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David Lehman (born June 11, 1948David Lehman
at poets.org
) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for ''
The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...
''. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such publications as ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'', ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', and ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''. In 2006, Lehman served as Editor for the new ''Oxford Book of American Poetry''. He taught and was the Poetry Coordinator at
The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
until May 2018.


Career

Born in New York City, David Lehman grew up the son of European Holocaust refugees in Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood of Inwood. He attended
Stuyvesant High School Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...
and
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
in England on a Kellett Fellowship. On his return to New York, he received a Ph.D. in English from Columbia, where he was
Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...
's research assistant. Lehman's poem "The Presidential Years" appeared in ''
The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' No. 43 (Summer 1968) while he was a Columbia undergraduate. The poem was awarded Columbia's Van Rensselaer Poetry Prize in 1967. In 1970 he was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Lehman taught at Brooklyn College, where he shared an office with John Ashbery, for a year. For four years starting in 1976, he was an assistant professor of English at Hamilton College, teaching courses in literature and creative writing and chairing the college's lecture committee, bringing prominent speakers to campus. In 1980 he received a post-doctoral fellowship from the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University. He then left academe and became a freelance writer. He wrote numerous book reviews and articles for Newsweek and contributed to such other publications as the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Book World, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Newsday, the Chicago Tribune, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He became a contributing editor of Columbia College Today in 1982 and of Partisan Review in 1986. In 1987 he joined the board of the National Book Critics Circle and was named vice president in charge of programs and events. In 1988 he founded "The Best American Poetry" annual anthology series. ''The Perfect Murder'' (1989) and '' Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man'' (1991) were his first nonfiction books. Lehman's books of poetry include ''Playlist'' (2019), ''Poems in the Manner Of'' (2017), ''New and Selected Poems'' (2013), ''Yeshiva Boys'' (2009), ''When a Woman Loves a Man'' (2005), ''The Evening Sun'' (2002), ''The Daily Mirror'' (2000), and ''Valentine Place'' (1996), all published by Scribner.
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
published ''Operation Memory'' (1990), and ''An Alternative to Speech'' (1986). He collaborated with James Cummins on a book of sestinas, ''Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man'' (
Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company distributed by Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent So ...
, 2005), and with Judith Hall on a book of poems and collages, ''Poetry Forum'' (Bayeux Arts, 2007). Since 2009, new poems have been published in ''
32 Poems ''32 Poems Magazine'' (''32 Poems'') is a literary magazine, founded in the American states of Maryland and Texas in 2003, that has published poems from writers around the world. About This independent magazine, founded by Deborah Ager and John Po ...
'', ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', ''The Awl'', '' Barrow Street'', The Common, ''
Green Mountains Review ''Green Mountains Review'' is an American literary journal published biannually at Johnson State College in Vermont, founded by senior editor Neil Shepard and currently edited by Elizabeth Powell and Jacob White. ''Green Mountains Review'' was ...
'', ''Hanging Loose'', ''Hot Street'', ''New Ohio Review'', ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', ''
Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'', ''
Poetry London ''Poetry London'' is a literary periodical based in London. Published three times a year, it features poems, reviews, and other articles. Profile Adopting the title of an earlier bimonthly publication which ran from 1939 to 1951, ''Poetry London' ...
'', ''Sentence'', ''
Smartish Pace ''Smartish Pace'' is a non-profit, independent literary journal based in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. The magazine was founded in 1999 by Stephen Reichert (authored by member of journal's staff, published in an alumni magazine) who was a University ...
'', ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'', and ''
The Yale Review ''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on hi ...
''. Lehman's poems appear in Chinese in the bilingual anthology, ''Contemporary American Poetry'', published through a partnership between the NEA and the Chinese government, and in the Mongolian-English ''Anthology of American Poetry''. Lehman's work has been translated into 16 languages overall, including Spanish, French, German, Danish, Russian, Polish, Korean and Japanese. In 2013, his translation of
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
’s "
Wandrers Nachtlied "Wanderer's Nightsong" (original German title: "") is the title of two poems by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Written in 1776 ("") and in 1780 (""), they are among Goethe's most famous works. Both were first edited together in his 18 ...
" into English appeared under the title "Goethe’s Nightsong" in ''
The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...
'', and his translation of
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...
’s "Zone" was published with an introductory essay in ''
Virginia Quarterly Review The ''Virginia Quarterly Review'' is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This ''"National Journal of Literature and Discussion" ...
''. The translation and commentary won the journal's Emily Clark Balch Prize for 2014. Additionally, his poem, "French Movie" appears in the third season of Motionpoems. Lehman is the series editor of ''
The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...
''. The prestigious annual series has 33 volumes published (including special tenth and twenty-fifth anniversary editions); the current (2019) volume was edited by
Major Jackson Major Jackson (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of five collections of poetry: The Absurd Man (W.W. Norton, 2020), Roll Deep (W.W. Norton, 2015), Holding Company (W ...
. Further, Lehman has edited ''The Oxford Book of American Poetry'' (Oxford University Press, 2006). ''The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present'' (Scribner, 2008), and ''Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present'' (Scribner, 2003). He is the author of nine nonfiction books, including, most recently, "One Hundred Autobiographies: A Memoir" (2019), "Sinatra's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (2015), and "The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014" (2015). ''A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs'' (Nextbook, 2009) received a 2010 ASCAP Deems Taylor Award from the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
.David Lehman
on Poetry Net.
Sponsored by the
American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...
, Lehman curated, wrote, and designed a traveling library exhibit based on ''A Fine Romance'' that toured 55 libraries in 27 states between May 2011 and April 2012 with appearances at three libraries in New York state and Maryland. In an interview published in '' Smithsonian'' Magazine, Lehman discusses the artistry of the great lyricists: “The best song lyrics seem to me so artful, so brilliant, so warm and humorous, with both passion and wit, that my admiration is matched only by my envy ... these lyricists needed to work within boundaries, to get complicated emotions across and fit the lyrics to the music, and to the mood thereof. That takes genius.” Lehman's other books of criticism include ''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets'' (Doubleday, 1998), which was named a "Book to Remember 1999" by the
New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
; ''The Big Question'' (1995); ''The Line Forms Here'' (1992) and ''Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man'' (1991). His study of detective novels, ''The Perfect Murder'' (1989), was nominated for an
Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
from the
Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Award ...
. A new edition of ''The Perfect Murder'' appeared in 2000. In October 2015, he published ''
Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular entertainers of the 1940s, 1950s, and ...
's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World,'' which Geoffrey O'Brien in "
The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
" praised as an "engaging, playful, deeply personal, and elegantly concise tribute." Lehman made his living primarily as a journalist and free-lance writer for fifteen years. His by-line appeared frequently in ''
Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' in the 1980s and he has continued writing for general-interest magazines and newspapers, among them ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', ''
American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...
'', ''
the Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', ''
People A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
'', ''The Academy of American Poets'', ''
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
'', ''Salon'', ''Slate'', ''Smithsonian'', and ''
Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
''. He has been a contributing editor at ''
The American Scholar "The American Scholar" was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College at the First Parish in Cambridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was invited to speak in recognition of his gr ...
'', since 2009. From May 2014 until September 2019, he acted as quiz master for the weekly column ''Next Line, Please'', a public poetry-writing contest. The first project was a crowd-sourced sonnet, "Monday," which was completed in August 2014. There followed a haiku, a tanka, an anagram based on Ralph Waldo Emerson's middle name, a couplet (which grew into a "sonnet ghazal"), and a "shortest story" competition. Lehman devises the puzzles — or prompts — and judges the results. Lehman now writes a monthly column on movies for "The American Scholar".
The Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
commissioned an essay from Lehman, “Peace and War in American Poetry,” and posted it online in April 2013. In 2013, Lehman wrote the introduction to ''The Collected Poems of
Joseph Ceravolo Joseph Ceravolo (April 22, 1934 – September 4, 1988) was an American poet associated with the second generation of the New York School. For years Ceravolo’s work was out of print, but the 2013 publication of his Collected Poems' has made his ...
''. He had previously written introductory essays to books by
A. R. Ammons Archibald Randolph Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Poetic themes Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comi ...
,
Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; 27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets includ ...
,
Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (1 ...
,
Alfred Leslie Alfred Leslie (born October 29, 1927) is an American artist and filmmaker. He first achieved success as an Abstract Expressionist painter, but changed course in the early 1960s and became a painter of realistic figurative paintings. Biography ...
,
Fairfield Porter Fairfield Porter (June 10, 1907 – September 18, 1975) was an American painter and art critic. He was the fourth of five children of James Porter, an architect, and Ruth Furness Porter, a poet from a literary family. He was the brother of photo ...
,
Karl Shapiro Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913 – May 14, 2000) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection ''V-Letter and Other Poems''. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to th ...
, and
Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...
. In 1994 Lehman succeeded Donald Hall as the general editor of the
University of Michigan Press The University of Michigan Press is part of Michigan Publishing at the University of Michigan Library. It publishes 170 new titles each year in the humanities and social sciences. Titles from the press have earned numerous awards, including L ...
’s ''Poets on Poetry'' series, a position he held for twelve years. In 1997 he teamed with
Star Black Star Black is a poet, photographer, and artist. She has authored seven collections of poetry and taught in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton and at The New School. She was published in '' The Paris Review'', and has written three books o ...
in creating and directing the famed KGB Bar Monday-night poetry series in New York City’s East Village. Lehman and Black co-edited ''The KGB Bar Book of Poems'' (HarperCollins, 2000). They directed the reading series until 2003. Lehman taught in the graduate writing program of the
New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
in New York City since the program's inception in 1996 and served as poetry coordinator from 2003 to 2018. In an interview with
Thomas M. Disch Thomas Michael Disch (February 2, 1940 – July 4, 2008) was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nomination ...
in the '' Cortland Review'', Lehman addresses his great variety of poetic styles: "I write in a lot of different styles and forms on the theory that the poems all sound like me in the end, so why not make them as different from one another as possible, at least in outward appearance? If you write a new poem every day, you will probably have by the end of the year, if you’re me, an acrostic, an abecedarium, a sonnet or two, a couple of prose poems, poems that have arbitrary restrictions, such as the one I did that has only two words per line." Lehman has been awarded fellowships from the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...
, the
Ingram Merrill Foundation The Ingram Merrill Foundation was a private foundation established in the mid-1950s by poet James Merrill (1926-1995), using funds from his substantial family inheritance.J. D. McClatchyBraving the Elements ''The New Yorker'', 27 March 1995. Retrie ...
, and the NEA, and received an award in literature from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...
and a
Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award Lila Bell Wallace (December 25, 1889 – May 8, 1984) was an American magazine publisher and philanthropist. She co-founded ''Reader's Digest'' with her husband Dewitt Wallace, publishing the first issue in 1922. Early life and education Born Lil ...
. The Lila Wallace grant enabled Lehman to organize and host a series of poetry readings and school visitations in collaboration with the Community School of Music and Art in Ithaca, New York. The visiting poets were Mark Strand and Donald Hall (1992), Charles Simic, Jorie Graham, and A. R. Ammons (1993), and Louise Gluck, Kenneth Koch, and John Ashbery (1994).David Lehman
at bestamericanpoetry.com.
Lehman has lectured widely in the United States and abroad. He divides his time between
Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named a ...
, and
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He is married to Stacey Harwood.


Bibliography


Poetry

* ''
Breakfast Breakfast is the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning. The word in English refers to breaking the fasting period of the previous night.Anderson, Heather Arndt (2013)''Breakfast: A History'' AltaMira Press. Various "typical" or "t ...
''. Sycamore Press, Oxford, England (1968); ed. John Fuller. Sycamore broadside #2. *''Some Nerve''. Columbia Review Press. New York (1973). * ''On Borrowed Time''. Nobodaddy Press, New York, ''Poetry in Motion No. 1'', Signed Limited Edition, (1976), First issue of a series of poetry broadsheets. * ''Day One''. Nobodaddy Press, Clinton, New York (1979).
Mythologies
Poetry Foundation (1987).
February 21Kalliope, a journal of women's art and literature
(1998). ;Poetry Collections * *''The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection'' (The Free Press, 1989; revised ed. Michigan 2000) *''Operation Memory'' (Princeton, 1990) *''Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man'' (Poseidon / Simon & Schuster, 1991) *''The Line Forms Here'' (Michigan, 1992) *''The Big Question'' (Michigan, 1995) *''Valentine Place'' (Scribner, 1996) *''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets'' (Doubleday, 1998; Vintage paperback 1979) *''The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry'' (2000) *''The Evening Sun'' (Scribner, 2002) *''When a Woman Loves a Man'' (Scribner, 2005) *''Yeshiva Boys'' (Scribner, 2009) *''A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs'' (Shocken / Random House, 2009) *''New and Selected Poems'' (Scribner, 2013) *''Poems in the Manner of'' (Scribner, 2017) *''Playlist'' (Pittsburgh, 2019) ;Anthologies and edited collections of other poets *''Next Line, Please''(Cornell, 2018) *''The Best of the Best American Poetry: 25th Anniversary Edition'' with
Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most o ...
(Scribner, 2013) *''The Best American Erotic Poems'' (Scribner, 2008) *''The Oxford Book of American Poetry'' (2006) * *''Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present'' (2003) *''The KGB Bar Book of Poems'' with
Star Black Star Black is a poet, photographer, and artist. She has authored seven collections of poetry and taught in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton and at The New School. She was published in '' The Paris Review'', and has written three books o ...
(HarperCollins, 2000) *''The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-1997'' with
Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
(Scribner, 1998) *''Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 85 Leading Contemporary Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems'' (1987, expanded 1996, ) ;''
The Best American Poetry ''The Best American Poetry'' series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems. Background The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year. Lehman, still the general ...
'' with guest editors: *''
Tracy K. Smith Tracy K. Smith (born April 16, 1972) is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published four collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume ''Life ...
'' (2021) *''
Paisley Rekdal Paisley Rekdal is an American poet who is currently serving as Poet Laureate of Utah. She is the author of a book of essays entitled ''The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations on Not Fitting In,'' the memoir ''Intimate,'' as well as five bo ...
'' (2020) *''
Major Jackson Major Jackson (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of five collections of poetry: The Absurd Man (W.W. Norton, 2020), Roll Deep (W.W. Norton, 2015), Holding Company (W ...
'' (2019), *''
Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the literary movements within American poetry known as New Forma ...
'' (2018), *''
Natasha Tretheway Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2013. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection ''Native Guard'', and she is a former Poet L ...
'' (2017), *''
Edward Hirsch Edward M. Hirsch (born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including ''The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems'' (2010), which brings toget ...
'' (2016), *''
Sherman Alexie Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane- Coeur d'Alene-Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from se ...
'' (2015), *''
Terrance Hayes Terrance Hayes (born November 18, 1971) is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, ''Lighthead'', won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipient ...
'' (2014), *''
Denise Duhamel Denise Duhamel (born 1961 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island) is an American poet. Background Duhamel received her B.F.A. from Emerson College and her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College. She is a New York Foundation for the Arts recipient and has been ...
'' (2013), *''
Mark Doty Mark Doty (born August 10, 1953) is an American poet and memoirist best known for his work ''My Alexandria.'' He was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. Early life Mark Doty was born in Maryville, Tennessee to Lawrence an ...
'' (2012), *'' Kevin Young'' (2011), *''
Amy Gerstler Amy Gerstler (born 1956) is an American poet. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. Biography Amy Gerstler was born in 1956. She is a graduate of Pitzer College and holds an M.F.A. from Bennington ...
'' (2010), *''
David Wagoner David Russell Wagoner (June 5, 1926 – December 18, 2021) was an American poet, novelist, and educator. Biography David Russell Wagoner was born on June 5, 1926, in Massillon, Ohio. Raised in Whiting, Indiana, from the age of seven, Wagoner at ...
'' (2009), *'' Charles Wright'' (2008), *''
Heather McHugh Heather McHugh (born August 20, 1948) is an American poet notable for the independent ranges of her aesthetic as a poet, and for her working devotion to teaching and translating literature. Life Heather McHugh, a poet, translator, educator and ...
'' (2007), *''
Billy Collins William James Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York (retired, 2016). Collins ...
'' (2006), *''
Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon (born 20 June 1951) is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he is currently both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University P ...
'' (2005), *''
Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...
'' (2004), *''
Yusef Komunyakaa Yusef Komunyakaa (born James William Brown; April 29, 1941) is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for ''Neo ...
'' (2003), *''
Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...
'' (2002), *''
Robert Hass Robert L. Hass (born March 1, 1941) is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection ''Time and Materials: Poems 1997 ...
'' (2001), *''
Rita Dove Rita Frances Dove (born August 28, 1952) is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the posit ...
'' (2000), *''
Robert Bly Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...
'' (1999), *''
John Hollander John Hollander (October 28, 1929 – August 17, 2013) was an American poet and literary critic. At the time of his death, he was Sterling Professor Emeritus of English at Yale University, having previously taught at Connecticut College, Hunter C ...
'' (1998), *'' James Tate'' (1997), *''
Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "th ...
'' (1996), *''
Richard Howard Richard Joseph Howard (October 13, 1929 – March 31, 2022; adopted as Richard Joseph Orwitz) was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was a graduate of Columbia University, w ...
'' (1995), *''
A. R. Ammons Archibald Randolph Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Poetic themes Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comi ...
'' (1994), *''
Louise Glück Louise Elisabeth Glück ( ; born April 22, 1943) is an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose judges praised "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal". He ...
'' (1993), *''
Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn't ...
'' (1992), *''
Mark Strand Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004 ...
'' (1991), *''
Jorie Graham Jorie Graham (; born May 9, 1950) is an American poet. The Poetry Foundation called Graham "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation." She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at ...
'' (1990), *''
Donald Hall Donald Andrew Hall Jr. (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) was an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and includin ...
'' (1989) and *''
John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...
'' (1988). ;Other *''One Hundred Autobiographies: A Memoir'' (Cornell, 2019) * ''Sinatra's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World'' (HarperCollins, 2015) * ''The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014'' (Pittsburgh, 2015) *''Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man'' with James Cummins and Archie Rand (
Soft Skull Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company distributed by Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent So ...
, 2005) *''Poetry Forum: A Play Poem: A Pl'em'' with Judith Hall (Bayeux Arts, 2007) ;List of poems


Critical studies, reviews and biography

*''Beyond Amazement: New Essays on John Ashbery'' (1980) *''James Merrill: Essays in Criticism'' with Charles Berger (Cornell University Press, 1983) *''Sinatra's Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World'' (2015) *''The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014'' (2015)


References


External links


Essay: David Lehman on post-modernismLehman Explains Motivation for The Last Avant-GardeFilm adaptation: Lehman's "French Movie"
in ''Motionpoems Festival'', 2011
Commentary: Lehman on Frank O'Hara's "Meditations in an Emergency"
in AMC's ''Mad Men'', ''Mad Men'' blog, 2009

in ''Eurozine'', 2009

2006
Interview: David Lehman with Jane Hammond
''Bomb Magazine'', 2002

in ''The Adirondack Review'', 2002
Interview: David Lehman with A. R. Ammons
''The Paris Review'', 1996 * David Lehman Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lehman, David 1948 births Living people American male poets Jewish American poets Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni The New Yorker people University of Michigan staff Columbia College (New York) alumni 21st-century American Jews