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Best American Poetry 2017 (Editor) , David Lehman (Series Editor)

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Best American Poetry 2017

Natasha Trethewey (Editor) , David Lehman (Series Editor)

Best American Poetry 2017 Natasha Trethewey (Editor) , David Lehman (Series Editor) Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winner and nineteenth US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, 2017 brings together the most notable poems of the year in the series that offers “a vivid snapshot of what a distinguished poet finds exciting, fresh, and memorable” ().

Librarian of Congress James Billington says Natasha Trethewey “consistently and dramatically expanded the power” of the role of US Poet Laureate, holding office hours with the public, traveling the country, and reaching millions through her innovative PBS NewsHour segment “Where Poetry Lives.” Marilyn Nelson says “the wide scope of Trethewey’s interests and her adept handling of form have created an opus of classics both elegant and necessary.” With her selections and introductory essay for The Best American Poetry 2017, Trethewey will be highlighting even more “elegant and necessary” poems and poets, adding to the national conversation of verse and its role in our culture.

The Best American Poetry is not just another anthology; it serves as a guide to who’s who and what’s happening in American poetry and is an eagerly awaited publishing event each year. With Trethewey’s insightful touch and genius for plumbing the depths of history and personal experience to shape striking verse, The Best American Poetry 2017 is another brilliant addition to the series.

Best American Poetry 2017 Details

Date : Published September 5th 2017 by Scribner ISBN : 9781501127632 Author : Natasha Trethewey (Editor) , David Lehman (Series Editor) Format : Hardcover 256 pages Genre : Poetry, Anthologies, Contemporary

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From Reader Review Best American Poetry 2017 for online ebook

Joseph says

Best American Poetry 2017 series edited by David Lehman and guest edited by Natasha Trethewey is the 30th edition of this collection. Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at in . Trethewey is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2014. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard, and she is a former Poet Laureate of Mississippi. She is also the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, where she also directs the Creative Writing Program.

It has been a troublesome year for many. Lehmann opens with the controversial selection of Bob Dylan as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The selection divided many in the poetry field and was met by disappointment that a woman was not selected. Other were satisfied that some in the more bardish sense had won. Shortly afterward the United State held an election that further divided the country. Many in the arts were unhappy with the electoral results. Soon Twitter was ablaze with the "Resist" message from poets and writers. The new year also seemed to fill its pages with stories of police shooting unarmed men, women, and even children of color with follow-up stories of no charges filed against the shooter. For many, it was a fearful year and that despair is also reflected in this year's collection of poetry.

Bob Dylan only gets a passing mention in this collection by Chase Twichell in "Sad Song". However, the rest of the collection does reflect the other concerns in the previous paragraph. For those who read poetry because it offers an escape from modern problems and takes the reader to their own "Tintern Abbey", this collection is a reminder of the real world and your news feed. From the opening poem "Weapons Discharge Report" by Dan Albergotti through Monica Youn's "Greenacre" the tone is set. Pamela Sutton's "Afraid to Pray" almost seems to predict the recent trouble in Charlottesville. R.T. Smith's "Maricon" reminds the reader that hatred goes deeper than race. The poems are not all of rage but of reflection. Danusha Lameris' "The Watch" runs deep.

This year's Best American Poetry is not the escapism or the celebration usually associated with a "best" series. It takes poetry as a voice of resistance and information. Like people, in general, poetry can hide in the background and not become a political or social tool for change, but only for so long. Arts are meant to be a reflection of society. Today art is being cut in public schools to save costs. The current proposed budget plans to cut both the NEA and NEH. When art, as well as people, are threatened they fight back. Here, poetry is using its voice to remind us what society and its leaders have become. We are losing our ability to evade the outside world with arts be it reading, painting, or music. Although it would be hyperbole to compare this collection to Picasso's Guernica, it is a warning.

Ace Boggess says

As with every edition of BAP, I'm not fond of every poem in here, but I love and connect with the majority of them, while recognizing what qualities this year's editor sees in the rest. It's an outstanding edition. Series Editor David Lehman's introduction is likely his best in several years, especially while musing on the debate over Bob Dylan's Novel win. Enough said. You know you're going to buy this book, so just do it already.

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Peycho Kanev says

James Valvis

Something

The minute the doctor says colon cancer you hardly hear anything else. He says other things, something about something. Tests need to be done, but with the symptoms and family something, excess weight, something about smoking, all of that together means something something something something, his voice a dumb hum like the sound of surf you know must be pounding, but the glass window that has dropped down between you allows only a muffled hiss like something something. He writes a prescription for something, which might be needed, he admits. He hands you something, says something, says goodbye, and you say something. In the car your wife says something something and something about dinner, about needing to eat, and the doctor wanting tests doesn’t mean anything, nothing, and something something something about not borrowing trouble or something. You pull into a restaurant where you do not eat but sit watching her eat something, two plates of something, blurry in an afternoon sun thick as ketchup, as you drink a glass of something-cola and try to recall what the doctor said about something he said was important, a grave matter of something or something else.

Jeimy says

As with any poetic anthology there are hits and there are misses. What fascinated me were the poems that Tretheway, the guest editor, chose. It felt like she is allowing the reader into her concerns about identity, politics, religion, and race relations. Ultimately, this was a satisfying read.

Terri says

The Best American Poetry 2017 is a diverse collection of work that hits on a bit of everything from politics and race to personal relationships and contemplation. The collection also includes a wide range of writing styles that can appeal to every poetry reader's appetite.

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There wasn't a single poem that stuck out to me as being a true masterpiece of the collection, but I will say that the collection as a whole is worth checking out--and much better than the 2016 collection. What I'm surprised about with this collection is the diverse style, range and subject matter, considering the small number of publications included from where these pieces were originally published. Those who enjoy reading poetry should be able to find a few pieces they like.

*Book provided by Net Galley

Ken says

Uneven. (How odd!) If you care enough to jump down a rabbit hole, the full review can be found on my award-winning blog.*

* awards given out by my dog in exchange for kibble

Alarie says

I rarely enjoy these “best” compilations. This series has disappointed me so many times, even when the guest editor was a favorite poet, that I’d decided against ever purchasing it again. Fortunately, my husband didn’t know that. He knows I own all Trethewey’s books, so he bought this collection for me. I loved it: not every poem, of course, but a surprising majority.

Given our troubling year and Trethewey’s role in speaking of racial problems, it isn’t surprising how many of the poems are activist poems, pulling our skeletons out of the closets. Yet they're powerful, eye-opening, and fresh with many different approaches: for example, Tony Hoagland’s poem about his father, “Cause of Death: Fox News.” “White” by Judson Mitcham, exams a savage murder of four black people, husbands with their wives, in 1946, two years before his birth, five miles from his grandmother’s home. He breaks the silence perpetrated by the previous generation that shielded white children from the ugly truth, which was also my experience growing up in the South. In “Bullet Points” by Jericho Brown, he begins, “I will not shoot myself,” heading off in advance any lies that may be perpetrated if he suddenly dies in an encounter with the police.

This is no one-note collection, though. Contrasts make good poems even better. In “Good Bones,” Maggie Smith begins, “Life is short, though I keep this from my children,” then goes on to name many of the other bad things she attempts to shelter them from. Michael Collier lightens the mood with “A Wild Tom Turkey,” describing the tom’s mating dance. Be sure to read Collier’s author notes, too, they’re as entertaining as the poem.

“Something” by James Valis is a poem most of us can identify with. He repeats “something” even “something something something” throughout the poem to illustrate how we can’t take in anything more after a doctor announces bad news. Too much repetition in a poem often annoys me, but it makes wonderful

PDF File: Best American Poetry 2017... 5 Read and Download Ebook Best American Poetry 2017... sense here, even lightens the mood: his wife eats “two plates of something.” His author’s notes are also a must read.

If you are a poet in this collection and I didn’t name you, there’s a good chance there’s a star by your name in my Contents.

Jessica says

Favorites:

Nickole Brown, "The Dead" Allison Cobb, "I Forgive You" Michael Collier, "A Wild Tom Turkey" Aracelis Girmay, "from The Black Maria" John Murillo, "Upon Reading That Eric Dolphy Transcribed Even the Calls of Certain Species of Birds," Joyce Carol Oates, "To Marlon Brando in Hell" Matthew Olzmann, "Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czes?aw Mi?osz" Danez Smith, "last summer of innocence" Maggie Smith, "Good Bones"

Judi Easley says

My Disclaimer:

I was provided a free copy of this book by the author’s representative, NetGalley. I am voluntarily providing an honest review in which all opinions are fully my own. I am not being compensated in any way.

~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review

My Review: ✭✭✭✭?

This is a powerful and moving collection of poems that speak of the condition of life in our country and in our homes and families. Some were sad. Some were painful. Some were elegant and wonderful. And some were just so much gibberish. Remember this is my opinion. Poetry is a personal experience and needs to speak to the reader.

There are 75 poems in this collection. I chose 24% of the collection, that’s 18 poems that really spoke to me personally and had particular meaning to me for one reason or another. I read the bios and comments on those poets and really enjoyed them. They made the poems even more meaningful to me and connected me to the poets more personally. I’m very glad this section was done the way it was with the comments from the poets on their state of mind when they wrote these particular poems. I haven’t read any of the previous collections in this series, so I don’t know if this is the standard format, but I really liked this inclusion.

I fully intend to seek out previous years’ collections and read some of them. The quality of the poetry is impressive. It also struck a chord within me to continue my own pursuit of poetry, as I too enjoy writing in the free-form style. I entered the giveaway, but if I don’t win, I fully intend to buy a print copy of this book

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I can’t recommend this highly enough to those of you who enjoy poetry. And to those of you who aren’t that familiar with it, give this book a try. You may find that this will appeal to you and speak to you as it is really about our lives today as we live it and see it played out on the nightly news and in the papers. Kudos, to Natasha Trethewey for her efforts.

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Best American Poetry 2017 by David Lehman

Best American Poetry 2017 by David Lehman, Natasha Trethewey

Release date: Sep 05, 2017

Enter to win a copy of Best American Poetry 2017, this year’s addition to the brilliant series of the most notable poems of the year, edited by Pulitz…more

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Karen Lewis says

The BEST AMERICAN POETRY series collects a wide range of contemporary poems. An essential book for classrooms, libraries, and individual readers who want a middle-of-the-night or difficult-day companion to encourage them through rough spots and to inspire them to engage with language and possibility. I love it as a desk reference and use examples when organizing lesson plans for poetry writing workshops.

The 2017 collection is curated by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway, whose foreword sets the tone:

“Both my parents knew that I would need an ‘education by poetry’ to be safe in the world I’d entered. In 1966, when I was born, their interracial marriage was illegal in Mississippi and as many as twenty other states in the nation, rendering me illegitimate in the eyes of the law, persona non grata.”

Illuminated here are crosscurrents of American poetic soul, vibrating with poems that reckon with the difficult political moment of the current presidency. These poems sing to an America torn with racial conflict, alive with immigration questions, grappling with international wars, climate change, and so many other stresses. Poetry (metaphor, image, sound) is uniquely attuned to illuminate complicated truths and confusing moments of being human. Here, readers will discover individual human experience (of more than

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70 poets), a shared landscape, the shared moment of being alive in 2017 and claiming language and form to shape diverse and heart-opening literature.

Tretheway affirms: “We need the truth of poetry, and its beauty, now more than ever.”

This review is based on an ARC from NetGalley.

Mike says

Uneven, and about as subjective as it gets, which is to be expected in any editor selected compilation. The L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E poets and their interminable lists and prompt-based workshop poems get a little too much burn here, but in between Tretheway's obvious inside pool picks from her schools and pals, there are some brilliant poems. The best of the best, in my opinion come from Aracelis Girmay, , and the sublime John Murillo. Would have liked to have seen more in here from the Cave Canem poets, who are the most vital voices in American poetry today. emma says hit or miss, read for class. i never love this series, and having heard the dramas revolving around who gets picked, i never have much faith that it's worth the hype as "the best" american poetry of the year.

Greg says

This anthology contains one poem that I really liked, by Robert Conquest: "There was a great Marxist called Lenin Who did two or three million men in. That's a lot to have done in But where he did one in That grand Marxist Stalin did ten in."

The only problem is that this limerick, the best in the book, occurs in the Preface written by the editor of this series.

Apparently David Lehman is the "series editor" and Natasha Trethewey is the "guest editor," and she chose the poems for this piece. So it's possible that I happened to land on a year where the editor and I have wildly divergent tastes in poetry.

What did I expect from the book? Well, I don't know the work of many living authors, so I just wanted to get a feel for what the modern American style is and see some names that I might follow up on later, if their work seemed promising.

I was gratified in a mixed way in the preface when David Lehman gave a full-throated defense of Bob Dylan's Nobel prize, even though I'm still not sure that I personally agree with his selection, as I think Leonard Cohen's literary accomplishments are superior to Bob Dylan's, but I think it is fair and true to say that there are cases where some of our most skilled poets are working as songwriters, and the fact that the

PDF File: Best American Poetry 2017... 8 Read and Download Ebook Best American Poetry 2017... poems are put to music is not of itself a valid dismissal of their poesy.

I was disconcerted to read, though, that some people feel that for something to be poetry, it has to work "on the page," and therefore a work that is primarily received auditorially is not poetry. Rubbish.

I suppose there are several ways of defining what poetry is, and this anthology makes one wonder in almost every poem, "Is this really a poem at all?" What most of these are, are short prose passages with extra line breaks. They are not generally marked by any sort of lyrical cadence, rhyme, plays on word, or succinct construction.

The poem "Emanations" by David St. John, whom I don't mean to call out as being particularly flagrant, because he is merely representative, writes, "I was taking Evangeline to rehab in Pacific Grove twenty years ago/a place near Point Pinos Lighthouse". It is hard for me to imagine under what division scheme between poetry and prose this sentence lands on the poetry side.

They're not all short prose essays--there are also lists. I have a special contempt for list poems, like "Things that Break" by Jamaal May. Again, not trying to say he's uniquely bad, just representative.

I was disappointed at the two-note thematic approach to the collection. We have poems of racial and political outrage and generally morose navel-gazing poems, often plying the not-oft-enough-maligned trade of drawing lines of thematic insight between two very tenuously connected events, such as a snowstorm and spiritual exhaustion ("I Went for a Walk in Winter," Sherod Santos) or viewing an exhibition of ruined planes in Hanoi with the recent revelation of one's heart condition ("Assemblage of Ruined Plane Parts, Vietname Military Museum, Hanoi" by Paisley Rekdal.)

I don't mean to be savage, but there's not much in here that's good or even interesting. But maybe it depends on what you think poetry is and what you like.

I am not a scholar of poetry, but for me, poetry is essentially verbal and auditory. It was, I would think, an aide to memorizing passages, with rhyme and meter allowing for easier retention and recall, the first rhyme implying the second, the cadence recalling to you the exact words and phrasing chosen, as other manners of expressing the same meaning won't fit.

For this reason, in my opinion, it's no stretch to call song lyrics poetry. Music with lyrics isn't necessarily poetry, but I think lots of inventive lyricists fit the bill in this day and age.

However, in these poems, there is no cadence and it's too much to ask for rhyme. The long-serving forms are usually ignored, the evident compression of meaning one finds in the sonnets of Shakespeare is absent, and emotional expression, but always of profound emotions, is the order of the day. As if it were the intentions that made the poem great, the poem that the poet was trying to write, but not the poem that was actually written, that we should be giving credit for. As if it were too much to ask that the poem be honed and sharpened, and then once again, and then again, until the edges are perfectly straight and the burrs filed off. It's a sharp knife we're wanting, but we're getting a serrated blade instead, something that doesn't cleave but hacks through, and the poets hold up the raggedy slice to our eyes and say "Gets the job done." WELL GET BENT, BECAUSE I DON'T WANT RAGGEDY SLICES!

Getting serious, though, if this is the best that America had on offer last year, I am very sad.

Update: I found the quote I was looking for to put the paragraph previous to the previous one beside its textual justification. On talking about Bob Dylan's nobel prize, Lehman praises his allusions, his sense for the zeitgeist, his visionary lines, or how convincing are the airs that Dylan puts on as an artist in the songs.

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He then says that "The rhymes in 'Like a Rolling Stone' and 'I Want You' prove that there is still a lot of life left in that venerable device."

That "venerable device?" It's exactly Lehman's attitude toward poetry that I'm protesting in this review. What he praises is Dylan's expression, but not Dylan's craftmanship. It is that latter trait that is uniquely strong in Dylan's case. Example:

"Standing on the water, casting your bread While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing. Distant ships sailing into the mist You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing." -"Jokerman," Bob Dylan

Ignore for a second the imagery and focus solely on the sounds--the repetition of "isses" -- "ships," "mist," "fist." And what is it all about? Holding sssssnakes in your fissssts. Sonic repetition within rhymes: The EYES of the EYE-dol with the EYE-ron head are glowing. It's the tight craftsmanship that elevates this line, making it stick to the listener and making it thrum with energy. How might a poet of this book have rendered this verse? Not as powerfully as it's rendered here, I dare say. Probably with a surfeit of distracting details and relative clauses, and no concern for cadence, alliteration, structural repetition, or any of the well-worn shop tools of poets past that made their work a pleasure to speak and hear.

David Alexander says

The Best American Poetry 2017

Saturday, November 18, 2017 8:51 PM

As a whole, this anthology was rewarding. Many of the poems consist of kinds of lists, or naming. I think of Adam naming the animals in the garden of Eden. When this was combined with a compelling story, it tended to carry me more. "Weapons Discharge Report" and "I Forgive You" seem similar in such an approach, a cataloguing of physical aspects, absorbing because well done, but perhaps not that illuminating. A further desiccation of the lyric? Poetry gradually limited to the short lyrical poem, and then to listicals? But that is unkind to the brave, the few. Just showing up to poetry seems to take ganas in this climate. The racial themed poems varied in quality. While some struck me as fine and effective works, it does not escape me that this is an obligatory obsession of liberalism and a subject that tends to be automatically rewarded with a badge of profundity. A sign that this is so is that injustice is permitted so long as it is in protest of this vice. Perhaps this can be seen in the choice to include in the anthology Jericho Brown's "Bullet Points," a poem which contains overt bigotry against police: "I promise that if you hear/ Of me dead anywhere near/ A cop, then that cop killed me. He took/ Me from us and left my body…" The choice to include the poem coddles irrational animus against police. In this, I have no praise for the anthology. Some poems my mind returned to for some aspect of the poem, maybe not the whole poem: John Brehm's "Intrigue in the Trees", Mary Jo Bang's "Admission," John Ashberry's "Commotion of Birds," Isaac Cates's "Fidelity and the Dead Singer" and Pamela Sutton's "Afraid to Pray." There are many others and generally I at least derived something from the poems included in the anthology. I had formed prior, negative impressions of and Joyce Carol Oates' work but from the further exposure to them in this anthology, my judgment is mitigated. I like the element of play in Collins's poetry and it reminds me of Wislawa Szymborksa, whose poetry I rather like, though they are very different in other ways. I might give him another shot. Lucky me, because he seems to be one of the few poets on the radar in

PDF File: Best American Poetry 2017... 10 Read and Download Ebook Best American Poetry 2017... my public library system. It is impressive that John Ashberry has been writing poetry and publishing poetry for 60 years. It is grievous that my public library does not even recognize the name "Ashberry." I'd like to explore him more, but it will be without the help of the Baltimore Country Public Library system. When I consider the place of poetry in our culture, I am tempted to shield poetry from healthy criticism (including my own) because it seems like a slaughter out there, a towering obelisk of incomprehension and indifference. But culture needs poets to grapple with first things, and for their works to be ready when the soul opens. The soul should always stand ajar, that if the Heaven call, He will not be kept waiting, as Emily Dickinson noted, but unfortunately, the soul is often preoccupied with leisureless divertissement and work. Desertification of culture should not be aided by poets indulging in despair! There are some old friends (they have no idea who I am) appearing in the anthology. Christian Wiman (I have read most of the books he has published that I am aware of) and A. E. Stallings. I see some I ought to explore too such as and Philip Levine. The soul selects its own society and I do not pretend to have a pure take on the poems or to have given each their proper due. But some found accesses to me, windows through which they spoke. But I am also challenged by some to poke my head out the window and register others' pain and insights from perspectives foreign to me.

Dan Wilcox says

Find out what I think by coming to the review of this book I will be presenting in the Book Talk Series sponsored by the Friends of the Albany Public Library at 12:15, Tuesday, September 26, 2017, at the Albany Public Library Washington Ave. Branch, Albany, NY -- free! & refreshments!

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