Best Poems of 1989

Robert Adamson ….. Action Would Kill it / A Gamble
Maya Angelou ….. Still I Rise
Werner Aspenstrom ….. After a Night Frost
Werner Aspenstrom ….. The City
Werner Aspenstrom ….. two excerpts
Werner Aspenstrom ….. Fisherman’s Luck
Werner Aspenstrom ….. Icarus and Cousin Granite
Werner Aspenstrom ….. Mise en Scene
Werner Aspenstrom ….. Theology for a Ruminating Friend
Werner Aspenstrom ….. You and I and the World
Susan Baime ….. A Pleasant Interlude in Time
Manuel Bandeira ….. Brazilian Tragedy
Elizabeth Bishop ….. Cape Breton
Elizabeth Bishop ….. Electrical Storm
Elizabeth Bishop ….. The End of March
Elizabeth Bishop ….. The Fish
Elizabeth Bishop ….. Santarem
Elizabeth Bishop ….. Thunder
Elizabeth Bishop ….. Visits to St. Elizabeth’s
Elizabeth Bishop ….. A Word with You
William Blake ….. The Tiger
G. K. Chesterton ….. The Last Hero
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ….. Kubla Khan
Robert Cording ….. Going to Sea in a Sieve
Sara Crayne ….. Christina the Astonishing
Robert Crum ….. The Bat in the Bathroom
Leo Dangel ….. Gathering Strength
Walter de la Mare ….. Napolean
Joao Cabral de Melo Neto ….. from The Death and Life of a Severino
Vinicius de Moraes ….. Sonnet of Intimacy
D. L. Emblen ….. For a Student Impatient with Sophocles
Paul Goodman ….. Long Lines: Youth and Age
James Hackett ….. five haiku
Santoka ….. one haiku
Bob Boldman ….. one haiku
Jack Cain ….. one haiku
Elizabeth Searle Lamb ….. one haiku
Jim Handlin ….. one haiku
William G. Higginson ….. one haiku
Jack Kerouac ….. one haiku
Michael McClintock ….. two haiku
Marlene Mountain ….. six haiku
Alan PIzzarelli ….. two haiku
Frank K. Robinson ….. one haiku
Raymond Roseliep ….. one haiku
Martin Shea ….. one haiku
Cor van den Heuvel ….. two haiku
Anita Virgil ….. one haiku
Nicholas Virgilio ….. one haiku
John Wills ….. three haiku
Arizona Zipper ….. one haiku
Hawaiian Creation Chant ….. The Crawlers
Diana C. Hennessy ….. There, in a Light Room
James Weldon Johnson ….. The Creation: a Negro Sermon
Robert Jones ….. Pulpit Dance
Christina Kalvin ….. The Creation of the World
Hisao Kanaseki ….. Memories of Wartime China
Maxine Kumin ….. Address to the Angels
Maxine Kumin ….. Making the Connection
Maxine Kumin ….. Stopped Time in Blue and Yellow
John Lehmann ….. Tell Me Your Name
John Lehmann ….. Their Fingers Locking
James Liddy ….. Thirty-Three
Elizabeth Macklin ….. Our Fall
Maori of New Zealand ….. Chant to Io
Maori of New Zealand ….. The Six Periods of Creation
Paul Mariah ….. Poem for Cavafy
Paul Mariah ….. Quarry / Rock
Paul Mariah ….. Siring Flesh
Paul Mariah ….. Walls Breathe
William Matthews ….. Bystanders
William Matthews ….. Cows Grazing at Sunrise
William Matthews ….. New
Clayton Ball ….. Rose Petals
Melissa Fischbach ….. Two Frogs
Isa Pederson ….. (from a painting by Dufy)
Tony Scramaglia ….. “A violet was growing with pride”
James H. Montrose ….. Last Rites
James H. Montrose ….. Love Story: a found poem
Frank O’Hara ….. F. (Missive & Walk) I. #53
Frank O’Hara ….. First Dances
Frank O’Hara ….. For Grace, After a Party
Frank O’Hara ….. two excerpts
Frank O’Hara ….. The Lover
Frank O’Hara ….. Mary Desti’s Ass
Frank O’Hara ….. Poem (“I watched an armory combing its bronze bricks”)
Frank O’Hara ….. Poem (“That’s not a cross look it’s a sign of life”)
Frank O’Hara ….. Poetry
Frank O’Hara ….. Summer Breezes
Josephine Preston Peabody ….. The Enchanted Sheep-fold
Michael Pettit ….. Driving Lesson
Sylvia Plath ….. Poppies in October
Christina Rossetti ….. Somewhere or Other
Louis Simpson ….. Luminous Night
Louis Simpson ….. To the Western World
Gary Soto ….. Finding a Lucky Number
Gary Soto ….. Oranges
Mark Strand ….. Nostalgia
Paula Viale ….. Another Word on Daffodils
David Wagoner ….. The Author of American Ornithology Sketches a Bird, Now Extinct
David Wagoner ….. Feeding
David Wagoner ….. Peacock Display
David Wagoner ….. Sitting by a Swamp
Alice Walker ….. Did This Happen to Your Brother? Did Your Sister Throw Up a Lot?
William Carlos Williams ….. from The Descent of Winter: 10/28
William Carlos Williams ….. The Pink Locust
William Carlos Williams ….. Sonnet in Search of an Author
William Carlos Williams ….. The Sparrow
William Carlos Williams ….. This Is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams ….. The Widow’s Lament in Springtime
Yurok folk tale … “At first Wohpekumeu wanted to make the river run upstream”
Paul Zimmer ….. Lester Tells of Wanda and the Big Snow

1989 was the first year of the project. I would copy out poems I needed to see/read again. As I described in my last post (25 years of the Best Poems), I figured out what I was doing as I went along. I tried typing poems — William Blake’s The Tiger and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan are typed, a few others, too. But typewriters drove me nuts. So I turned to hand copying. If the poem was especially long or the poet’s formatting challenging I would sometimes photocopy. If I really liked a few lines but didn’t like a whole poem, I would copy out just the lines I liked. If I liked the poem except for a few lines I would cut those — though I made note each time. I stopped doing most of these things in subsequent years. If I love only a few lines I will copy those out in my diary or some other notebook. After a few years I decided I would no longer edit poems — the whole or nothing. There were a few other issues — choosing how to indicate stanza breaks from page to page, how to present a line too long to fit the page, etc. I was a little inconsistent at first.

There are poems on the list that no longer excite me. But I can still see things in them to like and understand what captured me at the time. I was on a mission — gather good poems! I was in a hurry. I was still picky. I read many poems.

A few people I know personally appear on the list. I’m always thrilled to love poems by people I know.

For the first three years I interfiled all the poems. Eventually that became unwieldy: multiple notebooks, tearing perforations. The 1989/1990/1991 collections are still interfiled. This is the first time I’ve made a complete, separate list of the 1989 poems. It’s long!