Here are my ten favorite poems from the magazine of the year, counting down to my favorite, plus my original commentary for each. Reread my favorite twenty or so in preparation, so the ranking is based on my current feelings, which may not precisely correspond to my original blurbs.

10. “The Tribute” by Jameson Fitzpatrick: Really interesting. I initially read this as a fairly literal piece imagining a daughter, and it read quite well that way – moving, earnest. Then, after finding out the writer is trans, the whole thing shifted – it’s about the past self reimagined, projected backward. This fills it with air, reveals it fully – and it’s big, strange, the kind of poem worthy of being its writer’s only poem of the year. Some things stand alone.

9. “What I Might Sing” by Donika Kelly: A refractive, plainspoken reflection on race and patriotism in the present moment. Repeated near-repetitions (a great-aunt who “has a mind, mind you” or two uncles and one “almost an uncle”) indicate the mirror image before it pops up toward the end, “This poem a mirror // I keep turning away from” – not the first poem to pull that trick, but there is enough real feeling here that we “rumble home” along with Kelly, stuck reckoning, eyes open or closed, with a hard home to take heart in.