THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2017
Guest Editor: NATASHA TRETHEWEY

 
 
 

Table of Contents

Dan Albergotti, Weapons Discharge Report
Appeared in: storySouth
John Ashbery, Commotion of the Birds
Appeared in: Harper's
Mary Jo Bang, Admission
Appeared in: The Paris Review
David Barber, On a Shaker Admonition
Appeared in: The American Scholar
Bruce Bond, Homage to a Painter of Small Things
Appeared in: Raritan
John Brehm, Intrigue in the Trees
Appeared in: The Sun
Jericho Brown, Bullet Points
Appeared in: BuzzFeed
Cyrus Cassells, Elegy with a Gold Cradle
Appeared in: AGNI
Isaac Cates, Fidelity and the Dead Singer
Appeared in: The American Scholar
Alison Cobb, I Forgive You
Appeared in: Denver Quarterly
Leonard Cohen, Steer Your Way
Appeared in: The New Yorker
Michael Collier, A Wild Tom Turkey
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Billy Collins, The Present
Appeared in: New Ohio Review
Carl Dennis, Two Lives
Appeared in: The New Yorker
Claudia Emerson, Spontaneous Remission
Appeared in: The Southern Review
David Feinstein, Kaddish
Appeared in: jubilat
Caolyn Forche, The Boatman
Appeared in: Poetry
Vievee Francis, Given to These Proclivities, By God
Appeared in: Cherry Tree
Reginal Gibbons, Canasta
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Margaret Gibson, Passage
Appeared in: The Southern Review
Aracelis Girmay, from The Black Maria
Appeared in: Harvard Review
Jeffrey Harrison, Higher Education
Appeared in: The Yale Review
Terrance Hayes, Ars Poetica with Bacon
Appeared in: The New Yorker
W.J.Herbert, Mounting the Dove Box
Appeared in: Southwest Review
Tony Hoagland, Cause of Death: Fox News
Appeared in: The Sun
John Hodgen, Hamlet Texts Guildenstern about Playing upon the Pipe
Appeared in: The Antioch Review
David Brendan Hopes, Certain Things
Appeared in: New Ohio Review
Major Jackson, The Flâneur Tends a Well-Liked Summer Cocktail
Appeared in: The Virginia Quarterly Review
John James, History (n.)
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Rodney Jones, Homecoming
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Fady Joudah, Progress Notes
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Meg Kearney, Grackle
Appeared in: The Massachusetts Review
Emily Van Kley, Dear Skull
Appeared in: The Georgia Review
John Koethe, The Age of Anxiety
Appeared in: Raritan
Yusef Komunyakaa, from The Last Bohemian of Avenue A
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Danusha Lameris, The Watch
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Dorianne Laux, Lapse
Appeared in: Plume
Philip Levine, Rain in Winter
Appeared in: The Threepenny Review
Amit Majmudar, Kill List
Appeared in: The Nation
Jamaal May, Things That Break
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Judson Mitchan, White
Appeared in: Cave Wall
John Murillo, Upon Reading That Eric Dolphy Transcribed Even the Calls of Certain Species of Birds,
Appeared in: Poetry
Nickole Brown, The Dead
Appeared in: Cave Wall
Joyce Carol Oates, To Marlon Brando in Hell
Appeared in: Salmagundi
Sharon Olds, Ode to the Glans
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Mattew Olzmann, Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czeslaw Milosz
Appeared in: Poem-a-Day
Gregory Orr, Three Dark Proverb Sonnets
Appeared in: Mississippi Review
Carl Phillips, Rockabye
Appeared in: Callaloo
Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Halo
Appeared in: The American Scholar
Robert Pinsky, Names
Appeared in: Salmagundi
Stanley Plumly, Poliomyelitis
Appeared in: Ploughshares
Dan Beachy-Quick, Apophatic
Appeared in: Harvard Review
Paisley Rekdal, Assemblage of Ruined Plane Parts, Vietnam Military Museum, Hanoi
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Michael Ryan, The Mercy Home
Appeared in: The Kenyon Review
Sherod Santos, I Went for a Walk in Winter
Appeared in: Harvard Review
Taije Silverman, Where to Put It
Appeared in: The Georgia Review
Charles Simic, Seeing Things
Appeared in: The Threepenny Review
Danez Smith, last summer of innocence
Appeared in: Prairie Schooner
Maggie Smith, Good Bones
Appeared in: Waxwing
R. T. Smith, Maricón
Appeared in: Prairie Schooner
David St. John, Emanations
Appeared in: The Southern Review
A. E. Stallings, Shattered
Appeared in: Harvard Review
Pamela Sutton, Afraid to Pray
Appeared in: Prairie Schooner
Chase Twichell, Sad Song
Appeared in: Salmagundi
James Valvis, Something
Appeared in: The Sun
Wendy Videlock, Deconstruction
Appeared in: The Hopkins Review
Lucy Wainger, Scheherazade
Appeared in: Poetry
Crystal Williams, Double Helix
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Chrisian Wiman, Prelude
Appeared in: The Sewanee Review
Monica Youn, Greenacre
Appeared in: New England Review
C. Dale Young, Precatio simplex
Appeared in: The Collagist
Dean Young, Infinitives
Appeared in: American Poetry Review
Kevin Young, Money Road
Appeared in: The New Yorker
Matthew Zapruder, Poem for Vows
Appeared in: Poem-a-Day

 

 
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