David Lehman is the editor of The Oxford Book of American Poetry and Great American Prose Poems . He is also the general editor of the annual The Best American Poetry , which he initiated in 1988. His recent books of poetry include Poems in the Manner Of and New and Selected Poems . He has authored eight nonfiction books, including The State of the Art: A Chronicle of American Poetry, 1988-2014 . Lehman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.