Best Poems of 1990

John Ashbery ….. Everyman’s Library
John Ashbery ….. Frontispiece
John Ashbery ….. Some Old Tires
John Ashbery ….. We Hesitate
David Craig Austin ….. The Gifts
Beth Bentley ….. Northern Idylls
Robert Bly ….. A Dream on the Night of First Snow
Michael Burkard ….. Hotel Tropicana
Gregory Corso ….. I Met This Guy Who Died
James Dickey ….. Sled Burial, Dream Ceremony
Stephen Dobyns ….. The Face in the Ceiling
Stephen Dobyns ….. How to Like It
Mark Doty ….. Turtle, Swan
Stephen Dunn ….. Letting the Puma Go
Martin Espada ….. Boot Camp Incantation
Martin Espada ….. The Right Hand of a Mexican Farmworker in Somerset County, Maryland
Martin Espada ….. Tiburon
Carolyn Forche ….. Because One Is Always Forgotten
Robert Frost ….. The Bearer of Evil Tidings
Robert Frost ….. an excerpt from A Fountain, A Bottle, A Donkey’s Ears, and Some Books
Robert Frost ….. A Late Walk
Robert Frost ….. “Out, out —“
Robert Frost ….. Rose Pogonias
Alice Fulton ….. Losing It
Robert Gluck ….. The Chronicle
Robert Hass ….. Tahoe in August
Paul Hoover ….. Twenty-Five
Marie Howe ….. The Good Reason of Our Forgetting
Richard Hugo ….. Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg
Richard LaFortune ….. “I have picked a bouquet for you”
Sandra McPherson ….. Centerfold Reflected in a Jet Window
William Matthews ….. Convivial
William Matthews ….. from A Happy Childhood
William Matthews ….. We Shall All Be Born Again But We Shall Not All Be Saved
William Matthews ….. Whiplash
Susan Mitchell ….. Leaves That Grow Inward
Simon Ortiz ….. from My Father’s Song
Linda Pastan ….. Caroline
Linda Pastan ….. November
Thomas Rabbitt ….. Gargoyle
Paula Rankin ….. Middle Age
Adrienne Rich ….. In the Wake of Home
Adrienne Rich ….. Yom Kippur 1984
Alberto Rios ….. The Purpose of Altar Boys
Pattiann Rogers ….. Achieving Perspective
Ron Schreiber ….. the birds of sorrow
Gary Soto ….. Song for the Pockets
William Stafford ….. Vacation
David Trinidad ….. Meet the Supremes

1990 was the second year I copied out favorite poems. The list is shorter than that of the first. Was it because I read fewer poems? It wasn’t for another couple years that I maintained in the notebook a list of the books I read that contained poems, thus had the potential to contribute a poem to the notebook, so it’s not really possible to compare quantity read to quantity copied out. Did I read more poems in 1989 or did I just read more poems I liked?

My feelings toward the poems have sometimes changed. There are many I’m glad I’ve had opportunity to reread over the years. Some poets I’ve eagerly kept up with (or tried to) — David Trinidad, Michael Burkard, Adrienne Rich.