The Best American Poetry 2006: Series Editor David Lehman [Hardcover]

Billy Collins (Author), David Lehman (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Best American Poetry | Publication Date: September 12, 2006

"So welcome, readers, to a plurality of poets, a cornucopia of tropes, and a range of interests."

-- From Billy Collins's introduction

The Best American Poetry series offers a distinguished poet's selection of poems published in the course of a year. The guest editor for 2006 is Billy Collins, one of our most beloved poets, who has chosen poems of wit, humor, imagination, and surprise, in an array of styles and forms. The result is a celebration of the pleasures of poetry -- from Laura Cronk's marvelous "Sestina for the Newly Married" to the elegant limericks of R. S. Gwynn and from Reb Livingston on butter to Mark Halliday's "Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women."

In his charming and candid introduction Collins explains how he chose seventy-five poems from among the thousands he considered. With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's thought-provoking foreword, The Best American Poetry 2006 is a brilliant addition to a series that links the most noteworthy verse and prose poems of our time to a readership as discerning as it is devoted to the art of poetry.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In the 19th installment of this annual series, former poet laureate Collins (The Trouble with Poetry, 2005), one of America's most popular poets ever, has culled the typical handful of big names and some surprising new voices from more than 50 American literary publications. Collins's predilections for accessibility, humor and tidy forms are evident, but there are also surprises. Usual suspects—former Best American editors Ashbery (who surprises with a poem in neatly rhymed couplets), Hass, Simic, Tate and Muldoon, as well as Mary Oliver—meet rising masters like Kay Ryan ("A bird's/ worth of weight/ or one bird-weight/ of Wordsworth"), Vijay Seshadri and Franz Wright. Most interesting, however, is the chance each volume offers to see which up-and-comers make the cut. This year's roster includes edgy poems by Joy Katz, Danielle Pafunda ("my hair cramped with sexy"), Terrance Hayes, and Christian Hawkey ("O my/ beloved shovel-nosed mole"), among others. Collins's surprising and opinionated introduction—in which he admits that, unlike some of series editor David Lehman's previous guest editors, "the designation 'best' doesn't bother me," and offers his definition of a good poem (often one that "starts in the factual" and displays "a tone of playful irreverence")—may cause some controversy. (Sept.)
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From Booklist

Going strong since 1988, each volume in this excellent series is distinct. This year Collins, America's funniest, slyest, and most diabolically charismatic poet, takes the helm, prompting series editor Lehman to write an unusually frank foreword in which he measures the gap between Collins' great popularity with readers and the venomous criticism of his peers. Collins follows with an introduction in which he asserts that the most "alive and immediate poems . . . combine an acute awareness of tradition with a unique freshness of voice." Given the high-wire acrobatics of his own work, it's no surprise that Collins selected 75 vital and imaginative poems, many evincing "playful irreverence." There's Denise Duhamel's "Please Don't Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen"; Amy Gerstler's hilarious missive to a rebellious six-year-old on being boiled alive; Rachel Hadas citing Seuss, not Zeus; Bob Hicok at the movies; Kay Ryan on thin ice; and Mary Jo Salter asking, "Who says science fiction / is only set in the future?" Poetry writ large. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (September 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743229673
• ISBN-13: 978-0743229678
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,045,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)