The Best American Poetry 1988, the first volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor John Ashbery, who chose one of his own poems among the group of 75.
Although Lehman would later use his forewords as a kind of "state of poetry" review of the previous year, in this first volume he concentrated on the nature of this anthology, with most of the foreword given over to explaining the mechanics of the process (see The Best American Poetry series for those comments).
There seem to be plenty of creative writing programs, so it appears there will be an audience for the series, Lehman wrote, and with poetry appearing in so many different publications, an annual anthology could help readers find poetry in one place.
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| "Motion Which Disestablishes Organizes Everything" | The Hudson Review | |
| "Shadow Play" | Poetry | |
| "Bases" | o•blék | |
| "Memories of Italy" | Disbelief | |
| "One Coat of Paint" | Shenandoah | |
| "My Autobiography" | New American Writing | |
| "Chinese Space" | Conjunctions | |
| "Noch Einmal, an Orpheus" | Grand Street | |
| "Momentariness" | Tyuonyi | |
| "To Urania" | The Paris Review | |
| "Miranda inReno" | The New Republic | |
| "Mecox Road" | Verse | |
| "Essay on Language" | Heavy Daughter Blues | |
| "A Monologue" | o•blék | |
| "New Year" | Partisan Review | |
| "Dog Star Sale" | The Paris Review | |
| "The Dream" | Exquisite Corpse | |
| "In Memoriam" | Boulevard | |
| "Top O' Silo" | Conjunctions | |
| "Losing It" | Epoch | |
| "marriage" | New American Writing | |
| "On Difficulty" | The End of Beauty | |
| "Snow White and Rose Red" | The New Yorker | |
| "The Piano Player Explains Himself" | Grand Street | |
| "Words" | Tyuonyi | |
| "Nourishment" | Boulevard | |
| "Prophecy" | The Paris Review | |
| "Thin Air" | Antaeus | |
| "A Shooting Script" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Envoi" | The Yale Review | |
| "The Confessions of Gerrit" | Mudfish | |
| "An Old Story is Retold" | Partisan Review | |
| "The Foreigner Remembered by a Local Man" | For Nelson Mandela | |
| "Nostalgia of the Lakefronts" | Antaeus | |
| "Hercules Musarum" | Tyuonyi | |
| "Pasolini" | Shiny International | |
| "Soda Water with a Boyhood Friend" | New American Writing | |
| "Movement Along the Frieze" | New American Writing | |
| "What People Say About Paris" | Poetry | |
| "Mistral" | The Paris Review | |
| "Unachieved" | Sulfur | |
| "Psyche's Dream" | Before Recollection | |
| "Operation Memory" | Shenandoah | |
| "A Walk with Tom Jefferson" | The Paris Review | |
| "Degree Four" | Conjunctions | |
| "Funeral March for a Papagallo" | Aerial | |
| "Hungry and Waiting" | Sulfur | |
| "Histoire" | Armenian Papers | |
| "Holding the Thought of Love" | Exquisite Corpse | |
| "Farewell Performance" | Grand Street | |
| "Public Television" | Shiny International | |
| "Route E" | Aerial | |
| "Light As Air" | Boulevard | |
| "From C" | o•blék | |
| "Politics" | o•blék | |
| "The Hearts" | The New Republic | |
| "St. Lucy's Day" | Poetry | |
| "From Act I, Scene II of Guards of the Heart" | Aerial | |
| "Jumping-jack flash" | Conjunctions | |
| "Let's All Hear It for Mildred Bailey!" | Poetry | |
| "Empathy for David Winfield" | Diamonds are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball | |
| "St Thomas Aquinas" | Antaeus | |
| "Walking the New York Bedrock Alive in the Sea of Information" | Sulfur | |
| "The Latest Hotel Guest Walks Over Particles That Revolve in Seven Other Dimensions Controlling Latticed Space" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Dummy, 51, to Go to Museum. Ventriloquist Dead at 75" | In Other Words | |
| "Neighbors" | Sonora Review | |
| "Six of Ox Is" | New American Writing | |
| "Elsewhere" | The Arkansas Testament | |
| "Inuit and Seal" | Sulfur | |
| "Respected, Feared, and Somehow Loved" | o•blék | |
| "What Memory Reveals" | Sulfur | |
| "Trolling for Blues" | Poetry | |
| "Recitation for Dismantling the Hydrogen Bomb" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Genghis Chan: Private Eye" | Sulfur | |
| "Drive, It Said" | New American Writing | |