This essay by Harold
Bloom will appear as the introduction to The Best of the Best American
Poetry, 1988-1997, published in April 1998 by Scribner. For the book,
series editor David Lehman asked Bloom to choose seventy-five poems from the
annual's first ten volumes--750 poems in all, selected by guest editors John
Ashbery, Donald Hall, Jorie Graham, Mark Strand, Charles Simic, Louise Gluck,
A. R. Ammons, Richard Howard, Adrienne Rich, and James Tate. Lehman explains
in his preface to the book that "since poets had done the selecting for the
individual volumes, I thought to entrust this new task to a critic--preferably
a fearless and influential one, with strong opinions, sophisticated taste,
and a passion for poetry that matches any poet's." As Bloom's essay shows,
he rose to the challenge--taking the occasion to comment not only on his choices
and omissions but to mount a spirited critique of contemporary poetry, criticism,
and cultural sensibilities.
This essay is not the final word on the last ten years of American poetry,
of course, nor the end of the debate in Boston Review: next time we
will be publishing responses to Bloom's essay by, among others, Mark Doty,
Ann Lauterbach, Rita Dove, J. D. McClatchy, Donald Revell, Heather McHugh,
Thylias Moss, Reginald Shepherd, Carol Muske, Sven Birkerts, and Marjorie
Perloff. Readers curious to see Bloom's picks are encouraged to read the collection;
as a reference, we have also provided a full
list of titles and authors here.
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