The Best American Poetry 2006, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman (general editor), and poet Billy Collins, guest editor.
The volume received some negative reviews. A review in the RATTLE by G. Tod Stone stated that "[w]hat establishment-order literati like Lehman and Collins are succeeding in doing, more than anything else, is keeping American poetry from being the best." [1]
On the other hand, and more positively, James Owens wrote in the Pedestal Review that "[r]eaders who care about poetry need The Best American Poetry 2006. Get it. Read it. Just don’t stop there." [2]; writing in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Marion K. Stocking, remarked that "If a selection of the poets in Collins’s collection went on the road with their poems they should be reading to packed houses." [3]
| Poet | Poem | Publication(s) where poem previously appeared |
| Kim Addonizio | "Verities" | Poetry |
| Dick Allen | "See the Pyramids Along the Nile" | Boulevard |
| Craig Arnold | from "Couple from Hell" | Barrow Street |
| John Ashbery | "A Worldly Country" | The New Yorker |
| Jesse Ball | "Speech in a Chamber" | The Paris Review |
| Krista Benjamin | "Letter from My Ancestors" | Margie |
| Ilya Bernstein | "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" | Fulcrum |
| Gaylord Brewer | "Apologia to the Blue Tit" | River Styx |
| Tom Christopher | "Rhetorical Figures" | Hayden's Ferry Review |
| Laura Cronk | "Sestina for the Newly Married" | LIT |
| Carl Dennis | "Our Generation" | The Kenyon Review |
| Stephen Dobyns | "Toward Some Bright Moment" | American Poetry Review |
| Denise Duhamel | "Please Don't Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen" | Columbia Poetry Review |
| Stephen Dunn | "The Land of Is" | The Georgia Review |
| Beth Ann Fennelly | "Souvenir" | Shenandoah |
| Megan Gannon | "List of First Lines" | Third Coast |
| Amy Gerstler | "For My Niece Sidney, Age Six" | American Poetry Review |
| Sarah Gorham | "Bust of a Young Boy in the Snow" | Five Points |
| George Green | "The Death of Winckelmann" | The New Criterion |
| Debora Greger | "My First Mermaid" | The Kenyon Review |
| Eamon Grennan | "The Curve" | Five Points |
| Daniel Gutstein | "Monsieur Pierre est mort" | Rhino |
| R. S. Gwynn | from "Sects from A to Z" | Poetry |
| Rachel Hadas | "Bird, Weasel, Fountain" | The Cincinnati Review |
| Mark Halliday | "Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women" | Michigan Quarterly Review |
| Jim Harrison | "On the Way to the Doctor's" | New Letters |
| Robert Hass | "The Problem of Describing Color" | The New Yorker |
| Christian Hawkey | "Hour" | CROWD |
| Terrance Hayes | "Talk" | Gulf Coast |
| Bob Hicok | "My career as a director" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Katia Kapovich | "The Ferry" | Harvard Review |
| Laura Kasischke | "At Gettysburg" | New England Review |
| Joy Katz | "Just a second ago" | The Cincinnati Review |
| David Kirby | "Seventeen Ways from Tuesday" | Subtropics |
| Jennifer L. Knox | "The Laws of Probability in Levittown" | The Hat |
| Ron Koertge | "Found" | Iodine Poetry Journal |
| John Koethe | "Sally's Hair" | The Kenyon Review |
| Mark Kraushaar | "Tonight" | The Gettysburg Review |
| Julie Larios | "Double Abecedarian: Please Give Me" | The Georgia Review |
| Dorianne Laux | "Demographic" | The Alaska Quarterly Review |
| Reb Livingston | "That's Not Butter" | MiPoesias |
| Thomas Lux | "Eyes Scooped Out and Replaced by Hot Coals" | Five Points |
| Paul Muldoon | "Blenheim" | Five Points |
| Marilyn Nelson | "Albert Hinckley" | The Cincinnati Review |
| Richard Newman | "Briefcase of Sorrow" | Crab Orchard Review |
| Mary Oliver | "The Poet with His Face in His Hands" | The New Yorker |
| Danielle Pafunda | "Small Town Rocker" | The Canary |
| Mark Pawlak | "The Sharper the Berry" | New American Writing |
| Bao Phi | "Race" | Michigan Quarterly Review |
| Donald Platt | "Two Poets Meet" | Iowa Review |
| Lawrence Raab | "The Great Poem" | Nightsun |
| Betsy Retallack | "Roadside Special" | Endicott Review |
| Liz Rosenberg | "The Other Woman's Point of View" | The Kenyon Review |
| J. Allyn Rosser | "Discounting Lynn" | failbetter.com |
| Kay Ryan | "Thin" | Poetry |
| Mary Jo Salter | "A Phone Call to the Future" | The Georgia Review |
| Vejay Sheshadri | "Memoir" | The New Yorker |
| Alan Shapiro | "Misjudged Fly Ball" | The Cincinnati Review |
| Charles Simic | "House of Cards" | The Virginia Quarterly Review |
| Gerald Stern | "Homesick" | Ecotone |
| James Tate | "The Loser" | Crazyhorse |
| Sue Ellen Thompson | "Body English" | Connecticut Review |
| Tony Towle | "Misprision" | LIT |
| Alison Townsend | "What I Never Told You About the Abortion" | Margie |
| Paul Violi | "Counterman" | Shiny International |
| Ellen Bryant Voigt | "Harvesting the Cows" | The Kenyon Review |
| David Wagoner | "The Driver" | Margie |
| Charles Harper Webb | "Prayer to Tear the Sperm-Dam Down" | Atlanta Review |
| C. K. Williams | "Ponies" | The Atlantic Monthly |
| Terence Winch | "Sex Elegy" | Verse |
| Susan Wood | "Gratification" | Five Points |
| Franz Wright | "A Happy Thought" | FIELD |
| Robert Wrigley | "Religion" | The Gettysburg Review |
| David Yezzi | "The Call" | New England Review |
| Dean Young | "Clam Ode" | POOL |