The 1999 edition ofThe Best American Poetrywill exceed the expectations of the many thousands of readers who eagerly await the annual arrival of this "truly memorable anthology"(Chicago Tribune).Guest editor Robert Bly, an award-winning poet and translator -- famous, too, for his leadership role in the men's movement and his bestselling book,Iron John-- has made selections that present American poetry in all its dazzling originality, richness, and variety. The year's poems are striking in their vibrancy; they all display that essential energy that Bly calls "heat," whether the heat of friendship, the heat of form, or the heat that results when a poet "brings the soul up close to the thing" he or she is contemplating. With comments from the poets illuminating their work,The Best American Poetry 1999reflects the most exciting and memorable poetry being written at the end of the millennium.

Robert Bly is one of America's most influential poets and a past winner of the National Book Award in poetry for The Light Around the Body. His most recent book of poetry is Eating the Honey of Words (1999). He lives in Minneapolis and Moose Lake, Minnesota.

Foreword

9

(19)

David Lehman

Introduction

19

(14)

Robert Bly

``The Selfishness of the Poetry Reader''

33

(2)

Dick Allen

``Story''

35

(2)

John Balaban

``Bill Matthews Coming Along (1942--1997)''

37

(2)

Coleman Barks

``Catch''

39

(1)

George Bilgere

``Foreign-Domestic''

40

(1)

Elizabeth Bishop

``Tired Sex''

41

(1)

Chana Bloch

``Narrow Road, Presidents' Day''

42

(3)

Philip Booth

``Sea of Faith''

45

(2)

John Brehm

``Because I Am''

47

(1)

Hayden Carruth

``the mississippi river empties into the gulf''

48

(1)

Lucille Clifton

``Dharma''

49

(2)

Billy Collins

``Mitch''

51

(3)

Robert Creeley

``Betrayal''

54

(1)

Lydia Davis

``Taproot''

55

(2)

Debra Kang Dean

``Pasternak''

57

(1)

Chard deNiord

``Madam's Heart''

58

(1)

Russell Edson

``A Buddha in the Woodpile''

59

(3)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

``My Father's Fields''

62

(2)

Dan Gerber

``Vita Nova''

64

(2)

Louise Gluck

``Breastbone''

66

(2)

Ray Gonzalez

``The Last Election''

68

(2)

John Haines

``Smile''

70

(3)

Donald Hall

``September''

73

(1)

Jennifer Michael Hecht

``What Would Freud Say?''

74

(3)

Bob Hicok

``The Envoy''

77

(2)

Jane Hirshfield

``Lawrence''

79

(2)

Tony Hoagland

``Beach Whispers''

81

(1)

John Hollander

``Man Script''

82

(3)

Amy Holman

``The Story of Progress''

85

(1)

David Ignatow

``The Circle Theatre''

86

(2)

Gray Jacobik

``Last Will and Testament''

88

(3)

Josephine Jacobsen

``Two Prose Poems''

91

(2)

Louis Jenkins

``The Patient''

93

(2)

Mary Karr

``A Curse on a Thief''

95

(2)

X. J. Kennedy

``Why Regret?''

97

(2)

Galway Kinnell

``The Erotic Philosophers''

99

(5)

Carolyn Kizer

``1989''

104

(2)

Ron Koertge

``Scapegoat''

106

(1)

Yusef Komunyakaa

``The Triumph of Narcissus and Aphrodite''

107

(2)

William Kulik

``Nunc Dimittis''

109

(1)

James Laughlin

``The Shipfitter's Wife''

110

(1)

Dorianne Laux

``The Sleepless Grape''

111

(1)

Li-Young Lee

``First Love''

112

(2)

Denise Levertov

``The Return''

114

(2)

Philip Levine

``A Charade''

116

(1)

David Mamet

``The Swim''

117

(1)

Gigi Marks

``Misgivings''

118

(1)

William Matthews

``The Characters of Dirty Jokes''

119

(2)

Wesley McNair

``A Ball''

121

(1)

Czeslaw Milosz

``Sonny's Hands''

122

(2)

Joan Murray

``What It Meant''

124

(2)

Sharon Olds

``Flare''

126

(6)

Mary Oliver

``And Now''

132

(1)

Franco Pagnucci

``Say You Love Me''

133

(2)

Molly Peacock

``Hemingway's Garden''

135

(4)

David Ray

``Seven Skins''

139

(4)

Adrienne Rich

``Writing from Memory''

143

(3)

Alberto Rios

``That Will to Divest''

146

(1)

Kay Ryan

``Last recording session/for papa joe''

147

(1)

Sonia Sanchez

``The Public and the Private Spheres''

148

(2)

Revan Schendler

``Longing and Wonder''

150

(2)

Myra Shapiro

``Barber College Haircut''

152

(1)

Charles Simic

``A Shearling Coat''

153

(1)

Louis Simpson

``Housewarming''

154

(1)

Thomas R. Smith

``A Star Is Born in the Eagle Nebula''

155

(2)

Marcia Southwick

``Ways to Live''

157

(3)

William Stafford

``The Drunkard's Daughter''

160

(1)

Peggy Steele

``A Moment''

161

(1)

Ruth Stone

``Deer Crossing the Sea''

162

(1)

Larissa Szporluk

``The Minefield''

163

(1)

Diane Thiel

``Thoreau and the Crickets''

164

(2)

David Wagoner

``This Pleasing Anxious Being''

166

(2)

Richard Wilbur

``Archetypes''

168

(2)

C. K. Williams

``American Twilight''

170

(1)

Charles Wright

``The Thread of Sunlight''

171

(2)

Timothy Young

Contributors' Notes and Comments

173

(43)

Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published

216

(3)

Acknowledgments

219

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DICK ALLEN

The Selfishness of the Poetry Reader

Sometimes I think I'm the only man in America

who reads poems

and who walks at night in the suburbs,

calling the moon names.

And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns

a house with bookshelves,

who drives to work without a CD player,

taking the long way, by the ocean breakers.

No one else, in all America,

quotes William Meredith verbatim,

cites Lowell over ham and eggs, and Levertov;

keepsAntiworldsandArielbeside his bed.

Sometimes I think no other man alive

is changed by poetry, has fought

as utterly as I have over "Sunday Morning"

and vowed to love those difficult as Pound.

No one else has seen a luna moth

flutter over Iowa, or watched

a woman's hand lift rainbow trout from water,

and snow fall onto Minnesota farms.

This country wide, I'm the only man

who spends his money recklessly on thin

volumes unreviewed, enjoys

the long appraising look of check-out girls.

How could another in America know why

the laundry from a window laughs,

and how plums taste, and what an auto wreck

feels like -- and craft?

I think that I'm the only man who speaks

of fur and limestone in one clotted breath;

for whom Anne Sexton plunged in Grimm;

who can't stop quoting haikus at some weekend guest.

The only man, in all America, who feeds

on something darker than his politics,

who writes in margins and who earmarks pages --

in all America, I am the only man.

fromThe Café Review

JOHN BALABAN

Story

The guy picked me up north of Santa Fe

where the red hills, dotted with piñon,

loop down from the Divide into mesas and plain.

I was standing out there

-- just me, my pack, and the gila monsters --

when he hauled his Buick off the road

in a sputter of cinders and dust.

And got out, a gray-bearded, 6-foot, 300-pounder,

who stretched and said, "Do you want to drive?"

So I drove and he told me the story of his life.

How his father was a Russian Jew

who got zapped by the Mob during Prohibition,

how he quit school at fifteen

and got a job as a DJ in Detroit,

how he sold flatware on the road and made a mint,

how he respected his wife, but didn't love her,

how he hit it big in radio and TV, how he fell in love,

how he found himself, at 50, in intensive care

with his wife, his kids, his girlfriend, and rabbi

huddled in silence about his bed

when his doctor came in and whispered

that maybe he ought to ask the wife,

and the girlfriend, to alternate visits

"because it wasn't too good for his heart."

"What about your kids?" I asked. "What do they do?"

"My daughter runs our store. My son is dead."

He studied the Rockies and didn't continue.

"What did he die of?"

"He died of suicide.

No, that's not right....Nixon killed him.

My son was a sweet kid, hated guns and violence

and then, during that fucking war, he hijacked a plane

and flew it to Cuba. He shot himself in Havana."

He watched the road, then grinned and said,

"Brave little fucker, wasn't he?"

fromVerse

COLEMAN BARKS

Bill Matthews Coming Along

(1942-1997)

They say the best French wines haveterroir,meaning the taste of the lay of the land that works through and gets held in the wine, the bouquet of a particular hillside and of the care of those who work there.

When I see Bill Matthews coming along, I see and taste the culture of the world, a lively city, a university campus during Christmas break, a few friendly straggling scholars and artists. I taste the delight of language and desire and music. I see a saint of the great impulse that takes us out at night, to the opera, to the ballgame, to a movie, to poetry, a bar of music, a bar of friends.

When I see Bill Matthews stopped at the end of a long hall, I see my soul waiting for me to catch up, patient, demanding, wanting truth no matter what, the goofiest joke, the work with words we're here to do, saying how it is with emptiness and changing love, and the unchanging. Now I see his two tall sons behind him.

Bill would not say it this way; he might even start softly hummingAmazing Graceif I began my saying, but I go on anyway: god is little g, inside out, a transparency that drenches everything you help us notice: a red blouse, those black kids crossing Amsterdam, braving the cabs, a nun. You sweet theologian, you grew new names for god: gourmet, cleaning woman, jazz, spring snow.

What fineness and finesse. I love Bill Matthews, and I did not havenearenough time walking along with him, talking books and ideas, or sitting down to drink the slant and tender face of Provence.

fromFigdust

Excerpted from The Best American Poetry, 1999 by David Lehman
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.