Reviews for The Best of Border Voices: Poet Laureates, Pulitizer Prize Winners & the Wisdom of Kids

The average rating for The Best of Border Voices: Poet Laureates, Pulitizer Prize Winners & the Wisdom of Kids based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-01-22 00:00:00 Martin Bonsen Loved having a piece of their works combined into one book.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-09-05 00:00:00 Rodney Bush Overall, I would give this collection a B average (technically an 86.9% 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 last month to read the last few entries in the 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. I am finding so far that I am all over the map and impressionable in both areas (I am only an amateur poet at this point, if that). I intended on reading the BAP series in reverse chronological order (I started with 2016, then 2015...), but I decided to break the trend after I became enamored with James Tate's poetry. I figured that if I enjoyed the poet selecting the poems, that there would be a greater chance that I would rate a collection with a solid B+ or even A- average. Alas, poetry is poetry. Although I ended up with a B average once more, I still found it interesting to find poems throughout the collection that reflected Tate's own. His tendency towards surrealism and his ability to outpour unexpected emotion is present in this collection. Masterpieces (10) "Love Song" by Joseph Brodsky "Lines Lost Among the Trees" by Billy Collins "The Death of John Berryman" by William Dickey "The Porcelain Couple" by Donald Hall "Her Body" by Daniel Halpern "Making It Stick" by Lawson Fusao Inada "Vermin" by William Matthews "Valediction" by Clare Rossini "Topophilia" by Mary Ruefle "The Plan" by Jack Turner Masterful (8) "Back in the World" by Ai "The Problem of Anxiety" by John Ashbery "Atomic Bride" by Thomas Sayers Ellis "The Bright Light of Responsibility" by Jennifer L. Knox "Shadow" by Josip Novakovich "Mostly Mick Jagger" by Catie Rosemurgy "Italian Eclogues" by Derek Walcott "Shadow Grammar" by Terrence Winch Masters Candidates (10) "The Exaggeration of Despair" by Sherman Alexie "You Know What I'm Saying" by Irving Feldman "Is About" by Allen Ginsberg "The Litany" by Dana Gioia "After Fighting for Hours" by Kate Gleason "The Poem That Was Once Called "Desperate" But Is Now Striving to Become the Perfect Love Poem" by Richard Jackson "Dust Storm" by Gray Jacobik "A Bill, Posted" by Philip Kobylarz "Empress of Sighs" by Beth Lisick "Recruiting Poster" by Hillel Schwarz Overall, I would absolutely to highly recommend approx. 38.3% of the poems contained in this volume. Out of the three that I've read