The Best American Poetry 2000 (ISBN 0-7432-0033-0), a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman

David Lehman

David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.-Career:...

 and by guest editor Rita Dove

Rita Dove

Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and author. From 1993-1995 she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now popularly known as "U.S. Poet Laureate"...

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In her introduction, Dove defended the idea that poets should be politically committed: "[W]e poets cannot afford to shit ourselves away in our convalescent homes, boning our specialized fools, while the barbarians — no matter if they are religious fanatics, materialistic profitmongers, crazy silver-tongued niggas sleeping in libraries, or merely more talented MFA drop-outs who actually care about 'art' — continue to sharpen their broadswords. Stepping into the fray of life does not mean dissipation of one's creative powers [...] The reward is a connection on a visceral level with the world [...]."

Speaking of her selection process, Dove indicated that once potential selections had been identified, either via her own reading or as submitted to her by the series editor, David Lehman, "[m]y method was simple: Read the poems without looking at the author's name, if possible, and put aside for further consideration only those pieces which made me catch my breath (then, look back at the names and decide from there). The final criterion was Emily Dickinson's famed description--if I felt the top of my head had been taken off, the poem was in. And in the lofty words of Billy Collins, 'This music is loud yet so confidential./ I cannot help feeling even more/ like the center of the universe'."

Michael Shannon Friedman, reviewing the book in The Charleston Gazette

The Charleston Gazette

The Charleston Gazette is a five-day morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia. It is published Monday through Friday mornings. On Saturday and Sunday mornings the combined Charleston Gazette-Mail is published, which is, more or less, similar to the Gazette.The Gazette was established in...

, noted that Dove had admitted the "subjectivity" of her selections, and observed that, in his own view, the year's best selections were poems by Barbara Hamby

Barbara Hamby

-Life:She was born in New Orleans and raised in Hawaii. Her poems have been printed in numerous publications and her first book of poetry, Delirium , received literary recognition...

, Thomas Lux

Thomas Lux

-Biography:Thomas Lux was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, son of a milkman and a Sears & Roebuck switchboard operator, neither of whom graduated from high school. Lux was raised in Massachusetts on a dairy farm. He was, according to those who knew him in high school, very good at baseball,...

, Stanly Plumly, Susan Wood

Susan Wood (poet)

Susan Wood is an American poet and the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English at Rice University.-Life:She received her B.A. from East Texas State University, and her M.A...

 and Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...

.

Poets and poems included

Poet	Poem	Where poem previously appeared
Kim Addonizio Kim Addonizio Kim Addonizio is an award-winning American poet and novelist.-Life:Addonizio is the daughter of tennis champion Pauline Betz and sports writer Bob Addie....	"Virgin Spring"	Barrow Street Barrow Street Barrow Street may refer to:* Barrow Street , an arts area in the West Village.* Barrow Street, Dublin, home of Ireland's National Performing Arts School, Google Europe, and rock band U2's The Factory studio complex, among many other high-profile tenants* Barrow Street, Wiltshire, a village in the...
Pamela Alexander Pamela Alexander -Life:She graduated from Bates College in 1970 and from the Iowa Writers' Workshop with an M.F.A. in 1973.She teaches at Oberlin College.Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Book Review, Orion, TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Journal, New Republic, American Scholar.Her papers...	"Semiotics"	Boston Book Review
A. R. Ammons	"Shot Glass"	The New Yorker The New Yorker The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
Julianna Baggott Julianna Baggott Julianna Baggott is a novelist, essayist and poet who also writes under pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. She is an associate professor at Florida State University's Creative Writing Program.-Life:...	"Mary Todd on Her Deathbed"	Quarterly West
Erin Belieu Erin Belieu -Life:She graduated from Boston University, and Ohio State University with an MFA.She taught at Washington University, Boston University, Kenyon College, and Ohio University.She teaches at Florida State University....	"Choose Your Garden"	TriQuarterly TriQuarterly TriQuarterly Online is a not-for-profit American literary magazine published twice a year at Northwestern University that features fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, literary essays, reviews, a blog, and graphic art....
Richard Blanco Richard Blanco -Life:He immigrated with his Cuban exile family to Miami where he was raised and educated.He graduated from Florida International University in Civil Engineering and Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing , where he studied with Campbell McGrath....	"Mango, Number 61"	TriQuarterly TriQuarterly TriQuarterly Online is a not-for-profit American literary magazine published twice a year at Northwestern University that features fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, literary essays, reviews, a blog, and graphic art....
Janet Bowdan	"The Year"	Denver Quarterly Denver Quarterly The Denver Quarterly is a literary journal based at the University of Denver. Founded in 1966 by novelist John Williams.-Best American Short Stories:...
Grace Butcher	"Crow Is Walking"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Lucille Clifton Lucille Clifton Lucille Clifton was an American writer and educator from Buffalo, New York. From 1979–1985 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland...	"Signs"	Callaloo Callaloo Callaloo is a popular Caribbean dish served in different variants in across the Caribbean. The main ingredient is a leaf vegetable, traditionally either amaranth , taro or Xanthosoma. Both are known by many names including callaloo, coco, tannia, bhaaji, or dasheen bush...
Billy Collins Billy Collins Billy Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York and is the Senior Distinguished Fellow of the Winter Park Institute, Florida...	"Man Listening to Disc"	The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
Jim Daniels Jim Daniels James Raymond Daniels is an American poet and writer.Since 1981, Daniels has been on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English.He won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in...	"Between Periods"	Crab Orchard Review
Linh Dinh Linh Dinh Linh Dinh is a Vietnamese-American poet, fiction writer, translator, and photographer. He was a 1993 Pew Fellow.-Biography:...	"The Most Beautiful Word"	Xconnect
Gregory Djanikian	"Immigrant Picnic"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Denise Duhamel Denise Duhamel -Background:Duhamel received her B.F.A. from Emerson College and her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a New York Foundation for the Arts recipient and has been resident poet at Bucknell University...	"Incest Taboo"	Barrow Street Barrow Street (magazine) Barrow Street is a twice-a-year American poetry magazine founded in 1998 and based in New York City. The small journal has published prominent poets and its poems have been reprinted in anthologies such as The Best American Poetry series....
Christopher Edgar	"Birthday"	The Germ
Karl Elder	"Alpha Images"	Beloit Poetry Journal
Lynn Emanuel Lynn Emanuel Lynn Collins Emanuel is an American poet. Some of her poetry collections include Then, Suddenly— and Noose and Hook ....	"Walt. I Salute You!"	Boulevard Boulevard (magazine) Boulevard magazine, published by St. Louis University, is an American literary magazine that publishes award-winning prose and poetry. Boulevard has been called "one of the half-dozen best literary journals" by Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman in The Philadelphia Inquirer.- Overview :Richard Burgin...
B. H. Fairchild B. H. Fairchild B.H. Fairchild is an award-winning American poet and former college professor. His most recent book is Usher , and his poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Poetry, TriQuarterly, The Hudson Review, Salmagundi, The...	"Mrs. Hill"	The Southern Review
Charles Fort Charles Fort Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...	"We Did Not Fear the Father"	The Georgia Review The Georgia Review The Georgia Review is an award-winning, nationally respected literary journal founded in 1947 that includes poetry, art, fiction, essays and reviews. It won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1986 and the National Magazine Award for Essay in 2007...
Frank X. Gaspar Frank X. Gaspar Frank Xavier Gaspar is a Portuguese American poet, novelist and professor. His most recent novel is Stealing Fatima . His most recent collection of poetry, Night of a Thousand Blossoms was one of 12 books honored as the "Best Poetry of 2004" by Library Journal...	"Seven Roses"	The Georgia Review The Georgia Review The Georgia Review is an award-winning, nationally respected literary journal founded in 1947 that includes poetry, art, fiction, essays and reviews. It won the National Magazine Award for Fiction in 1986 and the National Magazine Award for Essay in 2007...
Elton Glaser Elton Glaser -Life:He is a native of New Orleans, teaches at the University of Akron, and edits the Akron Series in Poetry.He lives in Akron, Ohio.-Awards:* 2002 Marlboro Prize in Poetry for his poem, "Meditation in Blue and White"* 2002 Crab Orchard Award-Works:* *...	"And in the Afternoons I Botanized"	Parnassus (magazine) Parnassus (magazine) Parnassus: Poetry in Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1973.The magazine states on its website that its aim has been "to provide a forum where poets, novelists, and critics of all persuasions could gather to review new books of poetry, including translations [....
Ray Gonzalez Ray Gonzalez Ramón González Rivera, better know by his ring name Ray González, is a Puerto Rican professional wrestler who has wrestled in Mexico, Japan, as well as with the XWF in the United States, and the World Wrestling Council along with the International Wrestling Association of Puerto Rico...	"For the Other World"	Crab Orchard Review
Jennifer Grotz Jennifer Grotz Jennifer Grotz is an American poet and translator who teaches English and creative writing at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and at the University of Rochester, where she is Assistant Professor...	"The Last Living Castrato"	New England Review New England Review The New England Review is a quarterly literary magazine published by Middlebury College. Founded in New Hampshire in 1978 by poet, novelist, editor and professor Sydney Lea and poet Jay Parini, it was published as New England Review & Bread Loaf Quarterly from 1982 , until 1991 as a formal...
Thom Gunn Thom Gunn Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...	"The Dump"	The Threepenny Review The Threepenny Review The Threepenny Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule , it offers fiction, memoirs, poetry, essays and criticism to a readership of 10,000...
Mark Halliday Mark Halliday Mark Halliday is a noted American poet, professor and critic. He is author of five collections of poetry, most recently Keep This Forever...	"Before"	Xconnect
Barbara Hamby Barbara Hamby -Life:She was born in New Orleans and raised in Hawaii. Her poems have been printed in numerous publications and her first book of poetry, Delirium , received literary recognition...	"Ode to the Lost Luggage Warehouse at the Rome Airport"	Five Points
Forrest Hamer Forrest Hamer Forrest Hamer is an American poet, psychologist, and psychoanalyst. He is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Rift . His first collection, Call & Response, won the Beatrice Hawley Award, and his second, Middle Ear , received the Northern California Book Award...	"Goldsboro Narratives"	Callaloo The Callaloo Journal Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially...
Brenda Hillman Brenda Hillman Brenda Hillman , is an American poet. She was educated at Pomona College, and received her M.F.A. at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California...	"Air for Mercury"	Boston Review Boston Review Boston Review is a bimonthly American political and literary magazine. The magazine covers, specifically, political debates, literature, and poetry...
Marsha Janson	"Considering the Demise of Everything"	Harvard Review Harvard Review The Harvard Review is a literary magazine published by the Harvard University library system.Its origins can be dated to 1986, when Stratis Haviaras, the curator of the libraries' poetry room founded a magazine called Erato to publicize poetry room authors.The first issue included a poem by Seamus...
Mark Jarman Mark Jarman Mark F. Jarman is an American poet and critic often identified with the New Narrative branch of the New Formalism; he was co-editor with Robert McDowell of The Reaper throughout the 1980s...	"Epistle"	Meridian
Patricia Spears Jones Patricia Spears Jones Patricia Spears Jones is an American poet. She is the author of two collections books of poetry: The Weather That Kills and Femme du Monde. Patricia Spears Jones was the co-editor for Ordinary Women: Poems of New York City Women. Her poem, "Beuys and the Blonde" was nominated for a Pushcart...	"Ghosts"	Crab Orchard Review
Rodney Jones Rodney Jones Rodney Jones is an American poet and professor of English at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Jones was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award. His other honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Peter I.B...	"Plea for Forgiveness"	The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
Donald Justice Donald Justice Donald Justice was an American poet and teacher of writing. In summing up Justice's career, David Orr has written, "In most ways, Justice was no different from any number of solid, quiet older writers devoted to traditional short poems. But he was different in one important sense: sometimes his...	"Ralph: A Love Story"	The New Criterion The New Criterion The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
Olena Kalytiak Davis Olena Kalytiak Davis Olena Kalytiak Davis is an American poet.She is the author of two poetry collections, most recently, Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, And Other Off-And-Back Handed Importunities . Her first book, And Her Soul Out Of Nothing, won the Brittingham Prize...	"Six Apologies, Lord"	The Antioch Review
David Kirby David Kirby (poet) David Kirby is an American poet and the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University . His most recent book is The Temple Gate Called Beautiful, published in 2008 by Alice James Books...	"At the Grave of Harold Goldstein"	Parnassus (magazine) Parnassus (magazine) Parnassus: Poetry in Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1973.The magazine states on its website that its aim has been "to provide a forum where poets, novelists, and critics of all persuasions could gather to review new books of poetry, including translations [....
Carolyn Kizer Carolyn Kizer Carolyn Ashley Kizer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet of the Pacific Northwest whose works reflect her feminism.-Life and work:...	"The Oration"	The Threepenny Review The Threepenny Review The Threepenny Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1980. It is published in Berkeley, California by founding editor Wendy Lesser. Maintaining a quarterly schedule , it offers fiction, memoirs, poetry, essays and criticism to a readership of 10,000...
Lynne Knight	"The Muse of the Actual"	The Southern Review
Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly...	"The Goddess of Quotas Laments"	TriQuarterly
Thomas Lux Thomas Lux -Biography:Thomas Lux was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, son of a milkman and a Sears & Roebuck switchboard operator, neither of whom graduated from high school. Lux was raised in Massachusetts on a dairy farm. He was, according to those who knew him in high school, very good at baseball,...	"Henry Clay's Mouth"	The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
Lynne McMahon Lynne McMahon Lynne McMahon is an American poet.She graduated from University of Utah with a PhD in 1982. She teaches at University of Missouri,Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, New Virginia Review, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The...	"We Take Our Children to Ireland"	The Southern Review
W. S. Merwin W. S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin is an American poet, credited with over 30 books of poetry, translation and prose. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin's writing influence derived from...	"The Hours of Darkness"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Susan Mitchell Susan Mitchell Susan Mitchell is an American poet, essayist and translator who wrote the poetry collections Rapture and Erotikon.-Life:...	"Lost Parrot"	The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
Jean Nordhaus	"Aunt Lily and Frederick the Great"	The Gettysburg Review The Gettysburg Review The Gettysburg Review is a quarterly literary magazine featuring short stories, poetry, essays and reviews. Work appearing in the magazine often is reprinted in "best-of" anthologies and receives awards....
Mary Oliver Mary Oliver Mary Oliver is an American poet who has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The New York Times described her as "far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet".-Early life:...	"Work"	The Southern Review
Michael Palmer Michael Palmer Michael Palmer is an American poet and translator. He attended Harvard University where he earned a BA in French and a MA in Comparative Literature. He has worked extensively with Contemporary dance for over thirty years and has collaborated with many composers and visual artists...	"I Do Not"	American Poetry Review
Paul Perry Paul Perry Paul Perry is an Australian racehorse trainer based in Broadmeadow, New South Wales. He is famous for winning the King's Stand Stakes and the Group One Golden Jubilee Stakes in the United Kingdom with Choisir.-References:...	"Paris"	Callaloo The Callaloo Journal Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially...
Carl Phillips Carl Phillips Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis....	"'All art...'"	Boulevard Boulevard (magazine) Boulevard magazine, published by St. Louis University, is an American literary magazine that publishes award-winning prose and poetry. Boulevard has been called "one of the half-dozen best literary journals" by Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman in The Philadelphia Inquirer.- Overview :Richard Burgin...
Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...	"Samurai Song"	The New Yorker The New Yorker The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
Donald Platt Donald Platt (poet) Donald Platt is a poet and professor of English at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Recently, he was awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.-Bibliography:...	"History & Bikinis"	Shenandoah Shenandoah (magazine) Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review is a major literary magazine published by Washington and Lee University.- History :Originally a student-run quarterly, Shenandoah has evolved into a triannual literary journal edited by author R. T...
Stanley Plumly Stanley Plumly Stanley Plumly is an American poet, who is professor of English and director of University of Maryland, College Park's creative writing program....	"Kunitz Tending Roses"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Lawrence Raab Lawrence Raab -Life:He graduated from Middlebury College, in 1968 and from Syracuse University with an MA, in 1972.He taught at American University 1970-71, University of Michigan, and Williams College 1976 to present...	"Permanence"	The Virginia Quarterly Review The Virginia Quarterly Review The Virginia Quarterly Review is a literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman...
Thomas Rabbitt	"The Beach at Falmouth Heights, Summer, 1952"	Black Warrior Review Black Warrior Review The Black Warrior Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1974 and based at the University of Alabama. Work appearing in BWR has been anthologized in the Pushcart Prize collection, The Best American Short Stories , Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South. The Spring 1978 issue...
Mary Jo Salter Mary Jo Salter Mary Jo Salter is an American poet, a coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry and a professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.-Life:...	"Au Pair"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Rebecca Seiferle Rebecca Seiferle -Life:Seiferle has a BA from the University of the State of New York with a major in English and History, and a minor in Art History. In 1989, she received her MFA from Warren Wilson College....	"Welcome to Ithaca"	Partisan Review Partisan Review Partisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:...
Brenda Shaughnessy Brenda Shaughnessy -Life:She grew up in Southern California. She received her B.A. in literature and women's studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and M.F.A...	"Postfeminism"	Chelsea Chelsea (magazine) Chelsea was a small American, twice-a-year literary magazine based in New York City. The influential journal, edited for many years by Sonia Raiziss, published poetry, prose, book reviews and translations with an emphasis on translations, art, and cross-cultural exchange.-History:In 1958, The...
Laurie Sheck	from "Black Series"	Seneca Review
Reginald Shepherd Reginald Shepherd Reginald Shepherd was an American poet, born in New York City and raised in the Bronx. He died of cancer in Penascola, Florida, in 2008.-Biography:...	"Semantics at Four P.M."	American Letters & Commentary (magazine) Commentary (magazine) Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
Richard Siken Richard Siken Richard Siken is an American poet. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Crush, which won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition in 2004, and is the editor of spork literary magazine...	"The Dislocated Room"	Indiana Review Indiana Review Indiana Review ' is a small, student-run literary magazine at Indiana University. Founded in 1976, it has a circulation of about 2,000.A biannual review, IR publishes essays, fiction, graphic arts, interviews, poetry, and reviews...
Cathy Song Cathy Song Cathy Song is an Asian-American poet. She is the 1982 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award for her collection Picture Bride. Song now resides in Kahala, Hawaii.-Personal life:Song was born in Wahiawa, Hawaii...	"Mother of Us All"	Shenandoah Shenandoah (magazine) Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review is a major literary magazine published by Washington and Lee University.- History :Originally a student-run quarterly, Shenandoah has evolved into a triannual literary journal edited by author R. T...
Gary Soto Gary Soto Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet.Mexican-American parents Manuel and Angie Soto . In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old...	"Chit-Chat with the Junior League Women"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
Gabriel Spera Gabriel Spera -Life:He graduated from Cornell University, and from University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with an M.F.A.He lives in Los Angeles.His work appeared in Cimarron Review, Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review,-Awards:...	"In a Field Outside the Town"	Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
A. E. Stallings A. E. Stallings Alicia Elsbeth Stallings is an American poet and translator. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow-Background:Stallings was raised in Decatur, Georgia and studied classics at the University of Georgia and University of Oxford. She is an editor with the Atlanta Review. In 1999, Stallings moved...	"Asphodel"	Beloit Poetry Journal
Susan Stewart	"Wings"	American Poetry Review
Adrienne Su	"The English Canon"	New Letters New Letters (magazine) New Letters, the name it has been published under since 1970, is one of the oldest literary magazines in the United States and continues to publish award-winning poems and fiction.-History & Editors:...
Pamela Sutton	"There Is a Lake of Ice on the Moon"	American Poetry Review
Dorothea Tanning Dorothea Tanning Dorothea Tanning is an American painter, printmaker, sculptor and writer. She has also designed sets and costumes for ballet and theatre.-Biography:...	"No Palms"	The Yale Review Yale Review The Yale Review is the self-proclaimed oldest literary quarterly in the United States. It is published by Yale University.It was founded originally in 1819 as The Christian Spectator. At its origin it was published to support Evangelicalism, but over time began to publish more on history and...
Natasha Trethewey Natasha Trethewey Natasha Trethewey is an American poet who won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her 2006 collection, Native Guard.Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. She earned the A.B. in English from the University of Georgia, an M.A. in poetry from Hollins University, and an M.F.A. in poetry from...	"Limen"	New England Review New England Review The New England Review is a quarterly literary magazine published by Middlebury College. Founded in New Hampshire in 1978 by poet, novelist, editor and professor Sydney Lea and poet Jay Parini, it was published as New England Review & Bread Loaf Quarterly from 1982 , until 1991 as a formal...
Quincy Troupe Quincy Troupe Quincy Thomas Troupe, Jr., , is a poet, editor, journalist-Early life:The son of Negro League baseball catcher Quincy Trouppe , Troupe Jr. attended Grambling State University on a baseball scholarship...	"Song"	Tin House Tin House Tin House is an American literary magazine and book publisher based in Portland, Oregon and New York City. The Tin House magazine was conceived in the summer of 1998 by Portland publisher Win McCormack. He envisioned a journal that would be graphically appealing and free of the stale substance...
Reetika Vazirani Reetika Vazirani Reetika Vazirani was an American poet and educator. On July 16, 2003, Vazirani was housesitting in the Chevy Chase, Maryland home of novelist Howard Norman and his wife, the poet, Jane Shore. There, Vazirani took the life of her two-year-old son, Jehan, and then her own.-Life:She was born in...	"Rahim Multani"	Meridian
Paul Violi Paul Violi Paul Randolph Violi was an American poet born in Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of eleven books of poetry, including Splurge, Fracas, The Curious Builder, Likewise, and most recently Overnight...	"As I Was Telling David and Alexandra Kelley"	The World
Derek Walcott Derek Walcott Derek Alton Walcott, OBE OCC is a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2011 for White Egrets. His works include the Homeric epic Omeros...	"Pissarro at Dusk"	The New Republic The New Republic The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
Richard Wilbur Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....	"Fabrications"	The Yale Review Yale Review The Yale Review is the self-proclaimed oldest literary quarterly in the United States. It is published by Yale University.It was founded originally in 1819 as The Christian Spectator. At its origin it was published to support Evangelicalism, but over time began to publish more on history and...
Susan Wood Susan Wood (poet) Susan Wood is an American poet and the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English at Rice University.-Life:She received her B.A. from East Texas State University, and her M.A...	"Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair"	Ploughshares Ploughshares Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
John Yau John Yau John Yau is an American poet and critic who lives in New York City. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 1972 and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1978...	"Borrowed Love Poems"	Boston Review Boston Review Boston Review is a bimonthly American political and literary magazine. The magazine covers, specifically, political debates, literature, and poetry...
Dean Young Dean Young (poet) Dean Young is a contemporary American poet in the poetic lineage of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Kenneth Koch. Often cited as a second-generation New York School poet, Young also derives influence and inspiration from the work of André Breton, Paul Éluard, and the other French Surrealist poets,...	"The Infirmament"	New American Writing New American Writing New American Writing is a once-a-year American literary magazine emphasizing contemporary American poetry, including a range of innovative contemporary writing. The magazine is published in association with San Francisco State University. New American Writing is published by OINK! Press, a...

Best American poems of the twentieth century

For this book in the series, Lehman, the general editor "invited his 14 past and present guest editors to list their choices for 15 best poems of the century. Most did, but Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...

 refused flat out, and Louise Glück

Louise Glück

Louise Elisabeth Glück is an American poet of Hungarian Jewish heritage. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2003, after serving as a Special Bicentennial Consultant three years prior in 2000....

 wrote a thoughtful letter, also declining. It said, in part: 'There can't be, I think, the best of the great ... What remains is preference.'"

From the responses Lehman got, he drew up a composite list of 32 poets whose work was nominated by at least two guest editors. In alphabetical order:

• A. R. Ammons
• W. H. Auden
  W. H. Auden
  Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
  
  
• John Ashbery
  John Ashbery
  John Lawrence Ashbery is an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But Ashbery's work still proves controversial...
  
  
• John Berryman
  John Berryman
  John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
  
  
• Elizabeth Bishop
  Elizabeth Bishop
  Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
  
  
• Gwendolyn Brooks
  Gwendolyn Brooks
  Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.-Biography:...
  
  
• Hart Crane
  Hart Crane
  -Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
  
  
• Robert Creeley
  Robert Creeley
  Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
  
  

• T. S. Eliot
  T. S. Eliot
  Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
  
  
• Robert Frost
  Robert Frost
  Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
  
  
• Robert Hayden
  Robert Hayden
  Robert Hayden was an American poet, essayist, educator. He was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1976.-Biography:...
  
  
• Langston Hughes
  Langston Hughes
  James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
  
  
• Randall Jarrell
  Randall Jarrell
  Randall Jarrell was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role which now holds the title of US Poet Laureate.-Life:Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee...
  
  
• Kenneth Koch
  Kenneth Koch
  Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...
  
  
• Robert Lowell
  Robert Lowell
  Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
  
  
• James Merrill
  James Merrill
  James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies...
  
  

• Marianne Moore
  Marianne Moore
  Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
  
  
• Frank O'Hara
  Frank O'Hara
  Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
  
  
• Sylvia Plath
  Sylvia Plath
  Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
  
  
• Ezra Pound
  Ezra Pound
  Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
  
  
• Kenneth Rexroth
  Kenneth Rexroth
  Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
  
  
• Edwin Arlington Robinson
  Edwin Arlington Robinson
  Edwin Arlington Robinson was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.- Biography :Robinson was born in Head Tide, Lincoln County, Maine, but his family moved to Gardiner, Maine, in 1870...
  
  
• Theodore Roethke
  Theodore Roethke
  Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
  
  
• James Schuyler
  James Schuyler
  James Marcus Schuyler was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection The Morning of the Poem...
  
  

• Delmore Schwartz
  Delmore Schwartz
  Delmore Schwartz was an American poet and short story writer from Brooklyn, New York.-Biography:Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when Schwartz was nine, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. Later, in 1930,...
  
  
• William Stafford
• Gertrude Stein
  Gertrude Stein
  Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
  
  
• Wallace Stevens
  Wallace Stevens
  Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
  
  
• Robert Penn Warren
  Robert Penn Warren
  Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
  
  
• Richard Wilbur
  Richard Wilbur
  Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....
  
  
• William Carlos Williams
  William Carlos Williams
  William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
  
  
• James Wright
  James Wright (poet)
  James Arlington Wright was an American poet.Wright first emerged on the literary scene in 1956 with The Green Wall, a collection of formalist verse that was awarded the prestigious Yale Younger Poets Prize. But by the early 1960s, Wright, increasingly influenced by the Spanish language...
  
  

External links

• Web page for contents of the book, with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared