A really wonderful selection of beautiful poems.
I loved the flow of the poems together. Very thoughtful and well thought out.

Thank you for this ARC!

I have always enjoyed the Best American Poetry series, and found The Best American Poetry 2021 to be a lovely collection of contemporary poems and poets.

This book covers a wide selection of poets and a diversity of voices that students can benefit from, but it definitely would appeal for an independent read. There seems to be a connection between the poems and the way the vocabulary is being used. The variety between formats is rich enough to please but to follow a certain tradition.

A wonderful collection of poetry a book I will be dipping back into again& again.The editors did an excellent job bringing together a variety of poets and poetry.Will be recommending and gifting this stellar collection.#netgalley #scribner.

Tracy K. Smith selecting an array of poetry comprised of Billy Collins, Ada Limón, Louise Glück, Victoria Chang, Chen Chen, Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, and more? Sign me up.

Smith delivers in showcasing the incredible breadth of poetry published this year. There's so much variety in this collection, which I really appreciate. Even familiar ideas are given new imagery, new life.

The language. The structures. The punctuation. Whew, what artistry! It reminds me of how much there is to love and explore between these carefully crafted lines.

Also, I've been introduced to some new magazines & poets that I now need to keep up with.

"I love October when the veil between worlds is the thinnest"
- Alex Dimitrov, Love

I love this anthology.

While many of these poems were wonderful, I felt like the range of topics was not very broad and I didn’t feel connected to most of the poetry. Still a good collection, just not my favorite.

The Best American Poetry 2021 is a remarkable collection edited by David Lehman and Tracy K. Smith. The collection offers diverse perspectives, personal reflections, and complex contemporary issues. There were many standout poems, but my favorites were Susan Briante's "Further Exercises", Nancy Miller Gomez's "Tilt-a-Whirl", Amaud Jamaul Johnson's "So Much for America", and Evie Shockley's "women's voting rights at one hundred (but who's counting?)". Each is a notable voice in contemporary poetry and the poems are memorable and insightful. I highly recommend this collection.

This one was hard to rate, but I think 3 stars is pretty fair. For those who might not know, the Best American Poetry collection has been published every year since 1988, so I was super excited to read this year's anthology.

There were poems in this collection that I absolutely LOVED, such as "Love" by Alexander Dimitrov. I tend to relate best to poetry that drills down really specifically into a moment or feeling, so it's not surprising that the approximately 50% of poems in this anthology that didn't speak of political or social issues were my favorite.

That said, about 50% of the poems included spoke to social and political issues, so I'd be doing a disservice to the review if I just ignored them. Without giving my personal opinions -because they don't matter- a lot of these style poems had a very similar voice and view. I would've loved to see some opposing voices on these issues, as I WANT to read poetry that I disagree with, poetry that challenges me for better or worse. That said, this is personal preference so I didn't take a star off for that. I DID take a star off simply because the topics felt kind of repetitive.