Best American Poetry 2005 isn't the type of anthology I like. one poem per poet doesn't work for me. I would prefer depth over breadth. BAP is not, Pinksy's blurb to the contrary, a comprehensive overview of contemporary poetry, the context is too blurry. this anthology makes me feel rushed, try this try this try this. Bay Poetics doesn't feel so, partly, I think, because of the local connection, it does feel like one gets a glimpse of the scene out west. plus most of the poets represented have several poems included. it's kinda weird with BAP that 30% of the book isn't poetry, it's all the back matter/front matter stuff. I know I'm late to the party in bashing BAP, I don't really mean to bash. I can see reading the book straight thru, make an evening of it. there are writers I like here, and forgetable writers (mostly the latter). I haven't looked at America A Prophecy, edited by some combination of George Quasha, Armand Schwerner and Jerome Rothenberg, in some time but I consider that a pretty good model for an anthology. much more adventuresome. that's true of all the anthologies I've seen the above involved with. overview anthologies are always going to have huge holes in them, they just gotta. another saving grace of Bay Poetics is Stephanie Young's aesthetics. definitely she makes Bay Poetics. this BAP, and I'll bet the rest too, has a middle of the road dynamic that doesn't inspire me. with such small sampling from each writer, stylistic differences diminish. the poems start to sound the same. but wait, check out this sentence from the blurb to Mark Doty's book:

"In a style chastened by loss into plainness but still capable of unforgettable lyricism, Doty searches for affirmation in the midst of suffering while at the same time refusing the cheap solace of any affirmation that would diminish the irreplaceable value of those we love."

must credit Alan Shapiro as the perp who wrote that nuggest, which caught my eye as I bethought BAP. it's such a preposterously fluffed up hopefulness on display, that poetry could get involved with solace and affirmation. I believe in that solace and affirmation, but it doesn't come out of a machine. I mean, is James Tate excited when he writes another poem? poem, that is, that is little different from previous and to come. I assume someone handed Doty a list of adjecives and urged him, perhaps on pain of death (!!!) to use them all. what bothers me with the poetry here, Doty and BAP, is that the skill set for writing it is pretty vague and unconditioned. I enjoyed some poems in BAP, not yet with Doty, but I don't get an idea from either as to what a good poem might be or entail. it is hard to say what makes these works poems. what the hell is a poem? it's not so much the point to answer that question, perhaps it shouldn't even be answered. but the question should be pondered headlong by anyone trying to write one. let's say that the question of what a poem is should be implicit in every poem. it doesn't wash to say a poem is a poem because it sounds like one, uses poem language, agrees exactingly with models of yore, etc. complacent acceptance of the norm aint poetry. it aint interesting either.