

This was my first "Best American Poetry" volume and hopefully won't be my last. A good poetry anthology ought to be required annual reading for every man, woman, and child. I still recall breezing through my favorite anthology, since lost I don't know where (there was a picture of a brooding Sylvia Plath on the cover), and have forgotten how welcome a good poetry collection can be in-between novels and non-fiction reading.

This edition comes with a Forward from series founder David Lehman, and a useful Introduction from guest editor Dana Gioia. Poetry has always had a lot to say about the nature and status of poetry. Most of that running commentary has been essentially optimistic and Gioia's Introduction strikes the same familiar keys. The stuff of modern poetry, he argues, is not so much what we see in books but what gets shared on Twitter and Instagram. He saves a few words for Rupi Kaur, the Indian-Canadian poet of the stupidly popular "Milk and Honey" (2014) and asks readers, presciently, whether this is the kind of thing once lauded by the likes of Percy Shelley and Wallace Stevens.

Thankfully, the anthology is made up of stronger stuff than this. There are a number of very lovely highly quotable poems ("Sherpa Song" and "Orient Epithalamion"), some lovely re-workings ("Pied Beauty," from the poem of the same title by Gerard Manley Hopkins), some longer poems and many in surprisingly recognizable formats, most notably in the amount of sonnets.

The poems haven't been arranged in any particular order other than alphabetical and the collection doesn't have any overarching theme. I am inclined to prefer this methodlesness rather than something organized under headlines like "War" or "Politics" or "Poetry" but other readers might not like the random plunge.

This collection won't ignite any poetry wars (despite the editors' claims that poetry is powerful and kicking, many readers won't come away from this book convinced it is anything more than a healthy, slightly more intellectual past-time than gardening), but it will ensure many happy moments and, with any luck, some fruitful rereading.

Reviewed for Netgalley.

To call this the best poetry is subjective, which is why this will definitely be a hit or miss collection. I found myself skimming some and loving some, depending on the style and subject.

I always enjoy these annual collections, both for seeing new work from old favorites as well as finding many new voices. Dana Gioia did a fantastic job with this year's selections, including a variety of styles and subjects and authors, and I bookmarked quite a few to come back and read again. I also appreciated his Introduction and the observations/discussion about the recent wave of "Instagram Poets," a debate that has many people talking about and reading poetry once again (hooray!). Ultimately, it's Gioia's openness to all poets and types of poetry that make this collection a stand out:

"New forms of poetry don't eliminate established forms, but they do influence and modify them. Culture is not binary but dialectical. Poetry now has as many categories as popular music. What plays at Harvard won't get anyone on the dance floor in East Los Angeles, and that's just fine. All styles are possible, all approaches open, and everyone is invited."

"A poem is an interruption of silence, whereas prose is a continuation of noise."
Billy Collins




Best American Poetry 2018 edited by Dana Gioia is this years edition of David Lehman's yearly poetry anthology. Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet and former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He received a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Harvard University. Gioia has published four full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks.

This years edition features seventy-five poets as well as a short biography of each. Lehman opens the collection with his state of poetry address. The New Yorker still publishes poetry. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, explains:

Poetry is arguably, in some compressed and magical fashion, the highest form of expression, the greatest devotion we have to our most intricate invention, language itself.

That pretty much explains poetry and its importance to language and expression. Even so, poetry seems to have lost the common reader and many uncommon readers. Poetry seems to be on the fringe of literature even among those who attend universities for degrees in literature. I am surprised at the number of people in the field who have not read major poets. Like Lehman, I have also become concerned at the number of "internet sensations" who have published "poetry" in the form of short platitudes or trite cliches. Perhaps, like Lehman hopes, these are gateways to real poetry, but they seem more likely to be saying "I would love poetry if it were not poetry."

This collection, as Gioia mentions, contains a wide variety of poetry: prose poetry, sonnets, free verse, but no internet sensations. The internet has skewed the popularity of poetry. YouTube readings reach millions of people instead of twenty sitting at a coffee shop reading. Poetry Slams and other events see many more people online than in person. Poetry is getting out, but not always in the traditional means. The poetry section at a Barnes and Noble is smaller than the particle physics section (not really, but close). Traditional poetry media seems to be fading. Poetry magazine has two apps. One that has the magazine and another with a poetry database and a fun "find a poem" feature. Jennifer Benka at the Academy of American Poets emails out daily poems. Poetry is still getting out, but it may not always be in book form. Television has even picked up poetry. Rugged Sheriff Longmire read John Donne, and Breaking Bad used Walt Whitman's "When I heard The Learn'd Astronomer." Apple and Volvo have turned to poetry in their advertisements.

Not all is good though. Universities are churning out advanced degrees but not hiring. Adjunct positions are replacing tenured positions to save money. Even so, poets are adapting. No longer are new poets the young professors but baristas, bookstore clerks, professionals, and people from all other walks of life. Technology has allowed more people to publish outside of academia, and social media helps get the word out to a vast audience. Poetry is not dying but merely adapting to the new environment.

This year's collection presents Gioia's favorite poems. The poetry is varied and even contains a haiku-like poem -- Joyce Clement's "Birds Punctuate the Days." Dick Davis presents "A Personal Sonnet," keeping alive the old form of poetry. David Manson's "First Christmas in the Village" presents imagery and new experiences in a traditional form. Mike Owens rounds out the collection by taking on social and mental health issues in his "Sad Math."

What is lacking in this year's collection is a clear-cut theme except, perhaps, the variety of poetry itself. The poetry is arranged alphabetically by the poet's name and not by topic or form; there is no build up or a traditional closing poem that helps connect the collection together. All the poems in the collection were new to me, and with the variety, I can say not all of them were equally liked in form or content. This year's selection was made special by the insight given by both Lehman and Gioia and the poetry used to support their premise. Best American Poetry 2018 is a win for American poetry.

I look forward to Best American Poetry every year, and am never disappointed. The opportunity to discover "new to me" poets makes me happy. Thank you!