# The Best American Poetry 1999

The Best American Poetry 1999, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Robert Bly.

## Poets and poems included

| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| Dick Allen | "The Selfishness of the Poetry Reader" | The Café Review |
| John Balaban | "Story" | Verse |
| Coleman Barks | "Bill Matthews Coming Along (1942-1997)" | Figdust |
| George Bilgere | "Catch" | The Sewanee Review |
| Elizabeth Bishop | "Foreign-Domestic" | Conjunctions |
| Chana Bloch | "Tired Sex" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Philip Booth | "Narrow Road, Presidents' Day" | American Poetry Review |
| John Brehm | "Sea of Faith" | The Southern Review |
| Hayden Carruth | "Because I Am" | Seneca Review |
| Lucille Clifton | "the mississippi river empties into the gulf" | River City |
| Billy Collins | "Dharma" | Poetry |
| Robert Creeley | "Mitch" | Solo |
| Lydia Davis | "Betrayal" | Hambone |
| Debra Kang Dean | "Taproot" | Crab Orchard Review |
| Chard deNiord | "Pasternak" | New England Review |
| Russell Edson | "Madam's Heart" | The Prose Poem |
| Lawrence Ferlinghetti | "A Buddha in the Woodpile" | Blasts |
| Dan Gerber | "My Father's Fields" | Poetry |
| Louise Glück | "Vita Nova" | The New Yorker |
| Ray Gonzalez | "Breastbone" | The Bitter Oleander |
| John Haines | "The Last Election" | Many Mountains Moving |
| Donald Hall | "Smile" | The Yale Review |
| Jennifer Michael Hecht | "September" | The Antioch Review |
| Bob Hicok | "What Would Freud Say?" | Cream City Review |
| Jane Hirshfield | "The Envoy" | Blue Sofa |
| Tony Hoagland | "Lawrence" | Ploughshares |
| John Hollander | "Beach Whispers" | The New Yorker |
| Amy Holman | "Man Script" | Literal Latte |
| David Ignatow | "The Story of Progress" | Verse |
| Gray Jacobik | "The Circle Theatre" | Alkali Flats |
| Josephine Jacobsen | "Last Will and Testament" | Potomac Review |
| Louis Jenkins | "Two Prose Poems" | Rosebud |
| Mary Karr | "The Patient" | Poetry |
| X. J. Kennedy | "A Curse on a Thief" | Harvard Review |
| Galway Kinnell | "Why Regret?" | The New Yorker |
| Carolyn Kizer | "The Erotic Philosophers" | The Yale Review |
| Ron Koertge | "1989" | Solo |
| Yusef Komunyakaa | "Scapegoat" | Ontario Review |
| William Kulik | "The Triumph of Narcissus and Aphrodite" | Black Warrior Review |
| James Laughlin | "Nunc Dimittis" | DoubleTake |
| Dorianne Laux | "The Shipfitter's Wife" | DoubleTake |
| Li-Young Lee | "The Sleepless Grape" | Water Stone |
| Denise Levertov | "First Love" | Kalliope |
| Philip Levine | "The Return" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| David Mamet | "A Charade" | Ploughshares |
| Gigi Marks | "The Swim" | Poetry |
| William Matthews | "Misgivings" | Poetry |
| Wesley McNair | "The Characters of Dirty Jokes" | Mid-American Review |
| Czesław Miłosz | "A Ball" | Partisan Review |
| Joan Murray | from "Sonny's Face. Sonny's Hands" | The Southern Review |
| Sharon Olds | "What It Meant" | The Southern Review |
| Mary Oliver | "Flare" | Shenandoah |
| Franco Pagnucci | "And Now" | Acorn |
| Molly Peacock | "Say You Love Me" | Fence |
| Alberto Ríos | "Writing from Memory" | Meridian |
| David Ray | "Hemingway's Garden" | New Millennium Writings |
| Adrienne Rich | "Seven Skins" | The Progressive |
| Kay Ryan | "That Will to Divest" | The Yale Review |
| Sonia Sanchez | "Last recording session/for papa joe" | Painted Bride Quarterly |
| Revan Schendler | "The Public and the Private Spheres" | Salmagundi |
| Myra Shapiro | "Longing and Wonder" | Common Sense |
| Charles Simic | "Barber College Haircut" | AGNI |
| Louis Simpson | "A Shearling Coat" | The Hudson Review |
| Thomas R. Smith | "Housewarming" | AGNI |
| Marcia Southwick | "A Star Is Born in the Eagle Nebula" | The Gettysburg Review |
| William Stafford | "Ways to Live" | Cream City Review |
| Peggy Steele | "The Drunkard's Daughter" | Blue Sofa |
| Ruth Stone | "A Moment" | Paterson Literary Review |
| Larissa Szporluk | "Deer Crossing the Sea" | Green Mountains Review |
| Diane Thiel | "The Minefield" | Tor House Newsletter |
| David Wagoner | "Thoreau and the Crickets" | Ploughshares |
| Richard Wilbur | "This Pleasing Anxious Being" | The New Yorker |
| C.K. Williams | "Archetypes" | Ontario Review |
| Charles Wright | "American Twilight" | Partisan Review |
| Timothy Young | "The Thread of Sunlight" | The Journal of Family Life |