Reviews for The Best American Poetry 2009

The average rating for The Best American Poetry 2009 based on 4 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-10-05 00:00:00 Lisa Sica Nothing like a literary feud to kick things off. I have no idea how this year's edition of the BAP will go (I'm predicing the usual 3 stars), but it's probably a keeper due to Lehman's wreck-on-the-highway opening essay. (Seriously, it's right up there with Bloom's years ago tirade at Rich.) Clearly Lehman doesn't like bad boy poetry critic William Logan. But other than saying he, like so many suffering others, has been a target, he doesn't give specifics regarding his outrage. After a little detective work, I'm guessing the Big Hate comes from this Logan review: After reading this review, which seems both brutal and fair, Lehman seems to be the one with thin skin. There's nothing like a good anthology, but a poorly balanced one -- as Logan suggests the Oxford Book of American Poetry is, is a failure that should be underlined. Given the intended scope of the Oxford book, the omissions of some poets and the over representation of others that Logan points out in his review, ultimately, in the end, betray the reader. A discerning reader has to ask whether the editor is playing favorites or just being lazy (or both). Whatever. Now, I know Logan is a controversial figure. I once had a poetry friend tell me that after reading through one of Logan's chainsawings, he had to wonder if Logan even liked poetry. That in itself was sort of funny, but in general I disagree. Logan likes poetry, he just has a very high bar. If you read positive reviews from him on, as examples, Gjertrud Schnackenburg or Geoffrey Hill, you come away from such reviews thinking the poets being praised have no better friend. But getting back to the BAP 2009. Lehman's opening essay actually does have something to say, you just have to wade through the first half of its "gaseous" Logan bashing to get to it. It seems to me Lehman should of followed guest editor David Wagoner's low-key approach. Right now, after Lehman's fireworks, the poetry almost seems an afterthought. Lehman owed Wagoner, and the poets represented in this collection, better service as an editor. So perhaps Logan, without even trying this time, makes again his points regarding the duties and obligations of editing. Update -- 3 stars. Started out lame w/ yet another Ashbery poem which is clearly in the book for who wrote, and not what he wrote. But the next poem, Beasts and Violins, by Caleb Barber (a newbie), is a keeper. Actually, Guest Editor David Wagoner did well w/ the name poets this time. Mark Doty ("Apparition"), Albert Goldbarth ("Zones"), Philip Levine ("Words on the Wind" (might be my favorite this time around)), Barbara Hamby ("Ode to Airheads" (most interesting)). Adrienne Rich offered up a stinker ("Tonight no Poetry will Serve"), which is almost as bad Ashbery's effort. A couple of other newbies that I liked: Christine Marshall ("Sweat"), and Michael Johnson ("How to be Eaten by a Lion"). I don't know if it was an alphabet thing or not, but in the last third of the book I found few poems that held my interest.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-02-20 00:00:00 Ricardo Cruz Bravo Overall, I would give this collection a B- average (technically an 82.4% 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 in October of 2016 to read the entire 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. Oof. Although I respect David Wagoner's lifetime of contributions to American poetry (God knows he has done more for it than I have so far), I cannot endorse his 2009 selections as a whole. In fact, I feel that this is by far the worst edition of Best American Poetry that I have read so far. Just in case somebody is keeping tabs on me, yes, I realize that BAP 2015 (80.8%) has a lower average score than this 2009 entry. BUT, BAP 2015 also had a 36& proportion of poems that I would absolutely to highly recommend as opposed to the comparatively paltry 24% that this 2009 edition offers. When I rank all of the editions, I will have to take into account both numbers. Mr. Wagoner and I are at odds when it comes to our tastes in poetry. An overwhelming feeling of sameness and tameness rules this edition. More often than not, his selections simply didn't float my boat. Many of them just didn't have an entry point for me, whatever that means exactly. I acknowledge freely that these points are both difficult to articulate and different for everyone. It all comes down to language (obviously). Nothing is formally exciting or innovative. I noted multiple times throughout my reading that I had, in one way or another, seen most of these poems before somewhere. With all due respect to Mr. Wagoner, I also have critical qualms (and constructive solutions!) concerning a few of the more, to my mind, irresponsible poems that he chose for this edition. The culprits are Jim Harrison's "Sunday Discordancies" and Pamela Sutton's "Forty". My main issue with Harrison's poem is not his meandering, but where he consciously chooses to meander to about midway through. In the midst of his lines about birds, voles, and notes for a novel, Harrison chooses to casually refer to the war in Iraq and American soldiers: "[...] I was wondering at how the dogs often pretend that Sandhill Cranes don't exist despite their mighty squawks, like we can't hear the crying of coal miners or our wounded in Iraq. A friend on his deathbed cried and said it felt good. He was crying because he couldn't eat, a lifelong habit." I understand the message that Harrison is trying to send with these lines, but I take umbrage with it for a few reasons. First, the message itself is a trite one. Obviously, there are people who ignore (willfully or otherwise) the plights of American soldiers in foreign wars. However, the annoying thing about this line is that it simply reminds the reader of this and then putters off to another distraction. The cries of the wounded are merely used as a segue for the speaker to jump to the cries of somebody that is closer to him. In the end, nothing is done. The thought remains a trite flittering and nothing more. If Harrison feels the need to mention this issue at all, then why doesn't he devote a whole poem to it? As is, Harrison comes off as another "empathetic" liberal (I am by no means conservative by the way) who takes the time to briefly and seriously mention X WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST without attempting to resolve any of the ignorance or comment on it in any productive way. Instead, Harrison opts for casual exhale. This is the kind of attitude that far too many Americans take towards our wars. The fact that somebody of Harrison's linguistic talent and intellect wastes the opportunity to say anything productive on the matter is frankly irresponsible. The poem would be better off had he not mentioned the war at all, or the coal miners for that matter. Luckily, BAP 2009 is not without a poem that demonstrates exactly what Harrison neglects to do: a poem that pays proper, extended attention America's wars. This poem is Craig Morgan Teicher's stellar "Ultimately Justice Directs Them." In this poem, Teicher does not simply drop in America's wars as a peripheral detail. Instead, Teicher shows the intellectual respect and consideration that wars and our soldiers deserve. Take note Harrison: If you don't have something interesting to say about topics like war, terrorism, and tragedy then don't say anything at all. Unfortunately for us, Harrison's poem is not the chief offender when it comes to using headlines for throwaway pathos. The winner of that title goes to Pamela Sutton and her scattershot numbers poem "Forty." In this poem, Sutton feels that it is aesthetically pertinent to inject the specter of 9/11 into her numerical rambling: "One Colossus consecrated to the sun: One Rome, thousands of Visigoths. 911 2 towers 101 stories 2 planes 3 thousand dead. One evening in Florida the sun, hand over hand, drags notes from doves' throats like strands of tears." While Harrison was irresponsible as a poet and intellectually lazy with his throwaway mention of the Iraq war, Sutton turns unproductive headline-dropping into exploitation with her 9/11 mention. In part, this is the result of the poem's general lack of focus; the use of numbers relating to the Sutton's life is the only formal/ideological through line. But beyond the poem's mediocrity, there is something more concerning at play here. Being a genre built on ideas and emotional evocation, poetry and its writers should not stoop to the level of hack politicians who use 9/11 to sway voters into the doldrums of humanity's emotional range. Unfortunately, this is exactly what "Forty" appears to be doing. Using 9/11 as a cheap source of pathos has been ridiculed by satirists many times over the past decade (almost two). Apparently, Sutton did not get the message. Again, like Harrison, Sutton is simply using tragedy as a prop. A cheap shot that serves as a catch-all for readers and their unavoidable emotional associations with particularly ubiquitous numbers/words. Fortunately, just as Teicher's poem served as antidote to Harrison's offense, the reliable Bruce Bond provides a much-needed model with how to thoughtfully explore tragedy with the elegiac "Ringtone." While Sutton drops in a tragedy as a cheap attempt at evoking the reader's broad emotional range and then moves on to her next number, Bond takes time with a tragedy and provides a thoughtful glimpse at the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting. Here is Bond's poem in full: "As they loaded the dead onto the gurneys to wheel them from the university halls, who could have predicted the startled chirping in those pockets, the invisible bells and tiny metal music of the phones, in each the cheer of a voiceless song. Pop mostly, Timberlake, Shakira, tunes never more various now, more young, shibboleths of what a student hears, what chimes in the doorway to the parent on the line. Who could have answered there in proxy for the dead, received the panic with grace, however artless, a live bird gone still at the meeting of the strangers." Bond does everything that Sutton did not stop to consider with "Forty." With "Ringtone", Bond does what poets should: Bring to light new angles and perspectives from which to consider objects, animals, events, historical figures, etc. Tragedy is, for Bond, not a throwaway pathos-inducer, but a topic that is worth respect and meditation. Bond is exemplary for his care and empathy. He is a responsible poet and intellectual. I just wish that the same could be said for all of the poets who are selected to be in a series that claims to represent the "best" of our country's current poetic output. Thanks to another Goodreads review of this edition, I was lucky enough to find out about the most interesting aspect of this 2009 entry: a feud between David Lehman and William Logan. Typically, I merely skim the surface of Lehman's introductions and dive wholeheartedly into the guest editor's intros. Upon my initial skim, I missed out on what must be the most contentious critical fight of the century so far: Two poetry critics, duking it out viciously over their taste in American poetry. Logan had recently attacked Lehman for his questionable selections for the Oxford Book of American Poetry, and he did not hold back. While I disagree with Logan on many of his stances or at least some of his unnecessarily savage diction, it is nice to see a Simon Cowell in a field that desperately needs it. However, after reading Logan's review of Lehman's edition back to back with the three or so pages that Lehman devotes to striking back at Logan in his introduction, it is clear that Lehman rules the day when it comes to the strength of his argument (the basis of which being that Logan does not have very strong arguments). Regardless of the victor, it was invigorating to see true contention exist at all in today's critical landscape. Masterpieces (4) "Ringtone" by Bruce Bond "How It Will End" by Denise Duhamel "Insomnia" by Linda Pastan "Holding Action" by Jeanne Murray Walker Masterful (8) "Definition of Terms" by Michael J. Grabell "How to Be Eaten by a Lion" by Michael Johnson "Why do you keep putting animals in your poems?" by Lance Larsen "On Mercy" by Kevin Prufer "Heartlines" by Alexandra Teague "Ultimately Justice Directs Them" by Craig Morgan Teicher "No Pegasus" by Ronald Wallace "Cinderella's Last Will & Testament" by Debbie Yee Masters Candidates (6) "The Book of Steve" by Catherine Carter "The Great American Poem" by Billy Collins "Lingering Doubts" by J.D. McClatchy "Pickled Heads: St. Petersburg" by Susan Blackwell Ramsey "A Sea-Change" by Derek Walcott "Leaving Saint Peter's Basilica" by Lisa Williams Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 24% of the poems contained in this volume.

Review # 3 was written on 2016-07-16 00:00:00 Seth Bowen [ This is about the last, red words we wrung from him, the confession blotched on the alley side of the house: "I am not a queer. I am not a faggot"-- when faggot is just the broken end of a string, a lump, a bundle. And queer is the twist in us, the turn, the oblique torch we light and lift like a lamp beside the open door. (hide spoiler)]

Review # 4 was written on 2009-09-28 00:00:00 Penny Taylor I was a little underwhelmed with this year's selection, mostly with some of the overtly political poems. I thought David Lehman's introduction was very good and was, as usual, temporarily overcome with optimism about the state of American poetry that will fade, I'm sure, by next November, just in time for Lehman to prop me up again. My favorite poems in the anthology were: 1. "Freud" by James Cummins: a wide-ranging sestina that I feel provides a good counterpoint to the anti-Freud double abecedarian published in Best American by Julie Larios a few years ago. . . 2. "Zones" by Albert Goldbarth: any poet who is courageous enough to write about love and the universe gets my vote. . . 3. "What I Think of Death, If Anyone's Asking" by Maud Kelley: love, the universe, and cows in a field. 4. "Heartlines" by Alexandra Teague: a morning-after poem that's really about the speaker's parents 5. "No Pegasus" by Ronald Wallace: as sad and lovely as an ars poetica should be.