Poets and Poems Included
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Ai | "Back in the World" | Quarterly West |
| Sherman Alexie | "The Exaggeration of Despair" | Urbanus |
| Agha Shahid Ali | "Return to Harmony 3" | Verse |
| A. R. Ammons | from "Strip" | The Paris Review |
| Nin Andrews | "That Cold Summer" | Ploughshares |
| L. S. Asekoff | "Rounding the Horn" | American Poetry Review |
| John Ashbery | "The Problem of Anxiety" | Arshile |
| Marianne Boruch | "Camouflage" | Shenandoah |
| Catherine Bowman | "No Sorry" | TriQuarterly |
| Joseph Brodsky | "Love Song" | The New Republic |
| Stephanie Brown | "Feminine Intuition" | American Poetry Review |
| Joshua Clover | "The Map Room" | Iowa Review |
| Billy Collins | "Lines Lost Among Trees " | Poetry |
| Gillian Conoley | "The Sky Drank In" | American Letters & Commentary |
| Jayne Cortez | "The Heavy Headed Dance" | Hanging Loose |
| Robert Creeley | "Won't It Be Fine?" | Grand Street |
| Carl Dennis | "History" | The New Republic |
| William Dickey | "The Death of John Berryman" | Poetry |
| Robert Dow | "How Should I Say This?" | The Massachusetts Review |
| Thomas Sayers Ellis | "Atomic Bride" | Ploughshares |
| Irving Feldman | "You Know What I'm Saying?" | Poetry |
| Herman Fong | "Asylum" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Dick Gallup | "Backing into the Future" | The World |
| Martin Galvin | "Introductions" | Poetry |
| Amy Gerstler | "A Fan Letter" | American Poetry Review |
| Allen Ginsberg | "Is About" | The New Yorker |
| Dana Gioia | "The Litany" | The Hudson Review |
| Elton Glaser | "Smoking" | Shenandoah |
| Kate Gleason | "After Fighting for Hours" | Green Mountains Review |
| Albert Goldbarth | "Complete with Starry Night and Bourbon Shots" | Quarterly West |
| Jorie Graham | "Thinking" | The New Republic |
| Donald Hall | "The Porcelain Couple" | The New Yorker |
| Daniel Halpern | "Her Body" | Ploughshares |
| Robert Hass | "Interrupted Meditation" | Colorado Review |
| Bob Hicok | "Heroin" | Indiana Review |
| Paul Hoover | "California" | The New Republic |
| Christine Hume | "Helicopter Wrecked on a Hill" | Denver Quarterly |
| Harry Humes | "The Butterfly Effect" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Don Hymans | "Passacaglia" | Colorado Review |
| Lawson Fusao Inada | "Making It Stick" | Many Mountains Moving |
| Richard Jackson | "The Poem That Was Once Called "Desperate" But Is Now Striving to Become the Perfect Love Poem" |
North American Review |
| Gray Jacobik | "Dust Storm" | Ploughshares |
| George Kalamaras | "Mud" | New Letters |
| Jennifer L. Knox | "The Bright Light of Responsibility" | Exquisite Corpse (magazine) |
| Philip Kobylarz | "A Bill, Posted" | Poetry |
| Yusef Komunyakaa | "Jeanne Duval's Confession" | Black Warrior Review |
| Elizabeth Kostova | "Suddenly I Realized I Was Sitting" | Another Chicago Magazine |
| Denise Levertov | "The Change" | Seneca Review |
| Larry Levis | "Anastasia and Sandman" | American Poetry Review |
| Matthew Lippman | "Hallelujah Terrible" | Seneca Review |
| Beth Lisick | "Empress of Sighs" | Clockwatch Review |
| Khaled Mattawa | "Heartsong" | Ploughshares |
| William Matthews | "Vermin" | The New Yorker |
| Josip Novakovich | "Shadow" | Another Chicago Magazine |
| Geoffrey Nutter | from "A Summer Evening" | Denver Quarterly |
| Catie Rosemurgy | "Mostly Mick Jagger" | Cream City Review |
| Clare Rossini | "Valediction" | Poetry |
| Mary Ruefle | "Topophilia" | American Poetry Review |
| Hillel Schwartz | "Recruiting Poster" | Shenandoah |
| Maureen Seaton | "Fiddleheads" | Green Mountains Review |
| Vijay Seshadri | "Lifeline" | The Paris Review |
| Steven Sherrill | "Katyn Forest" | Another Chicago Magazine |
| Charles Simic | "The Something" | The New Yorker |
| Charlie Smith | "Beds" | Poetry |
| Leon Stokesbury | "Evening's End" | The Kenyon Review |
| Mark Strand | "Morning, Noon and Night" | The Times Literary Supplement |
| Jack Turner | "The Plan" | Poetry |
| Karen Volkman | "Infernal" | Chelsea |
| Derek Walcott | "Italian Eclogues" | The New York Review of Books |
| Rosanna Warren | "Diversion" | The New Republic |
| Lewis Warsh | "Downward Mobility" | The World |
| Terence Winch | "Shadow Grammar" | The World |
| Eve Wood | "Recognition" | Santa Monica Review |
| Charles Wright | "Disjecta Membra" | American Poetry Review |
| Dean Young | "Frottage" | The Gettysburg Review |
Read more about this topic: The Best American Poetry 1997
Famous quotes containing the words poets, poems and/or included:
“God, who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men’s behoof,
Straitly charged him, “Sit aloof;”
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever, when twain together play,
Shall the harp be dumb.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A glass of papaya juice
and back to work. My heart is in my
pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.”
—Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)
“The crew was complete: it included a Boots—
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods—
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes—
And a Broker, to value their goods.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)