In this edition of The Best American Poetry, which has been published annually since 1988, guest editor Mary Jo Salter selects poems from seventy-five poets published in literary journals and poetry collections in 2023. The anthology celebrates a wide range of established poets as well as newcomers to the series, including Kim Addonizio, Ama Codjoe, Armen Davoudian, Rita Dove, Marie Howe, Omotara James, Maya C. Popa, Arthur Sze, Claire Wahmanholm, and Kevin Young. In her introduction to the volume, the former poetry editor of the New Republic and coeditor of three editions of The Norton Anthology of Poetry notes her inclination in choosing longer poems with exception for the late Louise Glück’s three-line poem “Passion and Form.” Salter writes: “The business of poets, I would argue, includes at least some of these aspirations: to witness the world, including the layered, shifting moods of their own minds’ interiors; to feel deeply and also to think through their feelings; to experience life with all of the senses…to dare to remain uncertain and paradoxical and inconclusive as life itself, while also making a finished ‘thing,’ a poem, of beauty.”
