The Best American Poetry 1988 30th Anniversary of the Debut Collection

David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include The Morning Line, When a Woman Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. He has written such nonfiction books as Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.

John Ashbery (1927-2017) was an American poet, art critic, playwright, and translator. He published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, and at least as many major international awards.