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37 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Another Anthology That Fails to Recognize and Reward The Best in American Poetry, September 11, 2007
This review is from: The Best American Poetry 2007 (The Best American Poetry) (Paperback)
It's generally accepted that this series is a political rather than a poetic one: The Best American Poems according to this series editor usually are 1 degree of poet separation from himself. Students, colleagues, former editors, wife, all aboard! That being said, this is not the worst of the series. McHugh choses pun over fun mostly, with poems that tend to sound like something rather than feel abound. "Tokens in the slot: / ka-shot, shot, shot." Too many poems from just NEW AMERICAN WRITING: if this series is to truly last it ought to cast a much wider and democratic net. There's lots more out there: a poet who relies on this series to tell them the news that stays news will be left out in the cold. Pinsky, Rivard, Matthea Harvey, Danielle Pafunda, MacGregor Card and Joe Wenderoth do some interesting things worth checking out. But most of these poems seem to be present if only to reward big poetic names for being big poetic names and for cheap gimmicks like using bad words for the sake of using bad words. As ever, poets will have to decide for themselves what makes these poems Best. The anthology mostly feels like dull coins being dropped into the Meghan O'Rourke poem quoted above. The peepshow reveals little that titillates. Too bad.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a welcome addition to the series, January 29, 2008
This review is from: The Best American Poetry 2007 (The Best American Poetry) (Paperback)
I've found many of the BAP series to be highly dissapointing. But it is hard to select a best of when it comes to poetry. It really depends on what you like to read. Now, there are some truly awful poems in here, and I'm not sure McHugh was the best choice as an editor, but she really picked some great poems. Sure about a quarter of them are awful, but most are readable or good. And then there are the great ones: Geffrey Brock, Galway Kinnell, Marya Rosenberg, David Shumate, Brian Turner, Charles Harper Webb and Joe Wenderoth. If you love poetry, you've gotta get this one.
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41 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Only in Heather McHugh's Mind is this the Best Poetry of 2007, September 26, 2007
This review is from: The Best American Poetry 2007 (The Best American Poetry) (Paperback)
It is impossible to imagine that this collection of dreck represents the best of 2007 (or any year in the last ten). In fact, as I was reading I kept thinking that these poems might be just the opposite of the best poems of the year. Not the worst, exactly, but certainly the least significant. It was as if Heather McHugh chose the year's most underachieved poems as some sort of existential joke. And the joke is on those of us who actually went out and bought this book.
There are the "usual suspects" here, those poets who appear in nearly all anthologies like this, year after year. Some of them deserve to be anthologized, but going on what's collected here, clearly these men and women have done MUCH better elsewhere. I couldn't shake the impression that what Heather McHugh really did was to call up her friends and asked them what they thought their best poems of the year were and then published them here. Mostly these poems are shallow and what depth there is to them is filled with narcissistic treacle.
It's also just as likely that there AREN'T any good poems being written anymore, now that MFA programs rule the world. Just about anybody can write a poem that exhibits some skill and get it published. Hall, Hass, Pinsky . . . these guys toss off poems the way other people spit. And who cares? What these guys have had to say that was important they said a long time ago. They're here because they are Names. And has Marvin Bell EVER taken poetry seriously? (I know he takes himself and his career VERY seriously.) These poems are also very short and it's clear that Heather McHugh hasn't met a long poem that she's ever liked. Also what is astonishing in this book is the length of the contributor's notes. The notes are actually designed to help us understand the poignancy of the "creative moment" that brought their precious child into existence, and often the exegesis is longer than the poem. Certainly in some cases, their explanations pass for holy writ (perhaps to help future graduate students at Iowa City in 2117 understand them better).
These are poems really are nothing more than jokes, asides, flirtations, burps, sneezes, knock-offs and yawns--all glazed over with the rich patina of assured immortality. These people are SO in love with their own words. Unfortunately, they've all got wonderful teaching jobs and continue to influence generations of younger poets who will grow up to write the same drivel. We are a civilization in decline. We can't write any more good music, we can't make any more good movies, and our poetry sucks. (Except for Albert Goldbarth, the only truly great poet represented here.) Pretend this book is kryptonite and fly away somewhere else.
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