Saturday, September 18, 2010

E-BAP


I've been reading the new Best American Poetry, edited by Amy Gerstler. I actually pre-ordered it this year as a Kindle download, which made sense to me, because I usually don't keep these anthologies very long, and they don't usually resell for much. And so I decided to go with the e-version, and it arrived on my iPad the day it was released. Not bad.

It took a little bit of adjusting to read on the iPad, though, and I think some of the formatting was messed up, but there were several advantages to the e-BAP, in that some people had hyperlinks in their bios to their blogs, or websites, and you could go there with one click (see Dennis Cooper, for instance). I just wish the poems each had a hyperlink to the poet's bio/statement (I always love reading those, and it would be great to be able to toggle back and forth between them.)

I skipped Lehman's intro, and went straight to Gerstler's. She has some good insights, and admits that BAP isn't so much about "best" as it is about the particular editor's "taste." But I wish she would have kept it a little shorter. (I kept hearing Tim Gunn screaming, "Edit! Edit!").

My favorite poems so far are Catherine Wing's lovely "er" poem, "The Darker Sooner," and David Trindad's "The Black Telephone." But why no Rebecca Loudon? After Gerstler had so admiringly blurbed Rebecca's last book, I thought for sure she would be in this year's BAP. Ah well. . . .

Happy reading!

9 comments:

Jeannine said...

I like Gerstler so much, but it seems like the BAP anthology choices are mostly the same-old, same-old crowd. Wonder how many she picks out versus Lehman?

Kelli Russell Agodon - Book of Kells said...

Peter

Excellent idea about the toggle between poem and Poet's statement. I too love that about BAP. Great idea ! I may download this on my iPad too. Thx for the idea!

Peter said...

Are some of the choices Lehman's? that would explain things.

Tyler Gobble said...

Hey Peter,

Very cool seeing your insight on this heavily-debated anthology. Love to see further posts about other poems.Any other ones that really stuck out as either good or bad?

Also, I was real stoked to find Saying The World at a bookstore in Ft. Wayne IN today. Been trying to get my hands on one of your books for a while now. Excited to read it.

Good blogging.

Peter said...

Check out Jim B's latest BAP cartoons here: http://www.americanpoetry.biz/

HAHAHA. I love these. They are so irreverant.

Peter said...

Hi Tyler: Glad you found Saying the World in FW, Indiana, of all places.

Hope you enjoy it.

T. said...

Thanks for the link to Jim B's blog. Hilarious!

Peter said...

Hi T:
It's quite a hoot, isn't it. He should have a book of these.

Bill said...

Love, love, love Catherine Wing's poem. Saw it in the 32 Poems issue as it came out and thought, poem of the year. Resolute and haunting.