The Best American Poetry 2012 (39 page)

K
EVIN
Y
OUNG
was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1970. His books of poetry include
Most Way Home
(William Morrow, 1995),
Jelly Roll: A Blues
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2003),
For the Confederate Dead
(which won the 2007 Quill Award for poetry), and
Dear Darkness
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), which won a 2009 Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award in poetry. His most recent book is
Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). Young has edited
The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing,
an anthology of contemporary elegies (Bloomsbury USA, 2010), as well as the collections
Jazz Poems
(2006) and
Blues Poems
(2003) from Everyman's Library, a selected edition of John Berryman's poems for the Library of America's American Poets Project, and
Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers
(HarperCollins, 2000). His book
The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness
won the 2010 Graywolf Nonfiction Prize. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is the Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English and is curator of literary collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University in Atlanta. He was guest editor of
The Best American Poetry 2011.

MAGAZINES
W
HERE THE
P
OEMS
W
ERE
F
IRST
P
UBLISHED

The American Poetry Review,
eds. Stephen Berg, David Bonanno, and Elizabeth Scanlon. 1700 Sansom Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

The Antioch Review,
poetry ed. Judith Hall. PO Box 148, Yellow Springs, OH 45387.

Barrow Street,
eds. Lorna Knowles Blake, Patricia Carlin, Peter Covino, Melissa Hotchkiss, and Lois Hirshkowitz (1998–2006). PO Box 1831, New York, NY 10156.

Beloit Poetry Journal,
eds. John Rosenwald and Lee Sharkey. PO Box 151, Farmington, ME 04938.

Boston Review,
poetry eds. Timothy Donnelly and Benjamin Paloff. 35 Medford Street, Suite 302, Somerville, MA 02143.

The Cincinnati Review,
poetry ed. Don Bogen. PO Box 210069, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0069.

Colorado Review,
poetry eds. Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Matthew Cooperman. 9105 Campus Delivery, Department of English, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105.

The Common,
poetry ed. John Hennessy. Frost Library, Amherst College, Amherst, MA 01002.

Conduit,
ed. William Waltz. 510 Eighth Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413.

Five Points,
eds. David Bottoms and Megan Sexton. PO Box 3999, Atlanta, GA 30302-3999.

The Gettysburg Review,
ed. Peter Stitt. Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, PA 17325-1491.

Granta,
ed. John Freeman. 12 Addison Avenue, London W11 4QR England.

Green Mountains Review,
poetry ed. Elizabeth Powell. 337 College Hill, Johnson, VT 05656.

Gulf Coast,
poetry eds. Joshua Gottlieb-Miller, Janine Joseph, and Karyna McGlynn. Department of English, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-3013.

Harvard Review,
poetry ed. Major Jackson. Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.

The Hudson Review,
ed. Paula Deitz. 684 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021.

The Kenyon Review,
poetry ed. David Baker.
www.kenyonreview.org
.

Lambda Literary Review,
poetry eds. David Groff and Jameson Fitzpatrick.
www.lambdaliterary.org

The Literary Review,
poetry eds. Renée Ashley and David Daniel. Fairleigh Dickinson University, 285 Madison Avenue, Madison, NJ 07940.

Mead: The Magazine of Literature and Libations,
editor-in-chief Laura McCullough.
www.meadmagazine.org

Memorious,
editor-in-chief Rebecca Morgan Frank.
www.memorious.org
.

The Nation,
poetry ed. Jordan Davis. 33 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003-2307.

New American Writing,
eds. Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover. 369 Molino Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941.

New England Review,
poetry ed. C. Dale Young. Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753.

New Ohio Review,
ed. Jill Allyn Rosser. English Department, 360 Ellis Hall, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.

The New Yorker,
poetry ed. Paul Muldoon. 4 Times Square, New York, NY 10036.

Ploughshares,
poetry ed. John Skoyles. Emerson College, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116-4624.

Poetry,
ed. Christian Wiman. 444 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1850, Chicago, IL 60611-4034.

Poetry Daily,
coeditors Don Selby and Diane Boller.
www.poems.com
.

Prairie Schooner,
ed. Hilda Raz. 201 Andrews Hall, PO Box 880334, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334.

River Styx,
ed. Richard Newman. 3547 Olive Street, Suite 107, St. Louis, MO 63103.

Salmagundi,
eds. Robert Boyers and Peg Boyers. Skidmore College, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.

Seneca Review,
ed. David Weiss. Hobart and William Smith Colleges, English Department, 101 Demarest Hall, Geneva, NY 14456.

The Southern Review,
poetry ed. Jessica Faust. 3990 West Lakeshore Drive, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70808.

Southwest Review,
ed. Willard Spiegelman. PO Box 750374, Dallas, TX 75275-0374.

Subtropics,
poetry ed. Sidney Wade. PO Box 112075, 4008 Turlington Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2075.

The Threepenny Review,
ed. Wendy Lesser. PO Box 9131, Berkeley, CA 94709.

Tin House,
poetry ed. Matthew Dickman. PO Box 10500, Portland, OR 97210.

Umbrella,
ed. Kate Bernadette Benedict.
www.umbrellajournal.com
.

Witness,
poetry ed. Joshua Kryah. Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada, Box 455085, Las Vegas, NV 89154-5085.

Zoland Poetry,
ed. Roland Pease.
www.zolandpoetry.com
.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The series editor thanks Mark Bibbins for his invaluable assistance. Warm thanks go also to Stacey Harwood and Stephanie Paterik; to Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers' Representatives; and to my editor, Alexis Gargagliano, and her colleagues at Scribner, including Daniel Cuddy, Erich Hobbing, Kelsey Smith, and David Stanford Burr.

Grateful acknowledgment is made of the magazines in which these poems first appeared and the magazine editors who selected them. A sincere attempt has been made to locate all copyright holders. Unless otherwise noted, copyright to the poems is held by the individual poets.

Sherman Alexie: “Terminal Nostalgia” appeared in
Green Mountains Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Karen Leona Anderson: “Receipt: Midway Entertainment Presents” appeared in
Seneca Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Rae Armantrout: “Accounts” appeared in
Poetry.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Julianna Baggott: “For Furious Nursing Baby” appeared in
The Cincinnati Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

David Baker: “Outside” appeared in
The Southern Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Rick Barot: “Child Holding Potato” appeared in
Memorious.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Reginald Dwayne Betts: “At the End of Life, a Secret” appeared in
New England Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Frank Bidart: “Of His Bones Are Coral Made” appeared in
Salmagundi.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Bruce Bond: “Pill” appeared in
Colorado Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Stephanie Brown: “Notre Dame” appeared in
The American Poetry Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Anne Carson: “Sonnet of Exemplary Sentences” appeared in
The Nation.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Jennifer Chang: “Dorothy Wordsworth” appeared in
The Nation.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Joseph Chapman: “Sparrow” appeared in
The Cincinnati Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Heather Christle: “BASIC” from
What Is Amazing.
© 2012 by Heather Christle. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press. Also appeared in
The New Yorker.

Henri Cole: “Broom” from
Touch.
© 2011 by Henri Cole. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Also appeared in
The Threepenny Review.

Billy Collins: “Delivery” appeared in
Subtropics.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Peter Cooley: “More Than Twice, More Than I Can Count” appeared in
Harvard Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Eduardo C. Corral: “To the Angelbeast” from
Slow Lightning.
© 2011 by Eduardo C. Corral. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press. Also appeared in
Poetry.

Erica Dawson: “Back Matter” appeared in
Barrow Street.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Stephen Dunn: “The Imagined” from
Here and Now.
© 2011 by Stephen Dunn. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Co. Also appeared in
The New Yorker.

Elaine Equi: “A Story Begins” appeared in
New American Writing.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Robert Gibb: “Spirit in the Dark” from
Sheet Music.
© 2012 by Robert Gibb. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Autumn House Press. Also appeared in
Prairie Schooner.

Kathleen Graber: “Self-Portrait with No Internal Navigation” appeared in
Mead.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Amy Glynn Greacen: “
Helianthus annuus
(Sunflower)” appeared in
New England Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

James Allen Hall: “One Train's Survival Depends on the Other Derailed” appeared in
New England Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Terrance Hayes: “The Rose Has Teeth” appeared in
Tin House.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Steven Heighton: “Collision” from
Patient Frame
. © 2010 by Steven Heighton. Reprinted by permission of House of Anansi Press. Also appeared in
The Literary Review.

Brenda Hillman: “Moaning Action at the Gas Pump” appeared in
Gulf Coast.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Jane Hirshfield: “In a Kitchen Where Mushrooms Were Washed” appeared in
Ploughshares.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Richard Howard: “A Proposed Curriculum Change” appeared in
The Antioch Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Marie Howe: “Magdalene—The Seven Devils” appeared in
The American Poetry Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Amorak Huey: “Memphis” appeared in
The Southern Review.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Jenny Johnson: “Aria” appeared in
Beloit Poetry Journal.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Lawrence Joseph: “So Where Are We?” appeared in
Granta.
Reprinted by permission of the poet.