A mid an "explosion in the interest of poetry nationwide" (The New York Times), The Best American Poetry 2000 delivers one of the finest volumes yet in this renowned series. Guest editor Rita Dove, a distinguished figure in the poetry world and the second African-American poet ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, brings all of her dynamism and well-honed acumen to bear on this project. Dove used a simple yet exacting method to make her selections: "The final criterion," she writes in her introduction, "was Emily Dickinson's famed description — if I felt that the top of my head had been taken off, the poem was in." The result is a marvelous collection of consistently high-quality poems diverse in form, tone, style, stance, and subject matter. With comments from the poets themselves illuminating their poems and a foreword by series editor David Lehman, The Best American Poetry 2000 is this year's must-have book for all poetry lovers.

A year's worth of the very best.

Foreword by David Lehman

Introduction by Rita Dove

Kim Addonizio, "Virgin Spring"

Pamela Alexander, "Semiotics"

A. R. Ammons, "Shot Glass"

Julianna Baggott, "Mary Todd on Her Deathbed"

Erin Belieu, "Choose Your Garden"

Richard Blanco, "Mango, Number 61"

Janet Bowdan, "The Year"

Grace Butcher, "Crow Is Walking"

Lucille Clifton, "Signs"

Billy Collins, "Man Listening to Disc"

Jim Daniels, "Between Periods"

Linh Dinh, "The Most Beautiful Word"

Gregory Djanikian, "Immigrant Picnic"

Denise Duhamel, "Incest Taboo"

Christopher Edgar, "Birthday"

Karl Elder, "Alpha Images"

Lynn Emanuel, "Walt. I Salute You!"

B. H. Fairchild, "Mrs. Hill"

Charles Fort, "We Did Not Fear the Father"

Frank X. Gaspar, "Seven Roses"

Elton Glaser, "And in the Afternoons I Botanized"

Ray Gonzalez, "For the Other World"

Jennifer Grotz, "The Last Living Castrato"

Thom Gunn, "The Dump"

Mark Halliday, "Before"

Barbara Hamby, "Ode to the Lost Luggage Warehouse at the Rome Airport"

Forrest Hamer, "Goldsboro Narratives"

Brenda Hillman, "Air for Mercury"

Marsha Janson, "Considering the Demise of Everything"

Mark Jarman, "Epistle"

Patricia Spears Jones, "Ghosts"

Rodney Jones, "Plea for Forgiveness"

Donald Justice, "Ralph: A Love Story"

Olena Kalytiak Davis, "Six Apologies, Lord"

David Kirby, "At the Grave of Harold Goldstein"

Carolyn Kizer, "The Oration"

Lynne Knight, "The Muse of the Actual"

Yusef Komunyakaa, "The Goddess of Quotas Laments"

Thomas Lux, "Henry Clay's Mouth"

Lynne McMahon, "We Take Our Children to Ireland"

W. S. Merwin, "The Hours of Darkness"

Susan Mitchell, "Lost Parrot"

Jean Nordhaus, "Aunt Lily and Frederick the Great"

Mary Oliver, "Work"

Michael Palmer, "I Do Not"

Paul Perry, "Paris"

Carl Phillips, "'All art...'"

Robert Pinsky, "Samurai Song"

Donald Platt, "History & Bikinis"

Stanley Plumly, "Kunitz Tending Roses"

Lawrence Raab, "Permanence"

Thomas Rabbitt, "The Beach at Falmouth Heights, Summer, 1952"

Mary Jo Salter, "Au Pair"

Rebecca Seiferle, "Welcome to Ithaca"

Brenda Shaughnessy, "Postfeminism"

Laurie Sheck, "from Black Series"

Reginald Shepherd, "Semantics at Four P.M."

Richard Siken, "The Dislocated Room"

Cathy Song, "Mother of Us All"

Gary Soto, "Chit-Chat with the Junior League Women"

Gabriel Spera, "In a Field Outside the Town"

A. E. Stallings, "Asphodel"

Susan Stewart, "Wings"

Adrienne Su, "The English Canon"

Pamela Sutton, "There Is a Lake of Ice on the Moon"

Dorothea Tanning, "No Palms"

Natasha Trethewey, "Limen"

Quincy Troupe, "Song"

Reetika Vazirani, "Rahim Multani"

Paul Violi, "As I Was Telling David and Alexandra Kelley"

Derek Walcott, "Pissarro at Dusk"

Richard Wilbur, "Fabrications"

Susan Wood, "Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair"

John You, "Borrowed Love Poems"

Dean Young, "The Infirmament"

Contributors' Notes and Comments

Magazines Where the Poems Were First Published

Acknowledgments

The Best American Poetry of the Twentieth Century