Best American Poets Stop By The New School

As the crowd filed into Tishman Auditorium through two sets of double-doors, a man in a khaki suit and wire-rimmed glasses took the podium. Fiddling with the microphone to accommodate his height, he politely asked “Is there some way we could dim the lights in here?” Someone quietly and hurriedly left his seat to go attend to the light switch. About five minutes passed and, voila, the lights gradually came down. The crowd sighed dramatically in unison. The man at the podium chuckled. “Our mouths to God’s ears,” he said, the audience chuckling in response, and the event began.

With the lights appropriately dimmed and the crowd now thoroughly relaxed, the stage was set for the evening. Nearly all of the 500 seats were filled for a reading of the 25th volume of “The Best American Poetry” on September 20. This annual anthology, edited by David Lehman, poetry coordinator of The New School’s MFA writing program, features poems from guest editor Mark Doty, as well as 75 other poets.

On stage, young adults at the start of their writing careers stood beside well-seasoned poets. Eduardo C. Corral, Elaine Equi, Mark Strand, Amy Glynn Greacen, Lawrence Joseph, and Jenny Johnson, among others, took the floor to read some of their work.

“[These poets] have accepted the challenge of writing about history in the making, but they have not forgotten the poets’ first commandment: thou must give pleasure,” Lehman told the audience. “The range of subject matter is as exciting as the range of approach and form.”

The auditorium reverberated with applause as guests read their poems spanning a wide range of subject matter. Some poets were wearing suspenders and spectacles while others were clad in plaid and blue jeans. Heather Christle read her poem “Basic,” which evokes deep emotions that basic computer programming can trigger in its human users, such as sadness and a sense of calm tranquility. In Richard Howard’s poem “A Proposed Curriculum Change,” a fifth grade class wishes to change their “one-sided” school curriculum after witnessing a mouse eat its fostered children, raising questions such as whether or not their “own parents will eat [them.]”

Following Lehman, Doty took the podium to express his thoughts on the anthology and the state of poetry today.

“I happen to think this is a vital moment in American poetry, and that poems of great formal variety and genuine ambition are being published now in many venues,” Doty said.

Lehman also announced that the retrospective collection of “The Best American Poetry,” aptly titled “The Best of the Best American Poetry,” will be released in April 2013, with poem from Robert Pinsky. Pinksy has appeared in several volumes of the anthology, including the first volume in 1988.

The anthology’s ongoing success is something Lehman never expected, still remarking about it at Thursday night’s reading.

“When we started The Best American Poetry,” he said, “few thought the series would last five years, let alone five times that many.”