The Best American Poetry 1997, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor James Tate.
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| "Back in the World" | Quarterly West | |
| "The Exaggeration of Despair" | Urbanus | |
| "Return to Harmony 3" | Verse | |
| from "Strip" | The Paris Review | |
| "That Cold Summer" | Ploughshares | |
| "Rounding the Horn" | American Poetry Review | |
| "The Problem of Anxiety" | Arshile | |
| "Camouflage" | Shenandoah | |
| "No Sorry" | TriQuarterly | |
| "Love Song" | The New Republic | |
| "Feminine Intuition" | American Poetry Review | |
| "The Map Room" | Iowa Review | |
| "Lines Lost Among Trees " | Poetry | |
| "The Sky Drank In" | American Letters & Commentary | |
| "The Heavy Headed Dance" | Hanging Loose | |
| "Won't It Be Fine?" | Grand Street | |
| "History" | The New Republic | |
| "The Death of John Berryman" | Poetry | |
| "How Should I Say This?" | The Massachusetts Review | |
| "Atomic Bride" | Ploughshares | |
| "You Know What I'm Saying?" | Poetry | |
| "Asylum" | The Gettysburg Review | |
| "Backing into the Future" | The World | |
| "Introductions" | Poetry | |
| "A Fan Letter" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Is About" | The New Yorker | |
| "The Litany" | The Hudson Review | |
| "Smoking" | Shenandoah | |
| "After Fighting for Hours" | Green Mountains Review | |
| "Complete with Starry Night and Bourbon Shots" | Quarterly West | |
| "Thinking" | The New Republic | |
| "The Porcelain Couple" | The New Yorker | |
| "Her Body" | Ploughshares | |
| "Interrupted Meditation" | Colorado Review | |
| "Heroin" | Indiana Review | |
| "California" | The New Republic | |
| "Helicopter Wrecked on a Hill" | Denver Quarterly | |
| "The Butterfly Effect" | The Gettysburg Review | |
| "Passacaglia" | Colorado Review | |
| "Making It Stick" | Many Mountains Moving | |
| Richard Jackson | "The Poem That Was Once Called "Desperate" But Is Now Striving to Become the Perfect Love Poem" | North American Review |
| "Dust Storm" | Ploughshares | |
| "Mud" | New Letters | |
| "The Bright Light of Responsibility" | Exquisite Corpse (magazine) | |
| "A Bill, Posted" | Poetry | |
| "Jeanne Duval's Confession" | Black Warrior Review | |
| "Suddenly I Realized I Was Sitting" | Another Chicago Magazine | |
| "The Change" | Seneca Review | |
| "Anastasia and Sandman" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Hallelujah Terrible" | Seneca Review | |
| "Empress of Sighs" | Clockwatch Review | |
| "Heartsong" | Ploughshares | |
| "Vermin" | The New Yorker | |
| "Shadow" | Another Chicago Magazine | |
| from "A Summer Evening" | Denver Quarterly | |
| "Mostly Mick Jagger" | Cream City Review | |
| "Valediction" | Poetry | |
| "Topophilia" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Recruiting Poster" | Shenandoah | |
| "Fiddleheads" | Green Mountains Review | |
| "Lifeline" | The Paris Review | |
| "Katyn Forest" | Another Chicago Magazine | |
| "The Something" | The New Yorker | |
| "Beds" | Poetry | |
| "Evening's End" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "Morning, Noon and Night" | The Times Literary Supplement | |
| Jack Turner | "The Plan" | Poetry |
| "Infernal" | Chelsea | |
| "Italian Eclogues" | The New York Review of Books | |
| "Diversion" | The New Republic | |
| "Downward Mobility" | The World | |
| "Shadow Grammar" | The World | |
| "Recognition" | Santa Monica Review | |
| "Disjecta Membra" | American Poetry Review | |
| "Frottage" | The Gettysburg Review | |
Connie Hart The heart is forever