The Best American Poetry 2005

Guest Editor, Paul Muldoon

David Lehman (View Bio)
Hardcover: Scribner, 2005; Paperback: Scribner, 2005.

Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year. "The all-consuming interests of American poetry are the all-consuming interests of poetry all over," writes Muldoon in his incisive introduction to the volume. The Best American Poetry 2005 features a superb company of artists ranging from established masters of the craft, such as John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Charles Wright, to rising stars like Kay Ryan, Tony Hoagland, and Beth Ann Fennelly. With insightful comments from the poets elucidating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword addressing the state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast.

"A ‘best’ anthology that really lives up to its title. This BEST AMERICAN POETRY does exactly, wonderfully, what the anthology at its best can do: It gives a good sense of the strongest work now being done in several poetic modes, and it introduces us to some newer or youngish poets while featuring excellent work by more-established poets. You never feel, reading this volume, that poets have been chosen for their brand-name value or for particular stylistic or party affiliations. " — Chicago Tribune