Terence Winch

Guest edited by Terence Winch—NEA Fellow and editor of the “pick of the week” on the Best American Poetry blog—the 2025 edition marks a poignant farewell to series editor David Lehman, celebrating more than three decades of poetic excellence. For thirty-eight years, The Best American Poetry series has won widespread acclaim as the nation’s most influential and vital poetry anthology. BAP, which has inspired similar ventures abroad, has garnered plaudits for its ability to capture the zeitgeist of American poetry. This year’s anthology is guest edited by the esteemed poet and songwriter Terence Winch, who brings to the task his work as a musician and poetry editor as well as his many years of experience as head of publications at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Winch, known for his inspired selections on the Best American Poetry blog, curates a vibrant array of compelling voices. The Best American Poetry 2025 is a landmark edition that not only showcases the finest contemporary American poetry but also honors David Lehman’s achievement as the anthology’s founding editor. “The list of editors is a who’s who of US poetry elites,” writes Oxford professor of poetry A. E. Stallings. “And behind it all, the poet David Lehman, the series editor, has labored quietly and diligently ensuring its continuity and continued relevance.” Lehman’s vision and dedication have shaped these collections into much-anticipated annual events, sparking lively discussion, controversy on occasion, and always a jubilant affirmation of modern American poetry. This year’s edition stands as a testament to David Lehman’s legacy—and to the enduring power of poetry.

That Ship Has Sailed synthesizes the serious and comic to address sex, love, loss, death, belief, the afterlife, and the past. The poems are honest and direct without sacrificing “the uncertainties, mysteries, and doubts” that Keats singles out in his notion of “negative capability,” alluded to in the title poem. Amplified by the poet’s work as a traditional Irish musician and composer, language is the adhesive that brings the work together across the avant-garde to traditional forms and meters.

Seeing-Eye Boy, the first novel by poet and musician Terence Winch. winner of the American Book Award and Columbia Book Award, brings to life the Irish immigrant world of 20th-century urban America. The vivid and engrossing story of Matt Coffey, 12 years old going on 13, offers an inside look at a lost universe where two cultures, Irish and American, blended together in the new world. In the story it's the fall of 1957, and Matt's world is in turmoil. He's acquired a new enemy named Bull Burke, has started taking care of a neighborhood blind man (who turns out to have been part of the resistance to the British during the Irish troubles in the old country) and his terrifying dog, and is feeling the stirrings of first love. On top of it all, now he has to contend with the threatened invasion of his block by the meanest gang in the Bronx, the dreaded Fordham Baldies. How he navigates his way through the minefield of early adolescence, and what he learns about love and life, are at the heart of Seeing-Eye Boy. The vivid narrative shows immigrant adults interacting with their first-generation sons and daughters, while Irish and rock music co-exist uncomfortably as the Irish become Irish Americans. Matt and his buddies take on gang members who use bicycle chains as weapons, as everybody dances around the efforts of Irish cops to keep the Bronx safe from violence. The thrilling climax involves water balloons, mysterious voices in Matt's head, firecrackers, fierce friendships, a dramatic rescue, a horrifying accident, and the eerie sound of the bagpipes. As writer Michael Lally says, "Seeing-Eye Boy is the lyrically precise and definitive story of what it is like being a smart and sensitive adolescent anywhere, anytime."

Poetry. This is my new favorite book of poems and should be everyone's. The poems are so brilliantly original they defy labels or comparisons. No one writes poetry like Winch. --Michael Lally

Poetry. Winch's seventh collection is imaginative, soulful, and funny... THIS WAY OUT gives us Terence Winch at the top of his game.--Bob Hicok These are the poems you read to your friend at two in the morning.--Sandra Beasley

Poetry. The title of Terence Winch's newest collection says it all: the wonderfully droll, self-deprecating, hard-hitting and deliciously comic narrator of these poems knows only too well what life exacts from us. A trivial event like losing one's watch and replacing it brings on the rueful recognition that 'it ran so fast, / I had to live every day / as if it were tomorrow.' It's a dilemma we all face. No rest for the weary As the narrator of 'Low Life' puts it, 'You must still explain to the babysitter what has to be done.' In a sequence of dazzling and poignant memory poems about love and death, friendship and family trauma, Winch once again displays his uncanny ability to take the most ordinary of incidents and endow them with radiance. One reads FALLING OUT OF BED IN A ROOM WITH NO FLOOR with a steady shock of recognition. Here WE are --Marjorie Perloff.