Collects poems chosen by editor Kevin Young as the best of 2011, featuring 75 poets including Elizabeth Alexander, Sherman Alexie, Rae Armantrout, and John Ashbery.

Includes bibliographical references.

Rally /Elizabeth Alexander -- Valediction / Sherman Alexie -- Soft money / Rae Armantrout -- Postlude and prequel / John Ashbery -- To my lover, concerning the yird-swine / Julianna Baggott -- When at a certain party in NYC / Erin Belieu -- Banking / Cara Benson -- Mine is the first rodeo, mine is the last accolade / Jaswinder Bolina -- The sink / Catherine Bowman -- Off the Nollendorfplatz / Turner Cassity -- Dead ass / Michael Cirelli -- Here and there / Billy Collins -- Three sonnets. Sonnet (division) ; Sonnet (motion) ; Sonnet (silenced) / Olena Kalytiak Davis -- Coffee / Matthew Dickman -- From the lives of my friends / Michael Dickman -- My strip club / Denise Duhamel -- Emmett Till's glass-top casket / Cornelius Eady -- Stays / Jill Alexander Essbaum -- In November / Alan Feldman -- From "The Amy poems". Amy survives another apocalypse ; You're really starting to suck, Amy / Farrah Field -- Morning on the island / Carolyn Forché -- Everything is nervous / Beckian Fritz Goldberg -- The space traveler talks frankly about desire / Benjamin S. Grossberg -- Poppies / Jennifer Grotz -- August notebook : a death / Robert Hass -- Lighthead's guide to the galaxy / Terrance Hayes -- Just as, after a point, Job cried out / K.A. Hays -- Having intended to merely pick on an oil company, the poem goes awry / Bob Hicok -- The cloudy vase / Jane Hirshfield -- God's promises / Paul Hoover -- The funeral sermon / Andrew Hudgins -- From Holding company. Bereft ; Lying ; The giant swing ending in a split ; Narcissus / Major Jackson -- Notebooks / Allison Joseph -- Andrew Wyeth, painter, dies at 91 / L.S. Klatt -- Kiri Te Kanawa singing "O mio babbino caro" / Jennifer Knox -- A voice on an answering machine / Yusef Komunyakaa -- Snow / James Longenbach -- The pilgrim is bridled and bespectacled / Bridget Lowe -- The complaint against Roney Laswell's rooster / Maurice Manning -- Pears / Morton Marcus -- Dear gaybashers / Jill McDonough -- Elegy with construction sounds, water, fish / Erika Meitner -- The side project / Paul Muldoon -- Word / Jude Nutter -- Pillow talk / Jeni Olin -- Cogitatio mortis / Eric Pankey -- Family math / Alan Michael Parker -- Postcards from her alternate lives / Catherine Pierce -- Horn / Robert Pinsky -- Angels / Katha Pollitt -- Bugcatching at twilight / D.A. Powell -- To my father on the anniversary of his death / Gretchen Steele Pratt -- Even more aphorisms and ten-second essays from vectors 3.0 / James Richardson -- What my heart is turning / Anne Marie Rooney -- Provenance / Mary Ruefle -- Ghost aurora / David St. John -- The afterlife / Mary Jo Salter -- The smallest / James Schuyler -- Nineteen thirty-eight / Charles Simic -- Nowhere / Matthew Buckley Smith -- Motown crown / Patricia Smith -- Dream IV / Gerald Stern -- Pantoum for the imperceptible / Bianca Stone -- The poem of the Spanish poet / Mark Strand -- Thirteen months / Mary Jo Thompson -- Elegy / Natasha Trethewey -- Drunk at a party / Lee Upton -- Thoreau and the lightning / David Wagoner -- The latch / Rosanna Warren -- Time pieces / Rachel Wetzsteon -- Ecclesiastes II:I / Richard Wilbur -- A hundred bones / C.K. Williams -- Mix tape to be brought to her in rehab / David Wojahn -- Toadstools / Charles Wright -- Cycladic idyll : an apologia / Stephen Yenser.