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The Best American Poetry 1988, the first volume in The Best American Poetry series , was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor John Ashbery, who chose one of his own poems among the group of 75.
Although Lehman would later use his forewords as a kind of "state of poetry" review of the previous year, in this first volume he concentrated on the nature of this anthology, with most of the foreword given over to explaining the mechanics of the process (see The Best American Poetry series for those comments).
There seem to be plenty of creative writing programs, so it appears there will be an audience for the series, Lehman wrote, and with poetry appearing in so many different publications, an annual anthology could help readers find poetry in one place.
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| Major forms |
| Prose genres |
| Poetry genres |
| Dramatic genres |
| History and lists |
| Discussion |
 Literatureportal |
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| A. R. Ammons | "Motion Which Disestablishes Organizes Everything" | The Hudson Review |
| Ralph Angel | "Shadow Play" | Poetry |
| Rae Armantrout | "Bases" | o•blék |
| John Ash | "Memories of Italy" | Disbelief |
| John Ashbery | "One Coat of Paint" | Shenandoah |
| Ted Berrigan | "My Autobiography" | New American Writing |
| Mei-mei Berssenbrugge | "Chinese Space" | Conjunctions |
| George Bradley | "Noch Einmal, an Orpheus" | Grand Street |
| Stefan Brecht | "Momentariness" | Tyuonyi |
| Joseph Brodsky | "To Urania" | The Paris Review |
| Nicholas Christopher | "Miranda inReno" | The New Republic |
| Marc Cohen | "Mecox Road" | Verse |
| Wanda Coleman | "Essay on Language" | Heavy Daughter Blues |
| Clark Coolidge | "A Monologue" | o•blék |
| Alfred Corn | "New Year" | Partisan Review |
| Douglas Crase | "Dog Star Sale" | The Paris Review |
| Robert Creeley | "The Dream" | Exquisite Corpse |
| Tom Disch | "In Memoriam" | Boulevard |
| Kenward Elmslie | "Top O' Silo" | Conjunctions |
| Alice Fulton | "Losing It" | Epoch |
| Amy Gerstler | "marriage" | New American Writing |
| Jorie Graham | "On Difficulty" | The End of Beauty |
| Debora Greger | "Snow White and Rose Red" | The New Yorker |
| Allen Grossman | "The Piano Player Explains Himself" | Grand Street |
| Barbara Guest | "Words" | Tyuonyi |
| Rachel Hadas | "Nourishment" | Boulevard |
| Donald Hall | "Prophecy" | The Paris Review |
| Robert Hass | "Thin Air" | Antaeus |
| Seamus Heaney | "A Shooting Script" | American Poetry Review |
| Anthony Hecht | "Envoi" | The Yale Review |
| Gerrit Henry | "The Confessions of Gerrit" | Mudfish |
| John Hollander | "An Old Story is Retold" | Partisan Review |
| Richard Howard | "The Foreigner Remembered by a Local Man" | For Nelson Mandela |
| Donald Justice | "Nostalgia of the Lakefronts" | Antaeus |
| Robert Kelly | "Hercules Musarum" | Tyuonyi |
| Kevin Killiam | "Pasolini" | Shiny International |
| August Kleinzahler | "Soda Water with a Boyhood Friend" | New American Writing |
| Caroline Knox | "Movement Along the Frieze" | New American Writing |
| Kenneth Koch | "What People Say About Paris" | Poetry |
| John Koethe | "Mistral" | The Paris Review |
| Philip Lamantia | "Unachieved" | Sulfur |
| Ann Lauterbach | "Psyche's Dream" | Before Recollection |
| David Lehman | "Operation Memory" | Shenandoah |
| Philip Levine | "A Walk with Tom Jefferson" | The Paris Review |
| Nathaniel Mackey | "Degree Four" | Conjunctions |
| Michael Malinowitz | "Funeral March for a Papagallo" | Aerial |
| Tom Mandel | "Hungry and Waiting" | Sulfur |
| Harry Mathews | "Histoire" | Armenian Papers |
| Bernadette Mayer | "Holding the Thought of Love" | Exquisite Corpse |
| James Merrill | "Farewell Performance" | Grand Street |
| Eileen Myles | "Public Television" | Shiny International |
| A. L. Nielson | "Route E" | Aerial |
| Ron Padgett | "Light As Air" | Boulevard |
| Michael Palmer | "From C" | o•blék |
| Bob Perelman | "Politics" | o•blék |
| Robert Pinsky | "The Hearts" | The New Republic |
| Donald Revell | "St. Lucy's Day" | Poetry |
| Joe Ross | "From Act I, Scene II of Guards of the Heart" | ' Aerial |
| Leslie Scalapino | "Jumping-jack flash" | Conjunctions |
| James Schuyler | "Let's All Hear It for Mildred Bailey!" | Poetry |
| David Shapiro | "Empathy for David Winfield" | Diamonds are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball |
| Charles Simic | "St Thomas Aquinas" | Antaeus |
| Gary Snyder | "Walking the New York Bedrock Alive in the Sea of Information" | Sulfur |
| Ruth Stone | "The Latest Hotel Guest Walks Over Particles That Revolve in Seven Other Dimensions Controlling Latticed Space" | American Poetry Review |
| May Swenson | "Dummy, 51, to Go to Museum. Ventriloquist Dead at 75" | In Other Words |
| James Tate | "Neighbors" | Sonora Review |
| Lydia Tomkiw | "Six of Ox Is" | New American Writing |
| Derek Walcott | "Elsewhere" | The Arkansas Testament |
| Rosanne Wasserman | "Inuit and Seal" | Sulfur |
| Marjorie Welish | "Respected, Feared, and Somehow Loved" | o•blék |
| Susan Wheeler | "What Memory Reveals" | Sulfur |
| Richard Wilbur | "Trolling for Blues" | Poetry |
| Alan Williamson | "Recitation for Dismantling the Hydrogen Bomb" | American Poetry Review |
| John Yau | "Genghis Chan: Private Eye" | Sulfur |
| Geoffrey Young | "Drive, It Said" | New American Writing |
William James Collins is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York. Collins was recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004 through 2006. In 2016, Collins was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As of 2020, he is a teacher in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.
David Lehman is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for The Best American Poetry. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such publications as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. In 2006, Lehman served as Editor for the new Oxford Book of American Poetry. He taught and was the Poetry Coordinator at The New School in New York City until May 2018.
Larry Patrick Levis was an American poet.
Sheree Renée Thomas is an American writer, book editor, publisher, and contributor to many notable publications. In 2020, Thomas was named editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The Best American Poetry 2005, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Paul Muldoon.
The Best American Poetry 2002, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman, with poems chosen by guest editor Robert Creeley.
The Best American Poetry 2001, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Robert Hass.
The Best American Poetry 2000 (ISBN 0-7432-0033-0), a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Rita Dove.
The Best American Poetry series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems.
The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988–1997, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Harold Bloom, who chose the poems.
The Best American Poetry 1999, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Robert Bly.
The Best American Poetry 1999, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor John Hollander.
The Best American Poetry 1995, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Richard Howard.
The Best American Poetry 1994, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor A. R. Ammons.
The Best American Poetry 1992, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Charles Simic.
The Best American Poetry 1991, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Mark Strand.
The Best American Poetry 1990, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Jorie Graham. The book contains seventy-five poems with a range of poet-authors from a college freshman to the 1990 United States Poet Laureate. David Lehman publicly commented that poetry in America retains its vitality for both the poet and reader, after the 1989 series book attained bestseller status.
The Best American Poetry 1989, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Donald Hall.
George Bradley is an American poet, editor, and fiction writer whose work is characterized by formal structure, humor, and satirical narrative.
Gregory Pardlo is an American poet, writer, and professor. His book Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His poems, reviews, and translations have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Poet Lore, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and on National Public Radio. His work has been praised for its “language simultaneously urban and highbrow… snapshots of a life that is so specific it becomes universal.”