Poetry Foundation: The online home of the Poetry Foundation

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 April 06, 2008

Contemporary
1	Red Bird by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
2	Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass (Ecco)
3	Fidelity by Grace Paley (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux)
4	Thirst (paperback) by Mary Oliver (Beacon Press)
5	The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems (paperback) by Billy Collins (Random House)

Anthology
1	Good Poems edited by Garrison Keillor (Penguin)
2	Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor (Penguin)
3	100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits edited by Leslie Pockell (Grand Central Publishing)
4	The Poem I Turn To: Actors and Directors Present Poetry That Inspires Them edited by Jason Shinder (Sourcebooks MediaFusion)
5	The Best American Poetry 2007 edited by Heather McHugh (Scribner)

Children's
1	Dirt on My Shirt by Jeff Foxworthy, Steve Bjorkman (illustrator) (HarperCollins)
2	Don't Bump the Glump!: And Other Fantasies by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins)
3	Where the Sidewalk Ends (30th Anniversary Edition) by Shel Silverstein (HarperCollins)
4	My Dog May Be a Genius by Jack Prelutsky, James Stevenson (illustrator) (Greenwillow)
5	A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion / Hyperion Books for Children)

Small Press
1	Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetries edited by Reginald Shepherd (Counterpath Press)
2	Poeta En San Francisco by Barbara Jane Reyes (Tinfish)
3	Sleeping and Waking by Michael O'Brien (Flood Editions)
4	The Transformation by Juliana Spahr (Atelos Press)
5	City of Regret by Andrew Kozma (Zone 3 Press)

Behind the List

Poor Robert Hass. National Book Award, the Pulitzer—who cares? Your name's not Mary Oliver. Hass makes it to number 2, but Oliver makes it to number 1 . . . and 4 . . . and 7 . . . and 8 . . . and 19. You get the picture. Maybe next time, Bobby.

Despite being better known as a fiction writer, Grace Paley lands at number 3 with Fidelity, something she didn't seem to feel for any genre in particular.

Once again, Jorie Graham sees some change as the environmentally themed Sea Change drops two spots to number 6. Too bad the book can't get sea levels to do the same.

Li-Young Lee's Behind My Eyes falls two spots to number 9. Behind his eyes now? Tears.

Phil Schultz may not be at number 1, and sure, that Pulitzer win was a tie, but at least he's doing something with his life. Failure returns to the list at number 10.

Sure to be a hit with the beach-reading crowd this year, Woman Reading to the Sea by Lisa Williams comes in at number 11.

Molly Peacock's Cornucopia, debuts at number 13, and hopes to hang on till Thanksgiving.

BOOK PICKS

02.07.08

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow
by Joyce Sidman, Beth Krommes (illustrator)
Houghton Mifflin
$16.00
From the scratchboard illustrations to the poems presented as riddles, an air of mystery envelops this picture book about meadow life. What comes “[i]n the dark . . . in the leaf-crisp air just before sunlight”? Who hides in “bubbles of pearl, all in a clustery, bubbly swirl”? Which meadow visitors are “the tall ones with crowns of velvet”? Six- to ten-year-old naturalists—and grasshopper chasers of all ages—will enjoy guessing the answers to author Joyce Sidman’s enticing questions. (Dew, spittlebugs, and deer, if you must know.) Beth Krommes’ colorful, detailed pictures reveal clues, and Sidman also intersperses helpful bits of factual prose between the poems. Butterfly Eyes was named Best Poetry Book of 2006 by the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Awards, and Sidman’s other works, including Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems and Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry, have also landed on a number of “best of” lists. (Song of the Water Boatman won a Caldecott honor for its art, by Beckie Prange.) It’s no secret that the smart match of delightful wordplay, science, and art make Butterfly Eyes a must-have for nature-loving children.