From Publishers Weekly
"True poetry has always striven for, and has in the last twenty years come to perfect, a nobility of expression that is of vital importance for our democratic esthetic, moral, and political culture." So writes John Hollander in the notably cheerful introduction to his selection of The Best American Poetry 1998. Highlights of the nobly constructed anthology include an excerpt from John Bricuth's forthcoming Just Let Me Say This About That, Thylias Moss's "The Right Empowerment of Light," John Koethe's "The Secret Amplitude" and Jacqueline Osherow's "La Leggenda della Vera Croce." As always in this David Lehman edited series, each poet contributes a short note on his or her anthologized poem. (Scribner, $14 352p ISBN 0-684-81450-1; $30 cloth 81453-6; Aug.) For a glimpse of the former state of the art, look no further than this fall's Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century. Edited by Eric L. Haralson (with Hollander as an advisory editor), the 115 entries in this biographical encyclopedia cover every poet included by Hollander in The Library of America's acclaimed American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century. Contributors to the encyclopedia include Angus Fletcher (on James Russell Lowell), Daniel Hoffman (on Poe and Stephen Crane) and Barbara Packer (on Joseph Rodman Drake). (Fitzroy Dearborn, $95 536p ISBN 1-57958-008-4; Sept.)Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Apollonian virtues?elegance, measure, constancy?abound in Hollander's 75 selections from last year's magazine verse. Like Harold Bloom, editor of The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997 (LJ 4/1/98), Hollander also eschews, if more politely, the alleged excesses of postmodernism, and his exhibits offer evidence that the old prosodic practices of rhyme, pentameter, sonnet, and sestina are very much alive in the hands of both new (Craig Arnold) and familiar (Hecht, Walcott, Justice) practitioners. But while the technical skills displayed in individual pieces may inspire admiration, the collective tenor of this volume seems overly sedate, solemn, and, well, fussy. Long, static meditations alternate with shorter, scenic ones, and the sparing humor is usually of a droll sort. True, no single volume in this often exciting annual series has quite represented the full stylistic spectrum of American poetry, but Hollander's choice implies a partisanship as narrow (if oppositely so) as Adrienne Rich's controversial 1996 selection. Still, for readers who feel besieged by inscrutable poetic experiments, this installment will be a zephyr from Parnassus.?Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NYCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Guest editor Hollander sustains this best-of series' high


Review
People A year's worth of the very best.


Book Description
The appearance of The Best American Poetry every September is an eagerly awaited rite of fall -- as evidenced by soaring sales and terrific reviews. The popularity of the series is "ample proof that poetry is thriving" (The Orlando Sentinel), and this year's volume will dazzle and delight, instruct and inspire. Under the guiding vision of master poet John Hollander -- one of America's most erudite literary minds -- The Best American Poetry 1998 spotlights the imaginative power and insight of our finest poets at the fin-de-siècle. Diverse in form and method, the poems display an unwavering nobility of expression, maintaining the uncompromising artistic standards essential to The Best American Poetry tradition as it enters its second decade. With a foreword by series editor David Lehman and with comments from the poets illuminating their work, The Best American Poetry 1998 will lead you on an exhilarating and inspiring literary adventure.


About the Author
David Lehman was born in New York City in 1948. He is the author of three collections of poems: An Alternative to Speech (1986) and Operation Memory (1990), both from Princeton, and Valentine Place (1996), from Scribner. His latest critical book is The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (Doubleday, 1998). A revised and enlarged edition of his anthology, Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms, was recently published by the University of Michigan Press. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a three-year writers' award from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. He is on the core faculty of the graduate writing programs at Bennington College and the New School for Social Research. He also teaches a "great poems" course in the undergraduate honors program at New York University. He is the general editor of the University of Michigan Press's Poets on Poetry Series. He initiated The Best American Poetry in 1988.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The 1998 edition of the "year's worth of the very best" ("People") in poetry features stunning poems from such esteemed writers as Anthony Hecht, Richard Wilbur, Robert Pinsky, and Rosanna Warren. Local reading with the contributors.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

"True poetry has always striven for, and has in the last twenty years come to perfect, a nobility of expression that is of vital importance for our democratic esthetic, moral, and political culture." So writes John Hollander in the notably cheerful introduction to his selection of The Best American Poetry 1998. Highlights of the nobly constructed anthology include an excerpt from John Bricuth's forthcoming Just Let Me Say This About That, Thylias Moss's "The Right Empowerment of Light," John Koethe's "The Secret Amplitude" and Jacqueline Osherow's "La Leggenda della Vera Croce." As always in this David Lehman edited series, each poet contributes a short note on his or her anthologized poem. (Scribner, $14 352p ISBN 0-684-81450-1; $30 cloth 81453-6; Aug.) For a glimpse of the former state of the art, look no further than this fall's Encyclopedia of American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century. Edited by Eric L. Haralson (with Hollander as an advisory editor), the 115 entries in this biographical encyclopedia cover every poet included by Hollander in The Library of America's acclaimed American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century. Contributors to the encyclopedia include Angus Fletcher (on James Russell Lowell), Daniel Hoffman (on Poe and Stephen Crane) and Barbara Packer (on Joseph Rodman Drake). (Fitzroy Dearborn, $95 536p ISBN 1-57958-008-4; Sept.)

Library Journal