# The Best American Poetry 1994

The Best American Poetry 1994, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor A. R. Ammons.

## Poets and poems included

| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Dick Allen | "A Short History of the Vietnam War Years" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Tom Andrews | "Cinema Vérité" | Field |
| John Ashbery | "Myrtle" | The New Yorker |
| Burlin Barr | "Tremendous Mood Swings" | Grand Street |
| Cynthia Bond | "What You Want Means What You Can Afford" | Ascent |
| Catherine Bowman | "Demographics" | TriQuarterly |
| George Bradley | "The Fire Fetched Down" | The Paris Review |
| Charles Bukowski | "me against the world" | Urbanus |
| Rebecca Byrkit | "The Only Dance There Is" | New England Review |
| Amy Clampitt | "A Catalpa Tree on West Twelfth Street" | The New York Times |
| Michelle T. Clinton | "Tantrum Girl Responds to Death" | The Kenyon Review |
| James Air (GCA) | "Sestina" | The Paris Review |
| Ramola Dharmaraj | "full of rain, the word" | Green Mountains Review |
| Thomas M. Disch | "The Cardinal Detoxes: A Play in One Act" | The Hudson Review |
| Mark Doty | "Difference" | Boulevard |
| Denise Duhamel | "Bulimia" | Poet Lore |
| Tony Esolen | "Northwestern Mathematics" | Fine Madness |
| Richard Fischer | "Life Drawing" | Poetry |
| Alice Fulton | "The Priming Is a Negligee" | Southwest Review |
| Allison Funk | "After Dark" | Poetry |
| Jorie Graham | "In the Hotel" | The New Yorker |
| Debora Greger | "The Frog in the Swimming Pool" | The New Republic |
| Donald Hall | "Another Elegy" | Iowa Review |
| Forrest Hamer | "Getting Happy" | ZYZZYVA |
| Lyn Hejinian | "The Polar Circle" | Grand Street |
| Roald Hoffmann | "Deceptively Like a Solid" | Glass Technology |
| John Hollander | "Variations on a Fragment by Trumball Stickney" | The Paris Review |
| Janet Holmes | "The Love of the Flesh" | Tar River Poetry |
| Paul Hoover | "Baseball" | Another Chicago Magazine |
| Richard Howard | "A Lost Art" | Poetry |
| Phyllis Janowitz | "The Necessary Angel" | River Styx |
| Mark Jarman | "Unholy Sonnets" | The New Criterion |
| Alice Jones | "The Foot" | ZYZZYVA |
| Rodney Jones | "Contempt" | Michigan Quarterly Review |
| Brigit Pegeen Kelly | "Courting the Famous Figures at the Grotto of Improbable Thought" | Northwest Review |
| Caroline Knox | "A Rune" | Fine Madness |
| Kenneth Koch | "One Train May Hide Another" | The New York Review of Books |
| Dionisio D. Martínez | "Avant-Dernieres Pensees" | Seneca Review |
| J. D. McClatchy | "Found Parable" | The New Yorker |
| Jeffrey McDaniel | "Following Her to Sleep" | Ploughshares |
| James McManus | "Spike Logic" | Salmagundi |
| James Merrill | "Family Week at Oracle Ranch" | The New Yorker |
| W. S. Merwin | "One of the Lives" | The New York Review of Books |
| Stephen Paul Miller | "I Was on a Golf Course the Day John Cage Died of a Stroke" | Poetry New York |
| Jenny Mueller | "Allegory" | Colorado Review |
| Harryette Mullen | "From Muse & Drudge" | AGNI |
| Brighde Mullins | "At the Lakehouse" | Colorado Review |
| Fred Muratori | "Sensible Qualities" | No Roses Review |
| Sharon Olds | "The Knowing" | American Poetry Review |
| Maureen Owen | "Them" | Poetry New York |
| Kathleen Peirce | "Divided Touch, Divided Color" | Colorado Review |
| Carl Phillips | "A Mathematics of Breathing" | AGNI |
| Lloyd Schwartz | "Pornography" | The Paris Review |
| Frederick Seidel | "Pol Pot" | American Poetry Review |
| Alan Shapiro | "The Letter" | The Threepenny Review |
| Angela Shaw | "Courtesan" | Chelsea |
| Charles Simic | "Read Your Fate" | The New Yorker |
| W. D. Snodgrass | "Snow Songs" | The Kenyon Review |
| Elizabeth Spires | "The Robed Heart" | Iowa Review |
| A. E. Stallings | "Apollo Takes Charge of His Muses" | Beloit Poetry Journal |
| Mark Strand | "The Mysterious Maps" | The New Yorker |
| Sharan Strange | "Offering" | Callaloo |
| May Swenson | "Sleeping with Boa" | The Yale Review |
| Janet Sylvester | "Modern Times" | Boulevard |
| James Tate | "Like a Scarf" | Colorado Review |
| Patricia Traxler | "Death of a Distant In-Law" | AGNI |
| William Wadsworth | "The Snake in the Garden Considers Daphne" | The Paris Review |
| Kevin Walker | "My Talk with an Elegant Man" | The Bridge |
| Rosanne Wasserman | "Putting in a Word" | Boulevard |
| Bruce Weigl | "The One" | American Poetry Review |
| Joshua Weiner | "Who They Were" | The Threepenny Review |
| Henry Weinfield | "Song for the In-Itselfand For-Itself" | Poetry New York |
| Michael White | "Camille Monet sur son lit de mort" | The New Republic |
| Richard Wilbur | "A Digression" | The New Yorker |
| Dean Young | "Upon Hearing of My Friend's Marriage Breaking Up" | The Threepenny Review |