Best American Poetry 2004

Lyn Hejinian is the author or coauthor of more than two dozen books of poetry, including The Fatalist and My Life. She recently received the sixty-sixth Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets for distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career. She lives in Berkeley and teaches at the University of California.David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include The Morning Line, When a Woman Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. He has written such nonfiction books as Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.

Robert Pinsky Each year, a vivid snapshot of what a distinguished poet finds exciting, fresh and memorable: and over the years, as good a comprehensive overview of contemporary poetry as there can be.

• CONTENTSForeword by David LehmanIntroduction by Lyn HejinianKim Addonizio, "Chicken"Will Alexander, from "Solea of the Simooms"Bruce Andrews, from "Dang Me"Rae Armantrout, "Almost"Craig Arnold, "Your friend's arriving on the bus"John Ashbery, "Wolf Ridge"Mary Jo Bang, "The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity"Alan Bernheimer, "20 Questions"Charles Bernstein, "Sign Under Test"Anselm Berrigan, "Token Enabler"Mark Bibbins, from "Blasted Fields of Clover Bring Harrowing and Regretful Sighs"Oni Buchanan, "The Walk"Michael Burkard, "a cloud of dusk"Anne Carson, "Gnosticism"T. J. Clark, "Landscape with a Calm"Billy Collins, "The Centrifuge"Jack Collom, "3-4-00"Michael Costello, "Ode to My Flint and Boom Bolivia"Michael Davidson, "Bad Modernism"Olena Kalytiak Davis, "You Art A Scholar, Horatio, Speak To It"Jean Day, "Prose of the World Order"Linh Dinh, "13"Rita Dove, "All Souls'"Rachel Blau DuPlessis, "Draft 55: Quiptych"kari edwards, "short sorry"Kenward Elmslie, "Sibling Rivalry"Aaron Fogel, "337,000, December, 2000"Arielle Greenberg, "Saints"Ted Greenwald, "Anyway"Barbara Guest, "Nostalgia of the Infinite"Carla Harryman, from "Baby"Jane Hirshfield, "Poe: An Assay (I)"John Hollander, "For 'Fiddle-De-Dee'"Fanny Howe, "Catholic"Kenneth Irby, "[Record]"Major Jackson, from "Urban Renewal"Marc Jaffee, "King of Repetition"Kenneth Koch, "The Man"John Koethe, "To an Audience"Yusef Komunyakaa, "Ignis Fatuus"Sean Manzano Labrador, "The Dark Continent"Ann Lauterbach, "After Mahler"Nathaniel Mackey, "Sound and Cerement"Harry Mathews, "Lateral Disregard"Steve McCaffery, "Some Versions of Pastoral"K. Silem Mohammad, "Mars Needs Terrorists"ErÍn Moure, "8 Little Theatres of the Cornices"Paul Muldoon, "The Last Time I Saw Chris"Eileen Myles, "No Rewriting"Alice Notley, "State of the Union"Jeni Olin, "Blue Collar Holiday"Danielle Pafunda, "RSVP"Heidi Peppermint, "Real Toads"Bob Perelman, "Here 2"Carl Phillips, "Pleasure"Robert Pinsky, "Samba"Carl Rakosi, "In the First Circle of Limbo"Ed Roberson, "Ideas Gray Suits Bowler Hats Baal"Kit Robinson, "The 3D Matchmove Artist"Carly Sachs, "the story"Jennifer Scappettone, "III"Frederick Seidel, "Love Song"David Shapiro, "A Burning Interior"Ron Silliman, "Compliance Engineering"Bruce Smith, "Song of the Ransom of the Dark"Brian Kim Stefans, "They're Putting a New Door In"Gerald Stern, "Dog That I Am"Virgil Suárez, "La Florida"Arthur Sze, "Acanthus"James Tate, "Bounden Duty"Edwin Torres, "The Theorist Has No Samba!"Rodrigo Toscano, "Meditatio Lectoris"Paul Violi, "Appeal to the Grammarians"David Wagoner, "Trying to Make Music"Charles Wright, "In Praise of Han Shan"Contributors' Notes and CommentsMagazines Where the Poems Were First PublishedAcknowledgments