The Best American Poetry 2025 (The Best American Poetry series)

For thirty-eight years, The Best American Poetry series has won widespread acclaim as the nation’s most influential and vital poetry anthology. BAP, which has inspired similar ventures abroad, has garnered plaudits for its ability to capture the zeitgeist of American poetry. This year’s anthology is guest edited by the esteemed poet and songwriter Terence Winch, who brings to the task his work as a musician and poetry editor as well as his many years of experience as head of publications at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Winch, known for his inspired selections on the Best American Poetry blog, curates a vibrant array of compelling voices.The Best American Poetry 2025 is a landmark edition that not only showcases the finest contemporary American poetry but also honors David Lehman’s achievement as the anthology’s founding editor. “The list of editors is a who’s who of US poetry elites,” writes Oxford professor of poetry A. E. Stallings. “And behind it all, the poet David Lehman, the series editor, has labored quietly and diligently ensuring its continuity and continued relevance.”Terence Winch’s most recent books of poems are It Is As If Desire (Hanging Loose, 2024) and That Ship Has Sailed (Pitt Poetry Series, 2023). He is also the author of two story collections and a novel. Winner of an American Book Award and the Columbia Book Award, along with an NEA poetry fellowship and the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Writing, Winch has had his work featured in more than fifty anthologies. Also a musician and songwriter, Terence Winch co-founded Celtic Thunder, the traditional Irish music group, and composed their best-known song, “When New York Was Irish.” Grace Cavalieri founded and produces "The Poet and The Poem" from the Library of Congress, celebrating 48 years on-air. Her poetry is included in The 2025 Best American Writing  Anthology . She's the author of 30 books of poems and fiction; and 20 plays on American stages. 250 years of her podcasts went to the moon on lunar codex, from NASA.Donald Berger studied literature and writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Brown University, and the University of Washington.  He is the author of seven books of poetry.  His poems and prose have appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Conjunctions, Fence, The Iowa Review, The New York Times, The Believer, and other publications including some from Berlin, Leipzig, Budapest, Hong Kong, and mainland China. He was formerly Administrative Director and Lecturer in the University of Maryland’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. Bernard Welt’s poetry has appeared widely in journals, art catalogs, and anthologies including The Best American Poetry. He started his education in poetry at the Mass Transit open readings and the Folio Books readings in Washington, DC, and in The Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars. He has received a US National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writers Fellowship and a Lambda Book Award nomination.Greg McBride won the 2008 Boulevard Emerging Poet Prize. His chapbook manuscript, Back of the Envelope will be out from Copperdome Press in spring 2009. His work appears in Bellevue, Gettysburg Review, Hollins Critic, Salmagundi, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere.  He edits The Innisfree Poetry Journal.Patricia Davis-Muffett holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota. Her chapbook, Alchemy of Yeast and Tears, was published in 2023. Her work has won honors including the Erskine J Poetry Prize, placing in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest (selected by Marge Piercy) and nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in About Place, Smartish Pace, Calyx, Best New Poets and Best American Poetry. https://politics-prose.com/book/9781668080580?ic_referral=Q-lR3_J3elFLzWpsjE9efFeaTMf2aUlP8DZIReuH7QcwM9mEf5RXL-EfTiTNw1ejTXHRXgV23hEd2eTjfbFkyb4yqPlDb3WG1KJE-JVBlW9FGPFk8p3sX0Wry9GT0j4Dr5T7DC4