The twentieth edition of The Best American poetry series celebrates the rich and fertile landscape of American poetry. Renowned poet Heather McHugh loves words and the unexpected places they take you; her own poetry elevates wordplay to a species of metaphysical wit. For this year's anthology McHugh has culled a spectacular group of poems reflecting her passion for language, her acumen, and her vivacious humor. From the thousands of poems published or posted in one year, McHugh has chosen seventy-five that fully engage the reader while illustrating the formal and tonal diversity of American poetry. With new work by established poets such as Louise Glück, Robert Hass, and Richard Wilbur, The Best American Poetry 2007 also features such younger talents as Ben Lerner, Meghan O'Rourke, Brian Turner, and Matthea Harvey. Graced with McHugh's fascinating introduction, the anthology includes the ever-popular notes and comments section in which the contributors write about their work. Series editor David Lehman's engaging foreword limns the necessity of poetry. The Best American Poetry 2007 is an exciting addition to a series committed to covering the American poetry scene and delivering great poems to a broad audience. You certainly can't accuse McHugh, editor of this year's edition of this respected annual anthology, of taking things too seriously. In fact, the 2007 volume seems excessively keen on balancing poems with any degree of gravitas with a corresponding gang of poets dealing in parody and relentless wordplay. That isn't to say that some of the funny stuff isn't very funny indeed—Billy Collins' gleeful "The News Today," a spectacularly foul-mouthed send–up of Catullus, is a case in point—or that so much contemporary poetry doesn't live in a hot-air balloon in need of regular puncturing. But the semantic antics here sometimes grow frenzied, empty, and tiresome, driving the reader to seek relief in quieter, more secure poems by old hands like Marvin Bell ("The Method") and Jane Hirshfield ("Critique of Pure Reason"). Maybe the strangest thing about this volume is how few poems it actually contains, what with a staggering 41 pages of contributors' bios and commentary. Nance, Kevin "A 'best' anthology that really lives up to its title." -- Chicago Tribune "Each year, a vivid snapshot of what a distinguished poet finds exciting, fresh and memorable: and over the years, as good a comprehensive overview of contem-porary poetry as there can be." -- Robert Pinsky David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry , edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry . His books of poetry include The Morning Line , When a Woman Loves a Man , and The Daily Mirror. He has written such nonfiction books as Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York. Heather McHugh is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Eyeshot and Hinge & Sign. She teaches at the University of Washington in Seattle and at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Used Book in Good Condition