1980

Selected Poems

Donald Justice

Nice poem about Wallace Stevens in this book. Justice is an excellent poet with his heart in the right place. Out here in the real world,.

1981

The Morning of the Poem

PS 3569 C65

James Schuyler

One poem is called "Wystan Auden" for you-know-who. Published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, a distinguished publisher of poetry in NYC, 212.741.6900. Typical of the 1980s formulaic and uninteresting graphic design.

1982

The Collected Poems

PS 3566 L27

Sylvia Plath

Edited by her husband the poet Ted Hughes. Published 15 years after her death. These poems grab you by the bridge of the nose and squeeze tight. An unimpeachable genius.

1983

Selected Poems

PS 3521 I582

Galway Kinnell

Includes the much-anthologized "The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students." This guy is hilarious. There are a lot of great poems in this book, but has the same boring 80s graphic design.

1984

American Primitive

PS 3565 L5 A66

Mary Oliver

Dedicated "In Memory of James Wright." Always good to mention a previous winner. First Edition. Another book which thanks the Guggenheim for money, which seems to be picking up the slack for Auden. Shows that if you can't know the right people, at least you can know the right foundation. Erie Street Press, an important Chicago publisher of performance poetry, published Hardware and Variety by Ron Gillette, one of the first proponents of Slam Poetry.

1985

Yin: New Poems

PS 3521 I9 756 1984

Carolyn Kizer

Prose and verse poems. Didn't move me that much. The 80s look a lot like the 20s in that there was a lot of great poetry written with a lot of crap grabbing all the glory.

1986

The Flying Change

PS 3570 A93 F59 1985

Henry Taylor

Interesting book with poems very much at home in The New Yorker. No thanks.

1987

Thomas and Beulah

PS 3554 )884 T4

Rita Dove

Could not find this book in the library. George Bush declares his candidacy for President and remains unassassinated.

1988

Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems

PS 3525 E588 P37

William Meredith

Hello my name is Wilham Meredith I may not be Robert Frost but at least I'm alive. Pretty good poems but I'd love to see this guy on the stage @ Estelle's. They'll eat him alive.

1989

New and Collected Poems

PS 3545 I32165 N49

Richard Wilbur

A ribbon into the past. Four-line rhyming stanzas. "On Freedom's Ground" was written to be accompanied by music composed by William Schuman and was performed @ Lincoln Center in 1986 in celebration of the centennial of the Statue of Liberty.