Graham chose, as one of the best American poems published in the 12-month period, a work by her husband[2] at the time, James Galvin.
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| A. R. Ammons | "The Damned" | The Yale Review |
| John Ash | "The Sweeping Gesture" | Broadway |
| John Ashbery | "Notes from the Air" | The New Yorker |
| Marvin Bell | "Victim of Himself" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Stephen Berg | "First Song/Bankei/1653/" | Denver Quarterly |
| Mei-mei Berssenbrugge | "Jealousy" | Empathy |
| Hayden Carruth | "Crucifixion" | American Poetry Review |
| Anne Carson | "The Life of Towns" | Grand Street |
| Raymond Carver | "Wake Up" | Michigan Quarterly Review |
| Amy Clampitt | "My Cousin Muriel" | The New Yorker |
| Killarney Clary | "'Boys on street corners in Santa Ana...'" | Who Whispered Near Me |
| Robert Creeley | "Thinking" | Harvard Magazine |
| Christopher Davis | "Dying in Your Garden of Death
to Go Back into My Garden" | The Tyrant of the Past and
the Slave of the Future |
| Tom Disch | "The Crumbling Infrastructure" | Southwest Review |
| Norman Dubie | "Of Politics & Art" | American Poetry Review |
| Aaron Fogel | "The Chessboard Is on Fire" | Boulevard |
| James Galvin | "To the Republic" | New Letters |
| Suzanne Gardinier | "This Land" | Grand Street |
| Amy Gerstler | "The Ice Age" | The Paris Review |
| Linda Gregg | "The War" | New Letters |
| Thom Gunn | "Duncan" | The Threepenny Review |
| Donald Hall | "Praise for Death" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Daniel Halpern | "Bell & Capitol" | Ontario Review |
| Robert Hass | "Berkeley Eclogue" | Human Wishes |
| Seamus Heaney | "Crossings" | The New Yorker |
| Anthony Hecht | "Eclogue of the Shepherd and the Townie" | The Sewanee Review |
| Emily Hiestand | "On Nothing" | The Hudson Review |
| Brenda Hillman | "No Greener Pastures" | Fortress |
| John Hollander | "An Old-Fashioned Song" | The New Republic |
| Virginia Hooper | "Climbing Out of the Cage" | Denver Quarterly |
| Richard Howard | "The Victor Vanquished" | Antaeus |
| Fanny Howe | "Perfection and Derangement" | o•blék |
| Rodney Jones | "On the Bearing of Waitresses" | Transparent Gestures |
| Galway Kinnell | "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Edward Kleinschmidt | "Gangue" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Yusef Komunyakaa | "Facing It" | Dien Cai Dau |
| Denise Levertov | "Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell" | American Poetry Review |
| Philip Levine | "Scouting" | Western Humanities Review |
| Thomas Lux | "Time" | American Poetry Review |
| Nathaniel Mackey | "Slipped Quadrant" | Avec |
| Kevin Magee | "Road" | Hambone |
| Thomas McGrath | "Afternoon of a McGrath" | The Nation |
| Lynne McMahon | "Barbie's Ferrari" | American Poetry Review |
| Jane Mead | [https://web.archive.org/web/20071130003236/http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1989/spring/mead-concerning-that-prayer/ "Concerning That Prayer I Cannot Make"] | The Virginia Quarterly Review |
| James Merrill | "Quatrains for Pegasus" | The Nation |
| W. S. Merwin | "The Morning Train" | The New Yorker |
| Jane Miller | "Adoration" | Black Warrior Review |
| Susan Mitchell | "Havana Birth" | Ploughshares |
| Paul Monette | "The Worrying" | Love Alone |
| Laura Moriarty | "La Malinche" | Temblor |
| Thylias Moss | "There Will Be Animals" | Pyramid of Bone |
| Melinda Mueller | "Teratology" | Fine Madness |
| Laura Mullen | "They" | The Threepenny Review |
| Alice Notley | "(2 pages from a long poem in progress)" | How(ever) |
| Michael Palmer | "Six Hermetic Songs" | Sulfur |
| Robert Pinsky | "Pilgrimage" | Antaeus |
| Jendi Reiter | "Service Includes Free Lifetime Updating" | Hanging Loose |
| Joan Retallack | "Japanese Presentation, I & II" | o•blék |
| Donald Revell | "The Old Causes" | Boulevard |
| Adrienne Rich | "Living Memory" | American Poetry Review |
| Michael Ryan | "Switchblade" | God Hunger |
| James Schuyler | "Haze" | The New Yorker |
| Frederick Seidel | "AIDS Days" | These Days |
| Charles Simic | "The Initiate" | Antaeus |
| Gustaf Sobin | "Transparent Itineraries: 1984" | Voyaging Portraits |
| Elizabeth Spires | "Primos" | American Poetry Review |
| David St. John | "Last Night with Rafaella" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Gerald Stern | "Saving My Skin from Burning" | Iowa Review |
| Mark Strand | "Orpheus Alone" | The New Yorker |
| James Tate | "Distance from Loved Ones" | Denver Quarterly |
| Sidney Wade | "Aurora Borealis and the Body Louse" | Grand Street |
| Rosanna Warren | "The Cormorant" | Boulevard |
| Richard Wilbur | "A Wall in the Woods: Cummington" | The New Yorker |
| Eleanor Wilner | "Reading the Bible Backwards" | Sarah's Choice |
| Charles Wright | "Saturday Morning Journal" | Antaeus |
|
The following publications were represented more than once in this year's volume:
1. ^{{Cite web| last = Lehman| first =David (as copyright holder)| title =Best American Poetry 1990 (main page)| year =2010| url =http://www.bestamericanpoetry.com/pages/volumes/?id=1990 | format =Overview of the series and this volume. Pertinent links available on this page. | accessdate =2010-04-05}}
2. ^"X Marks the West: James Galvin" at the MiPoesias literary magazine website ("He was married to Jorie Graham for about 25 years, until they broke up in 2000."), accessed October 9, 2007