Who We Are

David Lehman, Editor in Chief. David Lehman was born in New York City. He initiated The Best American Poetry series in 1988 and remains series editor of the annual anthology. He is the author of seven books of poems, most recently New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2013) and Yeshiva Boys (Scribner, 2009). Among his nonfiction books are The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry 1988-2014, A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Nextbook, 2009), The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Anchor, 1999) and The Perfect Murder ( Michigan, 2000). He edited Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present , (Scribner, 2003) and The Best American Erotic Poems (Scribner, 2008). He edited  The Oxford Book of American Poetry, a one-volume comprehensive anthology of poems from Anne Bradstreet to the present.
His books of prose include Sinatra’s Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (HarperCollins, 2015); The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014 (Pittsburgh, 2015); A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, America Songs (Schocken/Nextbooks 2009); The Last Avant- Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Doubleday, 1998), which was named a “Book to Remember 1999” by the New York Public Library; The Big Question (University of Michigan Press, 1995); The Line Forms Here (University of Michigan Press, 1992); and Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man (Simon & Schuster / Poseidon Press, 1991). His study of detective novels, The Perfect Murder (The Free Press, 1989; Michigan, 2000), was nominated for an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs won the Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) in 2010. Lehman wrote and designed an exhibit based on the book, which visited fifty-five libraries in twenty-seven states on a tour sponsored by the American Library Association.He teaches writing and literature in the graduate writing program of the New School in New York City. He lives in New York City and spends summers in Ithaca, New York.

 

Stacey Harwood-Lehman, Managing Editor, was until recently a policy analyst for the New York State Public Service Commission, the agency that regulates gas, electric, water, and telephone service in New York State. Her poems and essays have been published or are forthcoming in The LA Times, Michigan Quarterly Review, Humor, Lit, Saveur, Tablet, the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Paul Muldoon selected her poem Contributors' Notes for The Best American Poetry 2005. She is the poet laureate of the New York City Greenmarket and she teaches "Food Narratives" at the New School in New York City.

Nin Andrews’ poems have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, and four editions of Best American Poetry.  The author of 6 chapbooks and 6 full-length poetry collections, she has won two Ohio individual artist grants, the Pearl Chapbook Contest, the Kent State University chapbook contest, and the Gerald Cable Poetry Award. She is also the editor of a book of translations of the Belgian poet, Henri Michaux, Someone Wants to Steal My Name.  Her book, Why God Is a Woman, was published by BOA Editions in 2015. You can read her "Meet the Press" interviews here and her comics here. Visit her website here. Follow Nin on twitter @AndrewsNin. 

 

Lera Auerbach, The Trouble Clef. Lera is among the most widely performed composers of her generation.  She has composed major works for orchestra, ballet, chamber ensemble, chorus, and opera, and is a concert pianist and award-winning poet. Her new ballet, “The Little Mermaid,” will receive its American premiere in 2010 by the San Francisco Ballet. Lera is writing an opera based on her stage play “Gogol” for Vienna’s Theater an der Wien for premiere in 2011, and will be composer-in-residence with the Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra the same year.
In May 2009, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. presented a composer portrait of Auerbach, and during the summer she was honored with composer portraits and premieres at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. She was a featured poet at the 2009 West Cork Literary Festival in Ireland. Lera was named Poet of the Year by the International Pushkin Society in 1997 at the age of 23, and in 2007 was named a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum. Find out more about Lera Auerbach here. 
 

Charles Coe is author of two books of poetry:  “All Sins Forgiven: Poems for my Parents” and “Picnic on the Moon,” both published by Leapfrog Press. His poetry has appeared in a number of literary reviews and anthologies, including Poesis, The Mom Egg, Solstice Literary Review, and Urban Nature. His novella, "Spin Cycles," was published in November, 2014 by Gemma Media. He is the winner of a fellowship in poetry from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Charles’s poems have been set by a number of composers, including Beth Denisch, Julia Carey and Robert Moran. A short film based on his poem “Fortress” is currently in production by filmmaker Roberto Mighty. Charles is co-chair of the Boston Chapter of the National Writers Union, a labor union for freelance writers. He was selected by the Associates of theBoston Public Library as a “Boston Literary Light for 2014.” He is currently an artist fellow at the St. Botolph Club of Boston.

Jim Cummins, Midwest Correspondent.  Jim is the author of, most recently Still Some Cake Carnegie-Mellon University Press (2011),  The Whole Truth, (North Point Press, 1986),  Portrait in a Spoon, (University of South Carolina Press,1997), Then & Now, (Ohio University Press, 2004). He is co-author, with David Lehman, of Jim & Dave Defeat the Masked Man (Soft Skull Press, 2005). His poems have been selected for The Best American Poetry anthologies of 1994, 1995, 1998, 2005 and 2009, The Oxford Book of American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2006), and 180 More, edited by Billy Collins. Cummins has been curator of the Elliston Poetry Collection at the University of Cincinnati since 1975, where he is also Professor of English. Read his BAP blog posts here.

Paris Correspondent, Beyond Words Editor Tracy Danison is a poet who has been living and working in and around Paris for 30 years, raising a family while working as a journalist, translator, consultant, and finally, a coach offering “Thinking Walkabouts.” His poetry has been published in journals such as Antigonish Review; he is author of a French-language guide to usage in written English for France’s Chamber of Commerce. A scenarist and actor in short-video plays in late 70s Chicago and an arts reviewer for the Montclarion and Berkeley Voice newspapers in the Bay Area in the 80s, he is a long-time admirer of, especially, dance performance and figurative painting.

Moira Egan, European Correspondent.  Moira is the author of Cleave (WWPH, 2004) and of La Seta della Cravatta/The Silk of the Tie, a bi-lingual collection of poems with Italian versions by Damiano Abeni. Further to the naughty sonnets that appear in Best American Poetry 2008, her chapbook, Bar Napkin Sonnets won The Ledge 2008 Chapbook Competition and will be published later this year. Her second full-length collection, SPIN, will be published in spring 2010 by Entasis Press. With her husband, Damiano Abeni, she translates poems back and forth between English and Italian; most recently, they published Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie scelte 1956-2007, a substantial selection of the poems of John Ashbery (Sossella Editore, 2008). She lives in Rome. Read more about Moira Egan here. Read her BAP blog posts here.

Lawrence J. Epstein, Culture Correspondent and Dylan Watch. Larry is the author of several books, including The Haunted Smile:The Story of Jewish Comedians in America (Public Affairs, 2002), and At the Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigrants on New York's Lower East Side, 1880-1920 (Jossey-Bass, 2007). Read his BAP blog posts here.

Jill Alexander Essbaum, Coeur Despondent. Jill is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Hausfrau (Random House 2015) as well as the 1999 Bakeless Prize winner, Heaven (UPNE 2000), and Harlot (No Tell Books, 2007). Her poems have appeared in journals religious and secular, print and online, well-known and famously obscure, including Poetry, The Christian Century, No Tell Motel, Rhino, Image, MiPoesias, Black Warrior Review, Christianity and Literature, and many others. Read Jill's BAP blog posts here

Jenny Factor, West Coast Correspondent. Jenny Factor’s poem collection Unraveling at the Name (Copper Canyon Press) won a Hayden Carruth Award and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Factor’s poems and reviews have appeared in the Paris Review and more than a dozen anthologies, including The Best American Erotic Poems (Scribner, 2008). Her work has been supported by an Astraea Grant in poetry. Jenny received her M.F.A. in Literature from Bennington College, and her BA from Harvard College. She currently teaches and serves as the Core Faculty in poetry at Antioch University Los Angeles’ low-residency MFA Program. Learn more about Jenny Factor here. Read her BAP blog posts here.(Painting by Catherine Bryant)

Bill Hayward, Filmmaker/Photographer.  Hayward's most recent book of portraits of the collaborative self is entitled Bad Behavior, (Rizzoli). Bill is working on a new portrait collection entitled I Hear America Singing, America in Portraits of the Collaborative Self. Hayward is also in production on Asphalt, Muscle and Bone, a film about a man at risk, the persistence of imagination and the impossibility of love. Images from Hayward's work can be viewed at billhayward.comand at reddressfilms.com. Visit Bill's blog here. See his BAP blog posts here. 

Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Lion and the Honeycomb.  Jennifer is the author of two books of poetry Funny (University of Wisconsin, 2005) and The Next Ancient World (Tupeloe Press, 2001). Her non-fiction books are Doubt: A History (HarperOne, 2004) and The Happiness Myth (HarperOne, 2007).She earned her Ph.D. in the History of Science from Columbia University. Her poems have been included in The Best American Poetry anthologies of 1999 and 2006.  She teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at The New School and is a fellow of The New York Institute for the Humanities. Read more about Jennifer Michael Hecht here. Follow her blog, Dear Fonzie, here. Read her BAP blog posts here. 

Laura Orem, Red Lion Correspondent.  Laura is a writer, visual artist, and teacher. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and is a Writing Fellow at Goucher College. She is the senior editor of the online journal Praxilla Her poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, both in print and online, including Nimrod, heART (Human Equity Through Art), Wordwrights, The Montserrat Review, Poets Against the War, and The Writer's Chronicle. Laura lives in Red Lion, PA with six cats, four dogs, two sheep, two sons, one horse, and one husband. Read her BAP blog posts here.

Katha Pollitt.  Pollitt's new book of poems, The Mind-Body Problem, is just out from Random House. She is a columnist at The Nation and lives in New York City. Her collection of personal essays, Learning to Drive, is out in paperback.  Her poems have been included in The Best American Poetry 1991 and The Oxford Book of American Poetry.  Listen to Katha Pollitt's interview with poet Matthea Harvey here. Read her interview with Adam Gopnick for Granta here. Follow her blog here. And read her BAP blog posts here.

 

Mitch Sisskind, Correspondent at Large.  Mitch was born in Chicago, and has lived in Los Angeles since 1986. He is the autor of two books of short stories: Visitations (1984) and Dog Man Stories (1993). His poem, Like a Monkey, was chosen by David Wagoner for The Best American Poetry 2009.  Read his BAP blog posts here.

Catharine R. Stimpson.  Catharine is the dean of NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science and is a University Professor. Prior to her arrival at NYU in 1998, Stimpson was director of the MacArthur Foundation Fellows Program. She has served as University Professor at Rutgers, where she was also dean of the graduate school and vice provost for graduate education from 1986 to 1992. She is a former chair of the New York State Humanities Council and the National Council for Research on Women, and president of the Modern Language Association. She was the first director of the Women's Center of Barnard College and of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers. Stimpson's many publications include Where the Meanings Are: Feminism and Cultural Spacesand the Library of America's Gertrude Stein: Writings 1903-1932. Read more about Catharine Stimpson here. Read her BAP blog posts here.

 

 Emma Trelles, Tropical Correspondent.  Emma Trelles is the author of Tropicalia,  forthcoming from the University of Notre Dame Press and winner of the 2010  Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. She is also the author of the chapbook Little Spells (GOSS183), a recommended read by the Valparaiso Poetry Review and the Montserrat Review.  She is the recipient of a Green Eyeshade award for art criticism and  has been a featured author at the Miami Book Fair International and at the Palabra Pura reading series at the Guild Literary Complex in Chicago.  She received her MFA in creative writing from Florida International University and lives with her  husband in South Florida, where she works as an arts writer and a writing consultant for Nova Southeastern University. Visit her at www.emmatrelles.com  and read her BAP blog postshere.

Ken Tucker, Culture Correspondent. Ken is Entertainment Weekly’s Editor-At-Large. He does weekly music reviews for NPR's "Fresh Air with Terry Gross." His most recent book is Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How It Changed America(St. Martins, 2008). Ken Tucker's "Watching TV" column took top honors for best online column in this year's min awards.  Keep up with Ken at Ken Tucker’s Pop Culture here. Read his BAP blog posts here.

(photo by Star Black)

Terence Winch. Terence is the author, most recently, of This Way Out (2014, Hanging Loose Press), Lit from Below (2013, Salmon Poetry, County Clare, Ireland), Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor (2011, Hanging Loose Press) and Boy Drinkers (Hanging Loose Press); in 2007, he released a CD of his musical works called When New York Was Irish: Songs and Tunes by Terence Winch (Trade Root Music). His poems have been included in The Best American Poetry anthologies of 1997, 2003, and 2006. Learn more about Terence here. Read his BAP blog posts here.  

Alan Ziegler is the editor of Short: An International Anthology of 500 Years of Short-Short Stories, Prose Poems, Brief Essays, and Other Short Prose Forms (Persea Books); his other books include Love At First Sight: An Alan Ziegler Reader; The Swan Song of Vaudeville: Tales and Takes (with an introduction by Richard Howard); The Green Grass of Flatbush (winner of the Word Beat Fiction Book Award, selected by George Plimpton); So Much To Do (poems); The Writing Workshop, Volumes I and II; and The Writing Workshop Note Book. His work has appeared in such places as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Tin House. He is Professor of Writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, where he has received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching and was chair of the Writing Program. He is currently at work on Based on a True Life: A Memoir in Pieces. You can find his blog posts here.

Comments

[jenne andrews]

someone....please get back to this wonderful publisher. ????? j

[Diane Smith]

We've started our second year of printed publication and now publish a quarterly journal in print and zine call Grey Sparrow.

I would like to send our printed journals on for consideration of the poetry offered at the Sparrow, but I've not heard from anyone regarding submissions since my last post here. If I do not hear from anyone, I will trust I'm asking at the wrong website--my deepest apologies. You can find our zine by Googling Grey Sparrow Journal.

Best Regards,

Diane Smith
Grey Sparrow Journal
A Nonprofit Corporation
St. Paul, Minnesota

[Marija Liudvika Dradzauskiene (Rutkauskaite)]

Thank you very much for this site on The Best American Poetry.I was searching the living British poets and I came across this source. I have been impressed by the names, views and opinions. I wonder if Jennifer M.Hecht is a (grand)daughter of Anthony Hecht with whose name and poems I became familiar in a summer school in UCLA in 1976. I wish to discover the newer America through her poets. Thank you.

[Beau Blue]

Like Diane Smith of Grey Sparrow, I could not find a contact email address on any of the pages of your site. How does someone ask you guys a question?

And I wonder if anyone is assigned to look at the comments made on your 'Who We Are' page. I notice that it has been months since Ms. Smith made her first comment and a month since her second and no answer has been posted.

I would very much like to make some inquiries on several subjects relating to contemporary American poetry. Specifically on the selection criteria used by your editors to determine who might participate under such a banner as "The Best" and how many formats that participation encompasses (print, online, audio, video, etc.)

Thanks for you time and attention to this matter,
Beau Blue
Blue's Cruzio Cafe
www.cruziocafe.com

[DL]

Although Internet protocol does not oblige anyone to reply to a comment, it pleases me to say that "The Best American Poetry" has been published annually since 1988. The books are readily available, and the individual volumes themselves spell out our policies. 75 poems per year are chosen from magazines, not books, by a guest editor, himself or herself a distinguished practitioner of the art. Translations are ineligible.
It still astonishes me that some poets submit their work to publications they do not read, though I hear about this regularly from editors.
We're grateful to Marija Liudvika for her interest. Jennifer Michael Hecht, a wonderful poet and prose writer with the liveliest of philosophical minds, is not (to my knowledge) related to the late Anthony Hecht (whose versemaking finesse is exemplary).

[Stacey]

Beau and Diane: If you visit the "about" page (link above in the navigation bar), you find an e-mail option.
Stacey