Title page verso indicates hardcover edition, but this ISBN is for the paperback printing.

Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winner and nineteenth US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, The Best American Poetry 2017 brings together the most notable poems of the year in the series that offers “a vivid snapshot of what a distinguished poet finds exciting, fresh, and memorable” (Robert Pinsky). Librarian of Congress James Billington says Natasha Trethewey “consistently and dramatically expanded the power” of the role of US Poet Laureate, holding office hours with the public, traveling the country, and reaching millions through her innovative PBS NewsHour segment “Where Poetry Lives.” Marilyn Nelson says “the wide scope of Trethewey’s interests and her adept handling of form have created an opus of classics both elegant and necessary.” With her selections and introductory essay for The Best American Poetry 2017, Trethewey will be highlighting even more “elegant and necessary” poems and poets, adding to the national conversation of verse and its role in our culture. The Best American Poetry is not just another anthology; it serves as a guide to who’s who and what’s happening in American poetry and is an eagerly awaited publishing event each year. With Trethewey’s insightful touch and genius for plumbing the depths of history and personal experience to shape striking verse, The Best American Poetry 2017 is another brilliant addition to the series.

Considered by many to be his best work, "This Land Is Not My Land" is a series of poems written by a young A D Winans when he was a Military Policeman stationed in Panama during the U.S. occupation of that country. In these short narrative poems, Winans depicts scenes of ordinary poor people sacrificed to the forces of corporate greed and power. Though these are not political poems per se, they are slices of reality compressed into thumbnail sketches that give the reader a sympathetic view of the lives of third world citizens and the inequities between rich and poor nations. Originally published in 2005 as a Presa Press chapbook, This Land Is Not My Land was given the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Achievement Award. The new edition has eight new poems contributed by A D Winans at the age of 78.