Anonymous ….. haiku
Gary Aspenberg ….. “Homeopathic Poem I”
Basho ….. haiku
Buson ….. haiku
Blaise Cendrars ….. “Fish Cove”
Chiyo-ni ….. haiku
Clark Coolidge ….. “Combed Through the Ballardian Perspex” and “The Image Links” and “On the Light”
Russell Edson ….. “For Many Years”
Jorie Graham ….. “Opulence"
Ha Jin ….. “A General’s Comments on a Politician”
Robert Hass ….. “Layover”
David Ignatow ….. “Circling the Silence” and “Staying Alive”
Ikkyu ….. “something in us always wants to cry out”
Robinson Jeffers ….. “Cremation”
Samuel Johnson ….. “asylum”
haiku ….. Joso
Anna Karnienska ….. “A Prayer That Will Be Answered”
Philip Levine ….. “The Mortal Words of Zweik”
Federico Garcia Lorca ….. “Rundown Church”
Bronislaw Maj ….. “A Leaf”
Czeslaw Milosz ….. “One Life”
Mo Fei ….. “Stuck in Place” and “Young Prophet”
Robert Morgan ….. “Bellrope”
Po Chu-i ….. “Evening Rain” and “Sick and Old, Same as Ever”
Lawrence Raab ….. “Sudden Appearance of a Monster at a Window”
Shang Qin ….. “Electric Lock”
a Southern Bushman song ….. “The Day We Die”
Wnag Ping ….. “Of Flesh and Spirit”
Yang Lian ….. “An Elegy for Poetry”
Zhang Zhen ….. “Deep into Smaland”
Zhen Danyi ….. “Poem”
Zou Jingzhi ….. “Old Bowl”
Listmania! Some people like lists. Me? Not a huge fan. Even when I’m sympathetic to the purposes of the lists. I’m exposing my “Best Poems” lists on the blog more because I have them than that I need to wave them around. I ought to be writing something about these. But I always feel like my expounding on poetry is redundant at best. If I think the poem is great stuff I should hand it to you and you would have opportunity to judge for yourself. On the other hand, why should you care what I think is good?
The above is the contents page for the poems I hand-copied from various sources in the year 2000. Occasionally I’ve told a poet about capturing his poem and tried to convey my reasons. I recall telling Robert Hass that I’d copied out “Layover.” It was at one of his readings. What was he supposed to say? I think he nodded, said, “Oh,” in that mild noncommittal way he has.
The Best Poems of 2011
The Best Poems of 2010
The Best Poems of 2009
The Best Poems of 2008
The Best Poems of 2007
The Best Poems of 2006
The Best Poems of 2005
The Best Poems of 2004
