I didn't like this at all. His first album, "Dice", is a classic but this one misses the mark by far. Try "Dice" or "Dice Rules" instead.

He lost everthing after he tried to go PG.Now he's just Gross....

I've had this makeup bag for years now for various uses, and there's still no sign of wear or tear. Right now it's holding some art supplies, but it's held makeup and other things in the past. Highly recommended if you want something fashionable and durable.

I've read this series regularly, and I've also often chosen to use it in my college courses, though in the last five years or so, I've found it less useful as a teaching tool and more useful as a compendium of trendiness in American Poetry. The last really comprehensive "Best" in this series was Richard Howard's year, but then, Howard is really an editor, a writer and reader with broad tastes, and secure enough in his own achievements that he doesn't submit to the kind of cronyism that afflicts this year's anthology. Creeley's choices are so very dull that I fear these must be buddies. I'm going to have to find another anthology for my students. This one has been disappointing too many years in a row.

I've read this series since 1989 or so and have thought it consistently excellent. This volume, however, is almost entirely made of exceptionally eccentric poetry that will alienate almost all readers. As I read it, I kept thinking about this: Somewhere a thoughtful, educated and well-read person decides he or she will finally take time to explore what is going on in today's poetry. Our hypothetical friend goes to his or her local bookseller and finds "The Best American Poetry 2002" and understandably concludes this is an ideal book with which to start. It would likely be his or her last purchase of contemporary poetry. It's very much unbalanced and is simply not at all representative of poetry in 2002. The editor indulges his own taste for the inaccessible and quirky with no consideration for the task of presenting, well, "The Best American Poetry."

Besides the very fine introduction by David Lehman, this has to be the most abstruse collection of poetry I have ever read. I am a college teacher and have traditionally used the Best American series in my classes. Year after year, it has been my favorite poetry anthology. I had my students purchase this edition before I had a chance to look through it this year and I am worried that a collection like this will just fortify all their worse preconceptions about poetry: elitist, inside, arch, academic, and bloodless. It seems to be an elaborate joke played by Creeley on the whole idea of a "Best American Poetry". Could his taste possibly be so narrow? Perhaps this issue should be called "The Best American Language Poetry" or "The Best American Poetry out of The University of Buffalo."