Poets and Poems Included
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Kim Addonizio | "Virgin Spring" | Barrow Street |
| Pamela Alexander | "Semiotics" | Boston Book Review |
| A. R. Ammons | "Shot Glass" | The New Yorker |
| Julianna Baggott | "Mary Todd on Her Deathbed" | Quarterly West |
| Erin Belieu | "Choose Your Garden" | TriQuarterly |
| Richard Blanco | "Mango, Number 61" | TriQuarterly |
| Janet Bowdan | "The Year" | Denver Quarterly |
| Grace Butcher | "Crow Is Walking" | Poetry |
| Lucille Clifton | "Signs" | Callaloo |
| Billy Collins | "Man Listening to Disc" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Jim Daniels | "Between Periods" | Crab Orchard Review |
| Linh Dinh | "The Most Beautiful Word" | Xconnect |
| Gregory Djanikian | "Immigrant Picnic" | Poetry |
| Denise Duhamel | "Incest Taboo" | Barrow Street |
| Christopher Edgar | "Birthday" | The Germ |
| Karl Elder | "Alpha Images" | Beloit Poetry Journal |
| Lynn Emanuel | "Walt. I Salute You!" | Boulevard |
| B. H. Fairchild | "Mrs. Hill" | The Southern Review |
| Charles Fort | "We Did Not Fear the Father" | The Georgia Review |
| Frank X. Gaspar | "Seven Roses" | The Georgia Review |
| Elton Glaser | "And in the Afternoons I Botanized" | Parnassus (magazine) |
| Ray Gonzalez | "For the Other World" | Crab Orchard Review |
| Jennifer Grotz | "The Last Living Castrato" | New England Review |
| Thom Gunn | "The Dump" | The Threepenny Review |
| Mark Halliday | "Before" | Xconnect |
| Barbara Hamby | "Ode to the Lost Luggage Warehouse at the Rome Airport" |
Five Points |
| Forrest Hamer | "Goldsboro Narratives" | Callaloo |
| Brenda Hillman | "Air for Mercury" | Boston Review |
| Marsha Janson | "Considering the Demise of Everything" | Harvard Review |
| Mark Jarman | "Epistle" | Meridian |
| Patricia Spears Jones | "Ghosts" | Crab Orchard Review |
| Rodney Jones | "Plea for Forgiveness" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Donald Justice | "Ralph: A Love Story" | The New Criterion |
| Olena Kalytiak Davis | "Six Apologies, Lord" | The Antioch Review |
| David Kirby | "At the Grave of Harold Goldstein" | Parnassus (magazine) |
| Carolyn Kizer | "The Oration" | The Threepenny Review |
| Lynne Knight | "The Muse of the Actual" | The Southern Review |
| Yusef Komunyakaa | "The Goddess of Quotas Laments" | TriQuarterly |
| Thomas Lux | "Henry Clay's Mouth" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Lynne McMahon | "We Take Our Children to Ireland" | The Southern Review |
| W. S. Merwin | "The Hours of Darkness" | Poetry |
| Susan Mitchell | "Lost Parrot" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Jean Nordhaus | "Aunt Lily and Frederick the Great" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Mary Oliver | "Work" | The Southern Review |
| Michael Palmer | "I Do Not" | American Poetry Review |
| Paul Perry | "Paris" | Callaloo |
| Carl Phillips | "'All art...'" | Boulevard |
| Robert Pinsky | "Samurai Song" | The New Yorker |
| Donald Platt | "History & Bikinis" | Shenandoah |
| Stanley Plumly | "Kunitz Tending Roses" | Poetry |
| Lawrence Raab | "Permanence" | The Virginia Quarterly Review |
| Thomas Rabbitt | "The Beach at Falmouth Heights, Summer, 1952" |
Black Warrior Review |
| Mary Jo Salter | "Au Pair" | Poetry |
| Rebecca Seiferle | "Welcome to Ithaca" | Partisan Review |
| Brenda Shaughnessy | "Postfeminism" | Chelsea |
| Laurie Sheck | from "Black Series" | Seneca Review |
| Reginald Shepherd | "Semantics at Four P.M." | American Letters & Commentary (magazine) |
| Richard Siken | "The Dislocated Room" | Indiana Review |
| Cathy Song | "Mother of Us All" | Shenandoah |
| Gary Soto | "Chit-Chat with the Junior League Women" |
Poetry |
| Gabriel Spera | "In a Field Outside the Town" | Poetry |
| A. E. Stallings | "Asphodel" | Beloit Poetry Journal |
| Susan Stewart | "Wings" | American Poetry Review |
| Adrienne Su | "The English Canon" | New Letters |
| Pamela Sutton | "There Is a Lake of Ice on the Moon" | American Poetry Review |
| Dorothea Tanning | "No Palms" | The Yale Review |
| Natasha Trethewey | "Limen" | New England Review |
| Quincy Troupe | "Song" | Tin House |
| Reetika Vazirani | "Rahim Multani" | Meridian |
| Paul Violi | "As I Was Telling David and Alexandra Kelley" |
The World |
| Derek Walcott | "Pissarro at Dusk" | The New Republic |
| Richard Wilbur | "Fabrications" | The Yale Review |
| Susan Wood | "Analysis of the Rose as Sentimental Despair" |
Ploughshares |
| John Yau | "Borrowed Love Poems" | Boston Review |
| Dean Young | "The Infirmament" | New American Writing |
Read more about this topic: The Best American Poetry 2000
Famous quotes containing the words poets, poems and/or included:
“Oh yes, children often commit murders. And quite clever ones, too. Some murderers, particularly the distinguished ones who are going to make great names for themselves, start amazingly early.... Like mathematicians and musicians. Poets develop later.”
—John Lee Mahin (1902–1984)
“Bernstein: “Girls delightful in Cuba stop. Could send you prose poems about scenery but don’t feel right spending your money stop. There is no war in Cuba. Signed Wheeler.” Any answer?
Charles Foster Kane: Yes—Dear Wheeler, You provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1985)
“The Heavenly eye,
Much wider than the sky,
Wherein they all included were,
The glorious Soul, that was the King
Made to possess them, did appear
A small and little thing!”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)