The Best American Poetry 2020

One way I'm celebrating National Poetry Month this year is by reading the most recent installment in The Best American Poetry series. I've done this a few times before; it can be fun to see to whether the selected poems (about 75) seem to complement or contrast with the guest editor's style. I'm not familiar with the work of Paisley Rekdal, guest editor for the 2020 volume. I'll come back and read her forward after I've finished the anthology (the introductions often quote from the included poems, and since most of these recent poems are new to me, I like to come to them fresh first).

I won't read the collection in one sitting; generally, I'll read batches of 5 or 10 poems, first the poems and then the contributors' notes. All of the poems in the first batch of 5 (they're arranged alphabetically by poet's last name) are interesting, though none will probably make my personal favorites list. The author notes were particularly engaging; Reginald Dwayne Betts writes of reading past editions (and notes sections) as a young man "sans MFA program, sans writing mentor, sans a functional library" and being inspired. His poem "A Man Drops A Coat on the Sidewalk and Almost Falls into the Arms of Another," capturing a moment between two drug addicts, is probably the most lyrical. The title bleeds into the opening lines:

            as in almost Madame Cezanne in Red,
            almost falling, almost no longer--as in
            almost only bent elbows, almost more
            than longing, almost more than unholy,
            more than skag, white lady, junk, almost

            more than the city eclipsing around them,
            Winchester Gun Factory's windows as broken
            as the pair refuse to be ...

Julia Alvarez' opening poem, juxtaposing the public responses to the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave and the children imprisoned at the U.S./Mexico border, is more narrative. "We can become the good people we already are," she concludes in her contributor note.

Iranian American poet's "Invention of I" seems ghazal-inspired, with couplets contrasting English and Farsi/Persian grammar and cultural values. The longer excerpt from Rick Barot's "The Galleons" is also comprised of couplets, here with more of a prose-like tone. He writes of his mother's experiences as a Philippine immigrant, sometimes speaking on a grand scale ("Maybe history is a net through which/just about everything passes."), sometimes quoting directly from recorded interviews, sometimes describing archaeological history, sometimes family history ("You know  that wedding ... dress in the picture, we had to borrow it from our neighbor.").

Brandon Amico's "Customer Loyalty Program" uses the dense, generic-seeming language of commercialism ("The opposite of not existing/is shopping. ... I am my credit score") with some (kind of black) humor. I enjoyed spotting a reference to the Beatitutes ("...I withhold./I charitable contribution. I put into/a MEEK fund so I inherit whatever's left/when the wars are done. ...").