The Best Poems of 2005

I got a note from Val Gerstle, one of the poets whose poem I'd included in my list of the Best Poems of 2004. She thanked me for liking her poem.

Since I haven't yet posted my favorite poems of 2005 I might as well do that now. The list is in the order I copied them out. I won't bother mentioning where I found them. Usually it was an anthology. A poet's own collection. Occasionally a magazine. I don't think there were any last year that I discovered on the web. They are listed in the order in which I found them.

Oni Buchanan ... "The Walk"

Kenneth Koch ... selections from "The Man"

Al Young ... "Third Street Promenade"

Gary Rosenthal ... "Ghetto Dokusan"

Tassajara Zen Center ... parking a car gatha

Lawson Fusao Inada ... "A Nice Place"

Czeslaw Milosz ... "Gift"

Leslie Scalapino ... poem beginning "A man getting on a bus..."

Dale Jensen ... "A New Ring"

Albert Goldbarth ... "The Bar Cliche"

Marcelin Pleynet ... "The New Republic"

Philippe Soupault ... "Sporting Goods"

Dave Etter ... "Bueno"

Nezahualcoyotl ... "Can it be true that one lives..."

Anonymous (Korean) ... "Wind Last Night Blew Down"

Allen Ginsberg ... "On Neal's Ashes"

Dorianne Laux ... "Late October"

Dorianne Laux ... "Aphasia"

Dorianne Laux ... "Twelve"

Kirmen Uribe ... "Notes on a Loose Piece of Paper"