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A review by toniclark
Best American Poetry 2018 by David Lehman, Dana Gioia
4.0
This year’s edition of BAP features more formal poems than I can ever remember in previous editions. That is no surprise, since the guest editor is Dana Gioia, a well-known formalist, founder and former co-director of the West Chester Poetry Conference, which focuses on form and narrative.
I was glad to see so many formalists included in these pages — even though a few of the poems seemed, to me, a bit sing-songy, that fate of much formal verse (which can make it sound lighter than intended). Overall, I liked more poems in this collection than I have in recent years, whether formal or not.
My favorites in this collection were by Kaveh Akbar, Frank Bidart, George Bradley, Maryann Corbett, Tony Hoagland, A. E. Stallings, Anne Stevenson, Adrienne Su, and Natasha Trethewey.
Many of the poems, though, seemed not as good as what I’m accustomed to reading online and I wondered if maybe these are the best that “highbrow” or academic poetry journals have to offer. I prefer poetry that’s written for a wider audience than many of these poems seem to be. Occasionally, I had to ask (myself) “What makes this a poem?”
Of 50 periodicals listed (excluding one I could not find at all: Met Magazine), 36 are print-only or have a limited online presence (e.g., a few selections from the print editions), and many of these have pretty small print runs. A couple of the poems included are from books and one's from BuzzFeed. I would like to see more online journals represented in these BAP collections. There's so much good writing online these days, for instance in The 2River View, The Cortland Review, Dodging the Rain, Eclectica, The Ghazal Page, Halfway Down the Stairs, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Mad Hatters Review, Mudlark, The Pedestal Magazine, Stirring, Switched-On Gutenberg, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, to name but a few.
I was glad to see so many formalists included in these pages — even though a few of the poems seemed, to me, a bit sing-songy, that fate of much formal verse (which can make it sound lighter than intended). Overall, I liked more poems in this collection than I have in recent years, whether formal or not.
My favorites in this collection were by Kaveh Akbar, Frank Bidart, George Bradley, Maryann Corbett, Tony Hoagland, A. E. Stallings, Anne Stevenson, Adrienne Su, and Natasha Trethewey.
Many of the poems, though, seemed not as good as what I’m accustomed to reading online and I wondered if maybe these are the best that “highbrow” or academic poetry journals have to offer. I prefer poetry that’s written for a wider audience than many of these poems seem to be. Occasionally, I had to ask (myself) “What makes this a poem?”
Of 50 periodicals listed (excluding one I could not find at all: Met Magazine), 36 are print-only or have a limited online presence (e.g., a few selections from the print editions), and many of these have pretty small print runs. A couple of the poems included are from books and one's from BuzzFeed. I would like to see more online journals represented in these BAP collections. There's so much good writing online these days, for instance in The 2River View, The Cortland Review, Dodging the Rain, Eclectica, The Ghazal Page, Halfway Down the Stairs, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Mad Hatters Review, Mudlark, The Pedestal Magazine, Stirring, Switched-On Gutenberg, and Valparaiso Poetry Review, to name but a few.