The Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses 2016 Edition

Dedicated to Pulitzer prize winning poet Philip Levine, who died this year, the latest edition of the Pushcart Prize marks its 40th anniversary. This volume is published and edited by the indomitable Henderson, who writes in the introduction about founding the series in 1975 (and includes some serious name-dropping: Paul Bowles, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates), so it's assured of upholding the series' reputation for collecting the best writing from the small presses. The 69 writers represented in this volume are no less impressive than the series' founders. MacArthur-winner Lucia Perillo's poem, "Yellow Claw," from American Poetry Review, gets to the heart of a working man driving a backhoe; Zadie Smith's "Miss Adele Amidst the Corset," from the Paris Review, describes an incident in a modern-day corset store in New York City; Anthony Doerr contemplates the lives of the folks who occupied the log cabin he passes on Fort Street in Boise, Id., which he notices for the first time when he's driving his twin sons home in "Thing with Feathers That Perches in the Soul," from Granta. There are pieces from Ann Beattie, Wendell Berry, Dan Chaon, and Oates, all selected from submissions from over 700 presses. It's a wonderful edition, as always, and a testament to literature, as well as an incredibly satisfying reference for writers and readers everywhere. (Nov.)