All That Needs to be Said About This Year's Poetry GG Shortlist

Let me end with a lament and a seduction.  There are poems that I’m sad cannot be included because of length.  “Teachable Texts” is a favourite of mine and a poem that  think stands the test of time, likewise “Poetry in the Pissoir.”  Both are available (theoretically in earlier formats).  I withheld poems from the Basho Variations and Every Way Oakly (my homolinguistic translations of poems in Stein’s Tender Buttons) as a  courtesy to my publisher, the brave Jay MillAr, in the hope that sales of his editions will reap largesse.

 --Steve McAffery, in the introduction to his selected poems in 2009