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At the close of the 2016-17 academic year, the students in the class nominated the following 44 poems that our senior editors and writers deemed as having the most to say to today’s generation of high school students:

“Time” (Louise Gluck, 2001)

“What We Heard About the Japanese” and “What the Japanese Perhaps Heard” (Rachel Rose, 2001)

“I Stopped Writing Poetry” (Bernard Welt, 2001)

“Broken World (for James Assatly)” (Joseph Lease, 2002)

“Trail” (Mong-Lan, 2002)

“For Larry Eigner, Silent” (Ron Silliman, 2002)

“Skin” (Susan Dickman, 2003)

“Dear Alter Ego” (Heather Moss, 2003)

“Song with a Child’s Pacifier in It” (Bruce Smith, 2003)

“Sign Under Test” (Charles Bernstein, 2004)

“Catholic” (Fanny Howe, 2004)

“Song of the Ransom of the Dark” (Bruce Smith, 2004)

“Adam and Eve’s Dog” (Richard Garcia, 2005)

“Seesaw” (Samuel Hazo, 2005)

“A Worldly Country” (John Ashbery, 2006)

“Sects from A to Z” (R.S. Gwynn, 2006)

“The Call” (David Yezzi, 2006)

“Dead Critics Society” (Mike Dockins, 2007)

“Do Unto Others” (Daniel Johnson, 2007)

“Country Western Singer” (Alan Shapiro, 2007)

“Untitled” (Joshua Beckman, 2008)

“Men” (Lydia Davis, 2008)

“The Shoe” (Kathryn Starbuck, 2008)

“How It Will End” (Denise Duhamel, 2009)

“The Happy Majority” (Thomas Lux, 2009)

“Love” (Martha Silano, 2009)

“The Prison Diary of Bartlett Yancey Malone” (Camille Norton, 2010)

¨Depression¨ (James Tate, 2010)

“Lime Light Blues” (Kevin Young, 2010)

“Morning on the Island” (Carolyn Forche, 2011)

“Family Math” (Alan Michael Parker, 2011)

“A Voice on the Answering Machine” (Yusef Komunyakaa, 2011)

“Collision” (Steven Heighton, 2012)

“The Imagined” (Stephen Dunn, 2012)

“The Afterlife” (by Lynne Sharon Schwartz, 2012)

“Pachyderm” (Sherman Alexie, 2013)

“All-American” (David Hernandez, 2013)

“it’s hard as so much is” (Lauren Jensen, 2013)

“Conspiracy (To Breathe Together)” (Camille Dungy, 2014)

“Masticated Light” (Jamaal May, 2014)

“Decoded” (Jon Sands, 2014)

¨Bodhisattva¨ (Sarah Arvio, 2015)

“In Memory Of My Parents Who Are Not Dead Yet” (Emily Kendal Frey, 2015)

“Eating Walnuts¨ (Jennifer Keith, 2015)

And after several class periods spent debating and discussing the nominated poems, the following 18 represent the group’s “anthology” of contemporary American poems, poems that, in the view of our students, speak to the sensibilities of high school students.
  • “What We Heard About the Japanese” and “What the Japanese Perhaps Heard” (Rachel Rose, 2001)

 

  • “I Stopped Writing Poetry” (Bernard Welt, 2001)

 

  • “Skin” (Susan Dickman, 2003)

 

  • “Adam and Eve’s Dog” (Richard Garcia, 2005)

 

  • “Seesaw” (Samuel Hazo, 2005)

 

  • “The Shoe” (Kathryn Starbuck, 2008)

 

  • “Untitled” (Joshua Beckman, 2008)

 

  • “How It Will End” (Denise Duhamel, 2009)

 

  • “The Happy Majority” (Thomas Lux, 2009)

 

  • ¨Depression¨ (James Tate, 2010)

 

  • “Lime Light Blues” (Kevin Young, 2010)

 

  • “Family Math” (Alan Michael Parker, 2011)

 

  • “A Voice on the Answering Machine” (Yusef Komunyakaa, 2011)

 

  • “All-American” (David Hernandez, 2013)

 

  • “Conspiracy (To Breathe Together)” (Camille Dungy, 2014)

 

  • “Decoded” (Jon Sands, 2014)

 

  • “In Memory Of My Parents Who Are Not Dead Yet” (Emily Kendal Frey, 2015)

 

  • “Eating Walnuts¨ (Jennifer Keith, 2015)

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