5 January 2008 | Vol. 7, No. 4

Some Favorites from 2007 in Poetry

by BRIAN LEARY

I feel that year-end best-of lists taste a bit of editorial laziness—such an easy filler for the turn of the year. In the glossies, they praise the same fifteen movies as every other magazine. Sure, it's easy, but I confess, it's irresistible. I eat those lists up.

It was only last year that I first made a list of some of the poems I personally loved the most that 42opus had published in the previous year. I worried some that listing my favorites cheapens publication—isn't this supposed to be a serious art?—as it establishes a hierarchy in a publisher's works. But that article was one of the most-read pieces on the site in the first quarter of 2007. (My wariness of declaring "the best" or "my favorite" amongst writing probably arises from m