Customer Reviews

The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)

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I like this book, an annual publication with this year's selection and introduction by Billy Collins. I doubt that I would select these particular 75 as the "best" of the year if I were the emperor, but these poems are very readable, quite varied, and their subjects are often of considerable human interest, including several that are quite humorous. The sources include such varied publications as The New Yorker, Five Points and New American Writing. You don't need an MFA, an encyclopedia of mythology or a French dictionary to read it. Most lines make sense! Every poem has an expanded note at the back of the book that tells a little about the author and (in most cases) a little about the author's view of the poem. Some people would hate this feature, but I liked it.

My criticism? Almost the same as my praise. The poems are a little too vanilla, a little too PBS/NPR. The selection seems to be aimed at an older, middle-class audience that fancies itself to still have some intellectual sea legs, but doesn't want to get off the cruise ship and mix with the locals (there - I said it). There's not much for the adventurous or those who are looking for challenges, experimentation, unusual verbal/mental stimulation, or points of view beyond 1 standard deviation. Those who are familiar with pop literary criticism will fit this book somewhere into the kleinzahler-keillor spectrum and probably takes sides accordingly. I lean toward the kleinzahler in my preferences, but would definitely put this book in the keillor camp. The poet demographics are largely older white men, though there is a sprinkling of females (several, actually), youth, other nationalities, and people of color. Geezers are capable of some good poetry, and this book gives some examples.

There were several poems that I enjoyed a lot. These include "Race" by Bao Phi, "Religion" by Robert Wrigley, "Briefcase of Sorrow" by Richard Newman, and "The Sharper the Berry" by Mark Pawlak.

Although not my favorite, the most memorable poem for me is "Towards some bright moment" by Stephen Dobyns. The poet describes a scene he witnessed in New York City where a blind woman is kicking and cursing her dog. I believe I witnessed the same scene. At the time and location that he describes in the poem, I also witnessed a blind woman hitting and cursing her dog. And like the poet, I have also thought about that event a lot since then. My conclusions were a little more trivial than his - "Only in New York," I thought. "Why didn't I call PETA," says he, to put both reactions in a very small nutshell. This scene seems like something out an R. Crumb comic, where one person's shock is another person's poem - and then that person's poem can inspire the first person. To activate this scenario, I join the club and write this almost-haiku:

blind woman
kicking her dog
Yeow! a poem's birth hurts.

A little bit of compulsive sociology: as noted above, most of the poets in this collection are relatively old. I made of list of birth years (extracted from those wonderful end notes), and the average age is 52. I believe there were 4 in their 20s, but 18 in their 60s, 3 in their 70s and one octogenarian. Like I said, some of these geezers can write.

This smugly-edited series has become a dreary example of careerist nepotism and features mainly short stories with linebreaks and jokey poems that are not funny.

Some choice awful lines:

Denise Duhamel: "Don't give into your cravings, you need to stay lean / So you can lift up your skirt as you prance and twirl..."

Kim Addonizio: "Better dead then fed. / He who laughs will not last. / Sticks and stones will break you,"

Thomas Lux: "that the eyes be gouged out / and replaced by hot coals / in the head, _the blockhead_,/ of each countrymen or woman who, / upon reaching their majority, / has yet to read MOBY DICK..."

Most of the poems herein, besides Franz Wright and Paul Violi among a scattered few, would have been better off as just titles than full poems. The big name poets featured have generally written better poems, the younger poets all seem to have some connection to the New School. It's incredibly disappointing: THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2006 could have been so much more. Instead, *it's* a joke.

In my mind, poetry books should be a little like a movie, comfortable like your favorite chair and mostly an unforgettable experience. I will agree that most poems are only appealing if they somehow find their way into your psyche and heart in a way that is comforting, shocking, beautiful or even soul revealing.

Each poet is a world unto themselves and each poem is a door into a magical world where you either love or dislike the pathway you have chosen. The beauty of poetry is in how we vary in how we relate to any particular poem.

In "The Best American Poetry 2006," I found so many doorways to new thoughts it was as if this book contained 20 worlds from which to view life and its many moments invisibly charged with crystalline emotions, edgy contemplations, tantalizing twists and taunting mysteries.

I was relieved to read that even Billy Collins was unfamiliar with so many of these modern poets, although I was delighted to have found so many new poets whose work I enjoyed. Being a fan of Billy Collins' poetry seems to have enhanced my reading experience. His humor seems to jump out from various poems in a way that you might find his poems funny.

The surprising elements seem to mirror some of his own poetic genius and his love for scene painting with delicious sentences makes many of these poems comforting escapes into a certain normality infused with the inevitability of surprise and a subtle infusion of emotional complexity. Just as in life, some of the poems have a mind of their own and take off in playful directions, almost guiding the poet's mind in a temptation of language lust.

If you are looking for poems with highly complex structures and obscure words you need to look up in a dictionary, this does not produce such literary excitement, but what it does produce is a variety of emotional responses. These range from outright elation and laughing to deeply profound moods born of a life lived with longing and moments of reflection and regret.

From the fascinating foreword by David Lehman to the contributor's notes and comments, this book is filled with poems, stories of modern poets and journeys through worlds we know and love. We are at times riding on a boat writing a poem that sounds more like a letter (The Ferry), entering a bibliomaniac's world where a book is more appealing than the sight of a woman (Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women) and returning to past moments of great romantic significance as in the poem by Beth Ann Fennelly.

In Sarah Gorham's poem she speaks of two different ideas, but they merge and a beautiful image of souls falling like stars descends on your imagination. A poem about a Mermaid brings a sweet playfulness to the book and one poem takes you on a jaunty ride into rhythmic pleasure. There are a few poems with shocking conclusions that are quite funny and others that left me wondering how the poet was able to survive emotionally all these years to write about such disaster of the heart. My heart was captured by the poems of Kim Addonizio, Debora Greger, Mary Oliver, Mary Jo Salter, Terence Winch, Alison Townsend (she had me in tears), Reb Livingston (reminded me of childhood) and so many more. I think Dean Young has an interesting take on an idea from Alice in Wonderland.

I love the rebellious spirit in "Briefcase of Sorrow" where Richard Newman teasingly takes on a quote by Frances Mayes and literally paints an image based off a few words that seem to imply failure...and the poem races past the finish line and we feel like cheering, even silently. I will admit to the difficulty of even extracting a few lines to explain the beauty of the poems, because honestly the sentences are tightly woven together with meanings the reader could miss without the entire picture being painted in a set sequence of events that draws you in and presents clarity that often leads to a mysterious conclusions with a variety of interpretations. Instead of a moment here and a line there, you receive a much fuller experience and it is also emotionally satisfying.

Throughout The Best American Poetry 2006 you will find deliciously modern poems with pop culture references and plenty of moments you can relate to on a daily basis. This book is not filled with poems gathered from molding collections dusty with neglect found in some forgotten library. This is a collection of living breathing poems that sing the songs of seventy-five contemporary poets who reveal to us the life we are currently living and in that is the beauty of this reading experience.

If you are looking for modern romantic poetry, I can highly recommend "Eyes of the Poet" or "Poetry Collection de Jolie-Laide." For a truly magical experience you may also love " Something Familiar" by Kat Ricker. To truly say you have lived, you may also want to listen to Billy Collins read his poems. If you love this book, you will adore his poems. As a poet myself and a reader of many poetry books over the past few years, I can recommend this book as a welcome addition to anyone interested in collecting modern poems.

~The Rebecca Review

It is good for those who are not inclined to keep up with currently published poets to see the choices of a poet laureate.

This series is really showing its age. The selection this year is particularly poor, with very few exceptions. The problem is that both Collins and Lehman prefer a kind of watered-down, anecdotal style rather than truly challenging work. Too many names are repeated from past BAPS.

Somthing must be done to alter this formula and give this series new life, because it really could be a great thing.

Wow, what a lot of bitter reviewers we have out there! Hey, it's Billy Collins, people, not T.S. Eliot. Let's face it; there are three basic schools of poetry out there right now and they often cannot stand one another: The brainy yet pretentious language poets; the studiously casual and often prosey Collins' types; and the, god-bless-'em, neo-formalists. Each has its own champs and failures, and BAP has had editors from each camp at one point or the other. Read this anthology and make up your own mind. Pay special attention to the work of Gaylord Brewer and Terrance Hayes. And please, breathe deeply and visualize a happy place . . .

There is no doubt in my mind that 06's collection is the best I've read (and I've been reading them for some time now), though to be fair, somehow I missed 2005--though I'm not much for Hejimen's taste. I'm not surprised how good this one is though, after all, Billy Collins selected them, and he is a phenomenal poet with great taste. He picked poems that covered all schools but were told in language and images that we can all appreciate and understand. Keep picking poets like this (hey, consider Gioia, Dave Mason and R.S. Gwynn--they'll give you collections as good or better than even this one.).

Since a great many contemporary poems leave me confused or disappointed, I was delighted to connect positively with so many of the seventy-five poems selected by guest editor, Billy Collins. The editor's Introduction brought insights that contributed to my enjoyment, as well as providing guidance to would-be poets. Of course, the guest editor makes a huge contribution to the success of this annual series, and Billy Collins has ferreted out some treasures for 2006.

Collins' poetry is one of "accessibility"--a term he expands upon greatly in his introductory remarks, and there, his voice is firm and assured about the kind of poetry he favors versus drivel passing for verse in contemporary American poetry. Sure, Collins' poetics might not gel very well with the crap being published today, but that is his singular stance and vision of what American poetry is like in 2006, one filled with "Laughter in the Dark" (to borrow a scintillating title by Nabokov).

To call this year's edition of Best American Poetry a triumph of mediocrity would be sufficiently charitable an act to count as one, perhaps two, of the three miracles required for sainthood. It is, in fact, a triumph of badness: in evidence here is bland, tepid, listless language; strained and ultimately fruitless attempts at humor; clarity at the expense of vision, imagination, rich language, innovation. Do not be fooled into thinking this anthology contains poems constituting any sort of "survey course" in modern poetry; it is, instead, made up of that particular brand of poetry, poetry-by-friends, which one man in a position of authority in the poetry community (David Lehman) happens to enjoy, and in this he is at odds with most of his contemporaries--for whom how well you write is substantially more important than who you know, who you've studied under, and where you live (cf. New York City). This anthology casts a shockingly short net in a remarkably deep ocean of literary talent. If you're looking to tune into what's happening now in the world of poetry, buy any book by Joshua Beckman, Sarah Manguso, Rachel Zucker, or Dean Young (some of whom have appeared in the BAP series, but never represented by their best work, and only intermittently, at that). Or re-visit the best work of some masters (for whom the same caveat applies): Gerald Stern, Jorie Graham, and especially Franz Wright. Don't squander even a penny on this insipid and uninspired garbage--everything here is either the wrong poem by the right poet or the wrong poem by a poet with the right connections.