Finished Best American Poetry 2023

Much better than the previous anthology IMO

Here is one of the poems I thought outstanding:

And What My Species Did
Elizabeth Willis

A woman who cries is not essential personnel. Salt water conducts her to the brink.

The first sign of illness is a dry mouth. My mouth has been dry for XXX days.

Endless as an ocean. Is. Is not.

That was the day I crossed the railroad to buy the fabric for your shirt. That was when I breathed in the open air and all our chambers.

That was the day the birds appeared from everywhere, cedar waxwings a few feet from my hand. I lived in their habitat. You shared my room. I made a delicious soup. It snowed.

Against the crooked imperfection of the word, this happened. We ate carelessly. I stitched this in the lining of your coat. Essential to whom. Essential to me.

It was not the same stream, it was not America, not the same America, not the same twice. Not the same again.

A hundred times, a hundred days, it was not the same. We crossed the tracks from 6 feet down with the ghost dogs and the deer. We floated off and returned.

This is how we sing as the ship goes down, said my species.

This is what my species said.

This is what we did until indifference left us. This is what we did when we were alive. We rationed what was left. It was Tuesday and then it was not.

This is how we thought in the sweet cool wake of what came next.

from Harpers

Also:

Listening in Deep Space
By Diane Thiel

We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.

We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers with spirit and perseverance
mapping the unknown. We listen
through large arrays adjusted eagerly

to hear the news that we are not alone.
Considering the history at home,
in houses, across continents, oceans,
even in quests armed with good intentions,
what one seeker has done to another—
what will we do when we find each other?

https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/listening-in-deep-space/

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