The Best American Poetry 1996
Encyclopedia
The Best American Poetry 1996, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman
and by guest editor Adrienne Rich
.
David Lehman
David Lehman is a poet and the series editor for The Best American Poetry series. He teaches at The New School in New York City.-Career:...
and by guest editor Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
.
Poets and poems included
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Latif Asad Abdullah | "The Tombs" | Extracts from Pelican Bay |
| Sherman Alexie Sherman Alexie Sherman Joseph Alexie, Jr. is a writer, poet, filmmaker, and occasional comedian. Much of his writing draws on his experiences as a Native American. Two of Alexie's best known works are The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven , a book of short stories and Smoke Signals, a film... |
"Capital Punishment" | Indiana Review Indiana Review Indiana Review ' is a small, student-run literary magazine at Indiana University. Founded in 1976, it has a circulation of about 2,000.A biannual review, IR publishes essays, fiction, graphic arts, interviews, poetry, and reviews... |
| Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C... |
"Morning in the Burned House" | North American Review North American Review The North American Review was the first literary magazine in the United States. Founded in Boston in 1815 by journalist Nathan Hale and others, it was published continuously until 1940, when publication was suspended due to J. H. Smyth, who had purchased the magazine, being unmasked as a Japanese... |
| Thomas Avena | "Cancer Garden" | The Occident |
| Marie Annharte Baker Marie Annharte Baker Marie Annharte is an Anishnabe poet and author, a cultural critic and activist, and a performance artist/contemporary storyteller. Former surnames are Baker and Funmaker.... |
"Porkskin Panorama" | Callaloo Callaloo Callaloo is a popular Caribbean dish served in different variants in across the Caribbean. The main ingredient is a leaf vegetable, traditionally either amaranth , taro or Xanthosoma. Both are known by many names including callaloo, coco, tannia, bhaaji, or dasheen bush... |
| Sidney Burris | "Strong's Winter" | The Southern Review |
| Rosemary Catacalos | "David Talamantez on the Last Day of Second Grade" |
The Texas Observer The Texas Observer The Texas Observer is an American political newsmagazine published bi-weekly and based in Downtown Austin, Texas. The non-profit magazine is nonpartisan, but the publication has historically been an advocate for liberal politics... |
| Marilyn Chin Marilyn Chin Marilyn Chin is an American poet who grew up in Portland, Oregon, after her family immigrated from Hong Kong. She received an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Her awards include two National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Stegner Fellowship, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award,... |
"Cauldron" | The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review is a Literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, USA, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959... |
| Wanda Coleman Wanda Coleman Wanda Coleman is an American poet. She is known as "the L.A. Blueswoman," and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles."-Biography:... |
"American Sonnet (35)" | River City |
| Jacqueline Dash | "Me Again" | In Time |
| Ingrid de Kok Ingrid de Kok - Biography :Ingrid de Kok grew up in Stilfontein, a gold mining town in what was then the Western Transvaal. When she was 12 years old, her parents moved to Johannesburg. In 1977 she emigrated to Canada where she lived until returning to South Africa in 1984. She has one child, a son... |
"Transfer" | TriQuarterly |
| William Dickey William Dickey (poet) William Hobart Dickey was an American poet and professor of English and creative writing at San Francisco State University. He authored 15 books of poetry over a career that lasted three and a half decades.... |
"The Arrival of the Titanic" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| Nancy Eimers Nancy Eimers -Life:She graduated from Indiana University with an M.A., from the University of Arizona with an M.F.A., and from the University of Houston with a Ph.D. She teaches at Western Michigan University... |
"A Night Without Stars" | Alaska Review Quarterly |
| Nancy Eimers Nancy Eimers -Life:She graduated from Indiana University with an M.A., from the University of Arizona with an M.F.A., and from the University of Houston with a Ph.D. She teaches at Western Michigan University... |
"A History of Navigation" | Poetry Northwest Poetry Northwest Poetry Northwest was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, and Nelson Bentley as co-editors... |
| Martin Espada Martín Espada Martín Espada is a Latino poet, and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.- Life and career :Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York... |
"Rednecks" | Ploughshares Ploughshares Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston... |
| Martin Espada Martín Espada Martín Espada is a Latino poet, and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he teaches poetry. Puerto Rico has frequently been featured as a theme in his poems.- Life and career :Espada was born in Brooklyn, New York... |
"Sleeping on the Bus" | The Progressive The Progressive The Progressive is an American monthly magazine of politics, culture and progressivism with a pronounced liberal perspective on some issues. Known for its pacifism, it has strongly opposed military interventions, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The magazine also devotes much coverage... |
| Beth Ann Fennelly | "Poem Not to Be Read at Your Wedding" |
Farmer's Market |
| Robert C. Fuentes | "In This Place" | Extracts from Pelican Bay |
| Rámon Garcia, Salmo | "Para El" | The Americas Review |
| Suzanne Gardinier Suzanne Gardinier -Life:Suzanne Gardinier grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts. She completed her B.A. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981, and her MFA at Columbia University, in 1986. She is the author of a long poem called The New World... |
"Two Girls" | The American Voice |
| Frank Gaspar | "Kapital" | The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review is a Literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, USA, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959... |
| Reginald Gibbons Reginald Gibbons Reginald Gibbons is an American poet, fiction writer, translator, literary critic, artist, and Professor of English, Classics, and Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University... |
"White Beach" | The Southern Review |
| C. S. Giscombe C. S. Giscombe Cecil S. Giscombe is an African American poet and professor of English at University of California, Berkeley.-Life:A graduate of SUNY at Albany and Cornell University, he was editor of Epoch magazine... |
"All (Facts, Stories, Chance)" | River Styx |
| Kimiko Hahn Kimiko Hahn Kimiko Hahn is an American poet and instructor of poetry.-Personal:Hahn received a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa and an M.A... |
"Possession: A Zuihitsu" | Another Chicago Magazine |
| Gail Hanlon | "Plainsong" | Poetry Flash Poetry Flash Poetry Flash is a literary magazine and website based in the San Francisco Bay Area; it has been called "an institution in the Bay Area's literary culture". It publishes literary reviews, poetry, interviews, and essays as well as an extensive calendar of literary activities on the west coast of... |
| Henry Hart | "The Prisoner of Camau" | Beloit Poetry Journal |
| William Heyen William Heyen William Helmuth Heyen is an American poet, editor, and literary critic. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Suffolk County... |
"The Steadying" | Triquarterly |
| Jonathan Johnson | "Renewal" | Cream City Review |
| Jane Kenyon Jane Kenyon Jane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant.-Life:... |
"Reading Aloud to My Father" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| August Kleinzahler August Kleinzahler -Life and career:Until he was 11, he went to school in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he grew up. He then commuted to the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, graduating in 1967. He wrote poetry from this time, inspired by Keats and Kenneth Rexroth translations, among other works... |
"Two Canadian Landscapes" | Private |
| Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly... |
"Nude Study" | The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review The Kenyon Review is a Literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, USA, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959... |
| Stanley Kunitz Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.-Biography:... |
"Touch Me" | The New Yorker The New Yorker The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast... |
| Natasha Le Bel | "Foot Fire Burn Dance" | Hanging Loose |
| Natasha Le Bel | "Boxing the Female" | Hanging Loose |
| Carolyn Lei-Lanilau Carolyn Lei-Lanilau Carolyn Leilani Yu Zhen Lau is an American poet.-Life:She graduated from San Francisco State University with an M.A. in English... |
"Kolohe or Communication" | Manoa |
| Valerie Martínez Valerie Martínez Valerie Martínez is an American poet, teacher, playwright, and translator. She is author of three poetry collections, most recently Each and Her , a poetic exploration of the femicides in Ciudad Juárez and the surrounding areas... |
"It Is Not" | Prairie Schooner Prairie Schooner (magazine) Prairie Schooner is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press... |
| Davis McCombs Davis McCombs Davis McCombs is an American poet. He attended Harvard University as an undergraduate, the University of Virginia as a Henry Hoyns Fellow, and Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He is also the recipient of fellowships from the Ruth Lilly Poetry Foundation, the Kentucky Arts Council,... |
"The River and Under the River" | No Roses Review |
| Sandra McPherson Sandra McPherson Sandra McPherson is an American poet.Born in San Jose, California, McPherson received her B.A. at San Jose State University, and studied at the University of Washington, with Elizabeth Bishop and David Wagoner.... |
"Edge Effect" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| James Merrill James Merrill James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies... |
"b o d y" | The New York Times The New York Times The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization... |
| W. S. Merwin W. S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin is an American poet, credited with over 30 books of poetry, translation and prose. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin's writing influence derived from... |
"Lament for the Makers" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| Jane Miller Jane Miller -Life:Jane Miller was born in New York and currently lives in Tucson, Arizona where she teaches creative writing at the University of Arizona. She has published seven volumes of poetry of which The Greater Leisures was a National Poetry Series selection... |
"Far Away" | Colorado Review Colorado Review Colorado Review is a major American literary journal published by the Center for Literary Publishing at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.The journal presents the annual Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction... |
| Susan Mitchell Susan Mitchell Susan Mitchell is an American poet, essayist and translator who wrote the poetry collections Rapture and Erotikon.-Life:... |
"Girl Tearing Up Her Face" | The Paris Review |
| Pat Mora Pat Mora Pat Mora is a Chicana author known primarily for her poetry and children's books.- Writer's Life and Work:Pat Mora is a writer and cultural preservationist who seeks to document the lives of Mexican Americans and U.S. Latinas and Latinos through varying genres such as children's books, poetry, and... |
"Mangos y limones" | Prairie Schooner Prairie Schooner (magazine) Prairie Schooner is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press... |
| Alice Notley Alice Notley Alice Notley is an American poet. She was born in Bisbee, Arizona and grew up in Needles, California. She received a B.A. from Barnard College in 1967 and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1969. She married poet Ted Berrigan in 1972, with whom she was active in... |
"One of the Longest Times" | Fourteen Hills |
| Naomi Shihab Nye Naomi Shihab Nye Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet, songwriter, and novelist. She was born to a Palestinian father and American mother. Although she regards herself as a "wandering poet", she refers to San Antonio as her home.-Career:... |
"The Small Vases from Hebron" | Many Mountains Moving |
| Alicia Ostriker Alicia Ostriker Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Alicia is married to the noted astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker who taught at Princeton University... |
"The Eighth and Thirteenth" | Poetry Flash |
| Raymond Patterson | "Harlem Suite" | Drumvoices Revue |
| Carl Phillips Carl Phillips Carl Phillips is an American writer and poet. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.... |
"As From a Quiver of Arrows" | The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic Monthly The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,... |
| Wing Ping | "Song of Calling Souls" | Sulfur Sulfur (magazine) Sulfur magazine was an influential, small literary magazine founded in 1981 by poet and award-winning translator Clayton Eshleman and ran for 46 issues until the spring of 2000... |
| Sterling Plumpp | "Poet and When the Spirit Spray-Paints the Sky" |
TriQuarterly |
| Katherine Alice Power | "Sestina for Jaime" | In Time |
| Reynolds Price Reynolds Price Reynolds Price was an American novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist and the James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in ancient languages and Biblical scholarship... |
"Twenty-One Years" | The Southern Review |
| Alberto Alvaro Ríos | "Domingo Limón" | Prairie Schooner Prairie Schooner (magazine) Prairie Schooner is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press... |
| Pattiann Rogers Pattiann Rogers Pattiann Rogers is an American poet who has published 11 books and received numerous awards, grants and fellowships.She was born in Joplin, Missouri, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri in 1961... |
"Abundance and Satisfaction" | Iowa Review |
| Quentin Rowan | "Prometheus at Coney Island" | Hanging Loose |
| David Shapiro David Shapiro (poet) David Shapiro is an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He has written some twenty volumes of poetry, literary, and art criticism... |
"For the Evening Land" | Lingo |
| Angela Shaw | "Crepuscule" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| Reginald Shepherd Reginald Shepherd Reginald Shepherd was an American poet, born in New York City and raised in the Bronx. He died of cancer in Penascola, Florida, in 2008.-Biography:... |
"Skin Trade" | Ploughshares Ploughshares Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston... |
| Enid Shomer | "Passive Resistance" | Poetry Poetry (magazine) Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately... |
| Gary Soto Gary Soto Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet.Mexican-American parents Manuel and Angie Soto . In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old... |
"Fair Trade" | Prairie Schooner Prairie Schooner (magazine) Prairie Schooner is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press... |
| Jean Starr | "Flight" | Callaloo The Callaloo Journal Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially... |
| Deborah Stein | "heat" | Hanging Loose |
| Roberta Tejada | "Honeycomb perfection of this form before me..."" |
Sulfur Sulfur (magazine) Sulfur magazine was an influential, small literary magazine founded in 1981 by poet and award-winning translator Clayton Eshleman and ran for 46 issues until the spring of 2000... |
| Chase Twichell Chase Twichell Chase Twichell is an American poet, professor, and publisher, the founder in 1999, of Ausable Press. Her most recent poetry collection is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been, which earned her Claremont Graduate University's prestigious $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.... |
"Aisle of Dogs" | Iowa Review |
| Luís Alberto Urrea Luís Alberto Urrea Luís Alberto Urrea is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.-Life:Urrea is the son of a Mexican father and an American mother... |
"Ghost Sickness" | Many Mountains Moving |
| Jean Valentine Jean Valentine Jean Valentine is an American poet, and currently the New York State Poet . Her poetry collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003, was awarded the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.... |
"Tell Me, What Is the Soul" | The New Yorker The New Yorker The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast... |
| Alma Luz Villanueva Alma Luz Villanueva Alma Luz Villanueva is a Mexican-American poet, short story writer, and novelist.-Life:Her Mexican grandfather edited a newspaper in Hermosillo, Mexico, and was a published poet... |
"Crazy Courage" | Prairie Schooner Prairie Schooner (magazine) Prairie Schooner is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press... |
| Karen Volkman Karen Volkman -Life:She was educated at New College of Florida, Syracuse University, and the University of Houston.Her poems have appeared in anthologies including The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize XXVII.... |
"The Case" | The Paris Review |
| Diane Wakoski Diane Wakoski Diane Wakoski is a American poet who is primarily associated with the deep image poets, as well as the confessional and Beat poets of the 1960s.-Biography:... |
"The Butcher's Apron" | Many Mountains Moving |
| Ron Welburn | "Yellow Wolf Spirit" | Callaloo The Callaloo Journal Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially... |
| Susan Wheeler Susan Wheeler Susan Wheeler is an educator and award-winning poet whose poems have frequently appeared in anthologies. She currently teaches creative writing at Princeton University.Her published works include:... |
"Run on a Warehouse" | The Paris Review |
| Paul Wilis | "Meeting Like This" | Weber Studies |
| Anne Winters Anne Winters Anne Winters is an American poet, leftist, and professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Having received an early university education at both New York University and Columbia University in New York City, where she was born and raised, she went on to complete her PhD at the... |
"The Mill-Race" | TriQuarterly |
| C. Dale Young C. Dale Young C. Dale Young is an American poet and writer, physician, editor and educator.-Life:Young writes and publishes poetry and short stories, practices medicine full-time, edits poetry for New England Review, and teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers... |
"Vespers" | The Southern Review |
| Ray A. Young Bear | "Our Bird Aegis" | Callaloo The Callaloo Journal Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University . He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially... |
External links
- Web page for contents of the book, with links to each publication where the poems originally appeared