Books
Our poetry best seller lists are based on data received from Nielsen BookScan, which tracks sales from more than 4,500 retail booksellers. Retailers included in the list include both large, high-volume retailers such as Borders and Amazon.com, and more than 400 smaller, independent bookstores. We generate the lists each week by tallying the number of books sold for recently published volumes of contemporary poetry, poetry anthologies, and children's poetry. The contemporary poetry best seller list is meant to reflect the current market for new poetry, and so excludes translations and new editions of classical works. Our small press list is based on Small Press Distribution's poetry sales to bookstores and individual customers, which are reported to us on a monthly basis.
Week of June 21, 2009
| Contemporary | |
| 1 | The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press) |
| 2 | Endpoint and Other Poems by John Updike (Knopf) |
| 3 | Evidence by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press) |
| 4 | Ballistics by Billy Collins (Random House) |
| 5 | Red Bird (paperback) by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press) |
| READ MORE » | |
| Anthology | |
| 1 | Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor (Penguin) |
| 2 | 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day edited by Billy Collins (Random House) |
| 3 | Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud by Robert Pinsky (W.W. Norton & Co.; Har/Com edition) |
| 4 | Poem in Your Pocket: 200 Poems to Read and Carry edited by Elaine Bleakney (Abrams Image) |
| 5 | The Best Poems of the English Language (paperback) edited by Harold Bloom (Harper Perennial) |
| READ MORE » | |
| Children's | |
| 1 | Nursery Rhymes by Roger Priddy (Priddy Books) |
| 2 | Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox (Harcourt Children's Books) |
| 3 | The Frogs and Toads All Sang by Lobel Arnold (HarperCollins) |
| 4 | Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins) |
| 5 | Dirt on My Shirt by Jeff Foxworthy, Steve Bjorkman (illustrator) (HarperCollins) |
| READ MORE » | |
| Small Press | |
| 1 | Face by Sherman Alexie (Hanging Loose Press) |
| 2 | Breaking Poems by Suheir Hammad (Cypher Books) |
| 3 | ZaatarDiva by Suheir Hammad (Cypher Books) |
| 4 | Poets Guide To The Birds edited by J. Kitchen and T. Kooser (Anhinga Press) |
| 5 | The Summer of Black Widows by Sherman Alexie (Hanging Loose Press) |
| READ MORE » | |
BEHIND THE LIST
Three years ago, he won the National Book Award. This year he won the Pulitzer Prize. And—surely a high point in his career—on the week of June 21, 2009, W.S. Merwin owned the contemporary best seller list. The Hawaii-resident's latest, Shadow of Sirius, takes over at number 1 for the first time in months, while his new and selected, Migration, re-emerges on the list at number 13, and Present Company, the poet's 2005 collection, sneaks back on the list at number 16.
Tom Lowenstein's collection of Classic Haiku returns to the anthology list this week after a short hiatus. The illustrated collection presents translations of Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki, along with short biographical sketches. Sadly for the internet, there are no cat haikus therein.
