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    The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright
    The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright
    The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright
    Ebook338 pages3 hours

    The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright

    By Charles Wright

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The Best American Poetry series is a beloved mainstay of American poetry. This year's edition was edited by one of the most admired and acclaimed poets of his generation, Charles Wright. Known for his meditative and beautiful observations of landscape, change, and time,Wright brings his particular sensibility to this year's anthology, which contains an ecumenical slant that is unprecedented for the series. He has gathered an astonishing selection of work that includes new poems by Carolyn Forché, Jorie Graham, Louise Glück, Frank Bidart, Frederick Seidel, Patti Smith, and Kevin Young and showcases a dazzling array of rising stars like Joshua Beckman, Erica Dawson, and Alex Lemon.

    With captivating and revelatory notes from the poets on their works and sage and erudite introductory essays by Wright and series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2008 will be read, discussed, debated, and prized for years to come.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateSep 16, 2008
    ISBN9781416579663
    The Best American Poetry 2008: Series Editor David Lehman, Guest Editor Charles Wright
    Author

    Charles Wright

    Charles Wright is the United States Poet Laureate. His poetry collections include Country Music, Black Zodiac, Chickamauga, Bye-and-Bye: Selected Later Poems, Sestets, and Caribou. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Book Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the 2013 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. Born in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee in 1935, he currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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    Reviews for The Best American Poetry 2008

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Great selections by Charles Wright, with some particularly good work from Louise Glück, Robert Hass, W. S. Merwin, and C. K. Williams. As far as collections, this is one of the better ones.
    • 3/5
      Fairly unexciting collection. Nothing particularly objectionable, but few poems that really ride their own melting, as Frost would have them do. Which is disappointing, as I really love Charles Wright's poetry (wonderful introduction, though). Favourites: 'Threshing' (Louise Glück), 'The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus by Castor and Pollux' (Richard Howard), 'Of Love and Other Disasters' (Philip Levine), 'Hexagon: On Truth' (Dave Snyder), 'Language exists because...' (Lynn Xu), 'Book of Hours' (Kevin Young).
    • 3/5
      Is this my least favorite best American poetry collection? Yes, I think it is. I was pretty sure I’d not take to this collection when I saw the name of the editor; I’m not a big fan of Charles Wright. The vast majority of the poems struck a Hemingway-esque note with me, a macho man trying to make it in this kinder, gentler world. But here and there, I found a common spirit. How can I read fifty poems and not find a few that light up my heart?! Impossible.

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    The Best American Poetry 2008 - Charles Wright

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