I wonder if it’s wise to call a poem “best” so soon after its publication.
I recently read a Best American Poetry from a few years ago, but there wasn’t a single poem in it that I noted as something to come back to or to pass along to others. I’m sure there were interesting poems published that year, it’s just that in (my) hindsight these were not those poems. Or maybe “best” had an expiration date that year.
Obviously the editor thought otherwise and, as you point out, that’s kind of the problem. But how else to determine what to include, vote on it? Well, that might result in an interesting collection. Eg, The Year’s Most-Read New Poems. Online mags know how many times each poem was viewed, so it could be done if you had a group of cooperating mags (one view = one vote, let’s say).
That would remove editor bias (as long as they’re numerate) and doesn’t make any claim about quality or imply any sort of longevity.
When I think of the "Best of" collections, my brain goes directly to "Selected" - whether it's essays or poems. I think that's the lens you're putting on this, Radha, that we should think of the poems as selected at several steps - the poet who submitted to the journal, the journal's editor (plus whatever reading staff the journal has), the volume's editor (this year Zapruder, whose book Why Poetry should be on every poet's shelf, where the books we've already read at least once are), the series editor. That's a lot of selection.
This piece has been a great yeasty catalyst for spontaneous research, which is a wonderful way to spend a morning! Thank you. I especially appreciate the closing reminder to think about what I want poetry to be for me. Necessary, yes, and nourishing.
Thank you for this, Radha. I became curious about Zapruder this week, after reading an essay that twice mentions him...well, it derides him, though I don't really understand why. So, I read some of his poems. His words were common and his poems required little work to be understood. The ones I read, if they are representative, are no less intriguing in their absence of complication, and I am still trying to understand the dispute the essay's author has with him. I wonder how his view of poetry influenced his choices for the "Best". And I think this is exactly the question you encourage us to keep in mind--knowing that each editor has a perspective and none has the ultimate view, regard the selected poems in light of the editor. And, perhaps, keep this in mind when our own work is received differently by various people, such as editors.
(and yet, we as writers have our own best poets list, our favorite “best” poetry. I even have a place for my own best pieces written… curious.) One of the vital jobs instructors can do is to demand we reassess how critiques are managed in classrooms— because, aren’t we teaching /searching for best voice? For best execution? For best formal application? In music we all naturally hold different categories or schools: jazz, classical, pop…. It is so crazy that in such an enormously rich and brilliant soup of diversity, we STILL pull out the largest chunk and say: this is what soup is!
I agree with your sentiment/feeling of “queasy “ in regards to what “best” actually entails. Most poems I’ve read in the “best” seem to be only the editor’s sensibility in the moment. I find in my weekly reading of a wide array of poems from around the globe, poems/poets that excite, jarr, stun, renew, wow me that I’ve shared with my students and friends whereas in the “best” simply a guest editor, and many who I highly respect, selecting based on self-mood and perhaps the mood of the day or season in the moment on the planet. “Best” is subjective. Perhaps the time has come to delete the word from the anthology title and suggest the editor state why the selection of poems was made without “best.”
I wonder if it’s wise to call a poem “best” so soon after its publication.
I recently read a Best American Poetry from a few years ago, but there wasn’t a single poem in it that I noted as something to come back to or to pass along to others. I’m sure there were interesting poems published that year, it’s just that in (my) hindsight these were not those poems. Or maybe “best” had an expiration date that year.
Obviously the editor thought otherwise and, as you point out, that’s kind of the problem. But how else to determine what to include, vote on it? Well, that might result in an interesting collection. Eg, The Year’s Most-Read New Poems. Online mags know how many times each poem was viewed, so it could be done if you had a group of cooperating mags (one view = one vote, let’s say).
That would remove editor bias (as long as they’re numerate) and doesn’t make any claim about quality or imply any sort of longevity.
When I think of the "Best of" collections, my brain goes directly to "Selected" - whether it's essays or poems. I think that's the lens you're putting on this, Radha, that we should think of the poems as selected at several steps - the poet who submitted to the journal, the journal's editor (plus whatever reading staff the journal has), the volume's editor (this year Zapruder, whose book Why Poetry should be on every poet's shelf, where the books we've already read at least once are), the series editor. That's a lot of selection.
This piece has been a great yeasty catalyst for spontaneous research, which is a wonderful way to spend a morning! Thank you. I especially appreciate the closing reminder to think about what I want poetry to be for me. Necessary, yes, and nourishing.
Thank you for this, Radha. I became curious about Zapruder this week, after reading an essay that twice mentions him...well, it derides him, though I don't really understand why. So, I read some of his poems. His words were common and his poems required little work to be understood. The ones I read, if they are representative, are no less intriguing in their absence of complication, and I am still trying to understand the dispute the essay's author has with him. I wonder how his view of poetry influenced his choices for the "Best". And I think this is exactly the question you encourage us to keep in mind--knowing that each editor has a perspective and none has the ultimate view, regard the selected poems in light of the editor. And, perhaps, keep this in mind when our own work is received differently by various people, such as editors.
(and yet, we as writers have our own best poets list, our favorite “best” poetry. I even have a place for my own best pieces written… curious.) One of the vital jobs instructors can do is to demand we reassess how critiques are managed in classrooms— because, aren’t we teaching /searching for best voice? For best execution? For best formal application? In music we all naturally hold different categories or schools: jazz, classical, pop…. It is so crazy that in such an enormously rich and brilliant soup of diversity, we STILL pull out the largest chunk and say: this is what soup is!
I agree with your sentiment/feeling of “queasy “ in regards to what “best” actually entails. Most poems I’ve read in the “best” seem to be only the editor’s sensibility in the moment. I find in my weekly reading of a wide array of poems from around the globe, poems/poets that excite, jarr, stun, renew, wow me that I’ve shared with my students and friends whereas in the “best” simply a guest editor, and many who I highly respect, selecting based on self-mood and perhaps the mood of the day or season in the moment on the planet. “Best” is subjective. Perhaps the time has come to delete the word from the anthology title and suggest the editor state why the selection of poems was made without “best.”