The Best American Poetry 2015 (29 page)

T
ERENCE
W
INCH
's most recent books are
This Way Out
(Hanging Loose Press, 2014),
Lit from Below
(Salmon Poetry [Ireland], 2013), and
Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor
(Hanging Loose, 2011). He has received an American Book Award, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Gertrude Stein Award for innovative writing. Born in the Bronx, New York, he has lived in the Washington, DC, area for many years. He has played traditional Irish music all his life.

Of “Subject to Change,” Winch writes: “I have been writing a lot of sonnets in the past year or two, so much so that even when I don't set out to write a sonnet, I somehow wind up with a fourteen-line poem. I think that's what happened with this poem. Change—what the Romantics called ‘mutability'—is one of the great subjects of poetry, right up there with sex and death. We are always trying to elude what Wordsworth called ‘the unimaginable touch of Time,' and I think this poem is a protest against the ways in which we are ruthlessly measured by the passage of time.”

J
ANE
W
ONG
was born in New Jersey in 1984. The recipient of fellowships from the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Kundiman, Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center, she holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She teaches at the University of Washington and the Richard Hugo House in Seattle.

Wong writes: “ ‘Thaw' is a poem for the New Year—a proclamation of warmth and messiness. H.D.'s early work feels tied to this poem; she writes in ‘Oread': ‘hurl your green over us, / cover us with your pools of fir.' I wanted that feeling of impossible warmth and potential, hurling us into each new day.”

M
ONICA
Y
OUN
is the author of
Blackacre
(Graywolf Press, 2016),
Ignatz
(Four Way Books, 2010), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and
Barter
(Graywolf Press, 2003). She received her AB from Princeton University, her MPhil in English literature from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and her JD from Yale Law School. She practiced law for more than a decade, testifying before Congress on multiple occasions, appearing as an expert commentator on PBS and MSNBC, and publishing political commentary in
Slate
and
The New York Times
. Her poems have appeared in
The New York Times Magazine
,
The New Yorker
, and
The Paris Review
. She has been awarded the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and the Witter Bynner Fellowship of the Library of Congress. She currently teaches poetry at Princeton University's Lewis Center for the Arts and in the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College.

Of “March of the Hanged Men,” Youn writes: “This poem is part of a series loosely based on François Villon's fifteenth-century poem ‘Ballade des pendus' (‘Ballad of the Hanged Men'). Villon's poem is in the voice of a group of corpses hanging from a gibbet in the town square, describing their processes of bodily decomposition and praying for human forgiveness and divine absolution. The figure of the hanged man also features in multiple religious and cultural traditions, often signifying a moment of transformation into a predestined role. This particular poem draws from my residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbertide, Italy, where, on successive days, I saw the ants described in the poem as well as Piero della Francesca's great painting
The Resurrection
in the nearby town of San Sepolcro.”

Able Muse
, poetry ed. Alexander Pepple.
www.ablemuse.com

The Academy of American Poets, Poem-a-Day series, ed. Alex Dimitrov.
www.poets.org

Alaska Quarterly Review
, editor-in-chief Ronald Spatz. University of Alaska Anchorage, 3211 Providence Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508.
www.uaa.alaska.edu/aqr/

The American Poetry Review
, eds. David Bonanno and Elizabeth Scanlon. 320 S. Broad St., Hamilton #313, Philadelphia, PA 19102.
www.aprweb.org

The Atlantic Monthly
, poetry ed. David Barber. The Watergate, 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20037.

The Awl
, poetry ed. Mark Bibbins.
www.theawl.com

Beltway Poetry Quarterly
, ed. Kim Roberts.
www.beltwaypoetry.com

Birdfeast
, editor-in-chief Jessica Poli.
www.birdfeastmagazine.com

Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the arts
, senior eds. Gregory Donovan and Mary Flinn.
www.blackbird.vcu.edu

Burrow Press Review
, ed. Ryan Rivas and guest poetry ed. Erica Dawson.
www.burrowpressreview.com

The Carolina Quarterly
, poetry ed. Lee Norton. 510 Greenlaw Hall CB# 3520, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520.
www.thecarolinaquarterly.com/

The Cincinnati Review
, poetry ed. Don Bogen. PO Box 210069, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0069.
www.cincinnatireview.com

Colorado Review
, poetry eds. Donald Revell, Sasha Steensen, and Matthew Cooperman. Department of English, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105.
www.coloradoreview.colostate.edu/colorado-review

Columbia Poetry Review
, eds. John Bishop, Abigail Zimmer, James Eidson, Tyler Cain Lacy, David A. Moran, Christopher Neely, Daniel Scott Parker, Victoria A. Sanz, Matthew Sharos, Amy Jo Trier-Walker, and Gabrielle Faith Williams.
www.colum.edu/columbiapoetryreview

Conduit
, ed. William Waltz. 788 Osceola Avenue, Saint Paul, MN 55105.
www.conduit.org

Court Green
, eds. CM Burroughs, Tony Trigilio, and David Trinidad. Department of Creative Writing, Columbia College Chicago, 600 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.
www.colum.edu/courtgreen

Denver Quarterly
, poetry ed. Bin Ramke. University of Denver, Department of English, 2000 E. Asbury, Denver, CO 80208.
www.du.edu/denverquarterly/

Fence
, poetry eds. Brian Blanchfield, Max Winter, Farid Matuk, Charles Valle, Mendi Lewis Obadike, and Rebecca Wolff.
www.fenceportal.org

Fruita Pulp
, ed. Kyle Harvey.
www.fruitapulp.com

The Georgia Review
, ed. Stephen Corey. Main Library, Room 706A, 320 S. Jackson St., The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-9009. garev.uga.edu

Granta
, poetry ed. Rachael Allen.
www.granta.com

Harper's
, “Readings” ed. Giles Harvey.
www.harpers.org

The Hopkins Review
, eds. John T. Irwin, Brad Leithauser, Alice McDermott, Jean McGarry, Mary Jo Salter, Dave Smith, and David Yezzi. The Writing Seminars, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.
www.thehopkinsreview.com

The Iowa Review
, poetry eds. Nikki-Lee Birdsey and Anthony Cinquepalmi. 308 EPB, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242.
www.iowareview.org

The Journal
, poetry eds. Megan Peak and David Winter.
www.thejournalmag.org

The Kenyon Review
, poetry ed. David Baker.
www.kenyonreview.org

Kinfolks Quarterly
, poetry eds. Jerriod Avant, Aziza Barnes, Joshua Bennett, Sean DesVignes, Safia Elhillo, Eve Ewing, Nate Marshall, and Lauren Yates.
www.kinfolksquarterly.com

Lemon Hound
, ed. Sina Queyras.
www.lemonhound.com

The Literary Review
, poetry ed. Craig Morgan Teicher.
www.theliteraryreview.org

The Manhattan Review
, ed. Philip Fried. 440 Riverside Drive #38, New York, NY 10027.
www.themanhattanreview.com

Muzzle
, editor-in-chief Stevie Edwards; poetry eds. Benjamin Clark and Laura Swearingen-Steadwell.
www.muzzlemagazine.com

The New Criterion
, poetry ed. David Yezzi. 900 Broadway, Suite 602, New York, NY 10003.
www.newcriterion.com

New Ohio Review
, ed. Jill Allyn Rosser. English Dept., 360 Ellis Hall, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701.
www.ohio.edu/nor/

The New Yorker
, poetry ed. Paul Muldoon. 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007.
www.newyorker.com

Ninth Letter
, poetry ed. Michael Madonick. University of Illinois, Dept. of English, 608 South Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801.
www.ninthletter.com

PANK
, eds. Colin Winnette, Roxane Gay, and M. Bartley Seigel.
www.pankmagazine.com

The Paris Review
, poetry ed. Robyn Creswell. 544 W. 27th St., New York, NY 10001.
www.theparisreview.org

Pleiades
, poetry eds. Wayne Miller and Kathryn Nuernberger.
www.ucmo.edu/pleiades/

PMS poemmemoirstory
, poetry ed. Halley Cotton.
www.uab.edu/cas/englishpublications/pms-poemmemoirstory

Poetry
, ed. Don Share.
www.poetryfoundation.org

Poetry Daily
, eds. Don Selby and Diane Boller.
www.poems.com

Poetry Northwest
, ed. Kevin Craft.
www.poetrynw.org

Post Road
, guest ed. Suzanne Matson.
www.postroadmag.com

Powder Keg
, eds. Zoe Dzunko and Sarah Jean Grimm.
www.powderkegmagazine.com

Prairie Schooner
, assistant editors: poetry, Arden Eli Hill and Rebecca Macijeski. 123 Andrews Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0334.
www.prairieschooner.unl.edu

A Public Space
, poetry ed. Brett Fletcher Lauer.
www.apublicspace.org

Rattle
, eds. Alan Fox and Timothy Green. 12411 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604.
www.rattle.com

The Rumpus
, poetry ed. Brian Spears.
www.therumpus.net

The Southampton Review
, poetry ed. Julie Sheehan.
www.stonybrook.edu/southampton/mfa/publishing/tsr.html

The Southern Review
, poetry ed. Jessica Faust. Louisiana State University, 338 Johnston Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803.
www.thesouthernreview.org

Southwest Review
, editor-in-chief Willard Spiegelman. PO Box 750374, Dallas, TX 75275-0374.
www.smu.edu/SouthwestReview

Subtropics
, poetry ed. Sidney Wade.
www.subtropics.english.ufl.edu

32 Poems
, ed. George David Clark; associate eds. Susanna Childress, Nick McRae, Matt Morton, and Michael Shewmaker. Valparaiso University, 1320 Chapel Drive South, Valparaiso, IN 46383.
www.32poems.com

The Threepenny Review
, ed. Wendy Lesser. PO Box 9131, Berkeley, CA 94709.
www.threepennyreview.com

Tupelo Quarterly
, senior poetry eds. T. J. Jarrett, Katherine Durham Oldmixon, and Stacey Waite.
www.tupeloquarterly.com

Unsplendid
, eds. Douglas Basford, Jason Gray, and Ida Stewart.
www.unsplendid.com

upstreet
, poetry ed. Jessica Greenbaum.
upstreet-mag.org/

Verse Daily
, eds. Hunter Hamilton and Campbell Russo.
www.versedaily.org

The Volta
, eds. Afton Wilky and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.
www.thevolta.org

West Branch
, ed. G. C. Waldrep.
www.bucknell.edu/westbranch

The series editor thanks Mark Bibbins for his invaluable assistance. Warm thanks go also to Nora Brooks, Danielle Chin, and Stacey Harwood; to Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu of Writers' Representatives; and to Ashley Gilliam, David Stanford Burr, Daniel Cuddy, Erich Hobbing, and Gwyneth Stansfield at Scribner.

Grateful acknowledgment is made of the magazines in which these poems first appeared and the magazine editors who selected them. A sincere attempt has been made to locate all copyright holders. Unless otherwise noted, copyright to the poems is held by the individual poets.

Sarah Arvio, “Bodhisattva” from the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Derrick Austin, “Cedars of Lebanon” from
Burrow Press Review
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Desiree Bailey, “A Retrograde” from
Muzzle
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Melissa Barrett, “WFM: Allergic to Pine-Sol, Am I the Only One” from
The Journal
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Mark Bibbins, “Swallowed” from
Lemon Hound
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Jessamyn Birrer, “A Scatology” from
Ninth Letter
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Chana Bloch, “The Joins” from
The Southern Review
and
Poetry Daily
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Emma Bolden, “House Is an Enigma” from
Conduit
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Dexter L. Booth, “Prayer at 3 a.m.” from
The Volta
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Catherine Bowman, “Makeshift” from
The New Yorker
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Rachael Briggs, “in the hall of the ruby-throated warbler” from
Able Muse
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.

Jericho Brown, “Homeland” from
Fence
. Reprinted by permission of the poet.