Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems That Matter Most

Home to fifty-eight author-selected poems and accompanying essays, Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems That Matter Most is a far-reaching, essential touchstone for the art of poetry in the United States today.Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems That Matter Most is home to fifty-eight author-selected poems and accompanying essays that explain how and why each poet chose a poem as their "personal best." The anthology offers a provocative and surprising range of responses in which readers will find poetic context for the life of a poem and revelatory insight into the unique, personal experiences that shape the writing process itself. Including works from a wide variety of voices both new and well-established, Personal Best is a far-reaching, essential touchstone for the art of poetry in the United States today. The anthology gives readers--both long-time fans of poetry and those just discovering its possibilities--an intimate view of the heart and spirit that make poetry one of our most quintessentially human forms of expression.

Author: Erin Belieu
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 10/24/2023
Pages: 282
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.01lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9781556596520
ISBN10: 1556596529
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | Anthologies (multiple authors)
- Literary Criticism | Poetry
- Literary Collections | Essays

About the Author

About the Editors

Erin Belieu is the author of five poetry collections, all from Copper Canyon Press, including her most recent, Come-Hither Honeycomb. Belieu literary activism earned her the AWP's George Garrett Prize for her service to the national writing community, and she co-founded VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and Writers Resist. Belieu teaches in the University of Houston MFA/Ph.D. Creative Writing Program and for Lesley University's low residency MFA program in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Carl Phillips is a seasoned poet, author, and translator who has published three prose books and sixteen poetry collections, most recently Then the War: New And Selected Poems 2007-2020. His honors include a Lambda Literary Award, the PEN/USA Award for Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis with a focus on contemporary poetry, classical philology, and translation.