Best Poem of 2010

I have re-read the shortlist a few times, notwithstanding that there were any number of other poems that deserved to be on it and also acknowledging that these are six very fine poems that I admired on first reading and found more in subsequently. Reducing the shortlist down to a winner is a process of discrimination, which can sometimes be a good thing, between the already very good to find the slightly better. And I'm very glad not to have to judge a proper poetry competition of such quality for a real prize because, quite honestly, I don't think prizes is what it's really all about. But, good game, good game, and how dare I even pretend I have any right to decide which poems are better than any others.
It would be a big ask to give it to James Sheard's long (by today's standards) poem, it creates a dark and threatening atmosphere and I like some bits of it better than others but it refers to the process of poetry, which isn't always a good thing and, compared to, for example, Derek Mahon's poem, which looks better every time you look at it, it neither is nor was probably meant to be quite such a coherent whole.
I can't give it to the Heaney because although Todd Swift seems to want to challenge the perfectly obvious assertion by Sean O'Brien that Heaney is 'the English-language world's greatest living poet', the point seems to have more going for it than going against it but if this is by no means his best poem and if it were to be made this year's best by anyone, it elevates his really good pieces to an even higher level. It is a wonderful poem but I'm not going to say that Heaney in third gear can outrun allcomers.
Kelly Grovier's new poems in PNR prompted me to order his book of poems. By some mistake that might have been mine I first received a copy of his book The Gaol on the history of Newgate prison and it has proved to be a happy accident in that it is a far better read than the poems. The Ratio is a poem placed firmly in an area of my interest, on the subject of Mozart's downloading of Allegri's Miserere from The Vatican on one hearing but I can't in all conscience select a poem that thinks that this is a line of poetry,

transcendence, quintessence - substance

No. I'm sorry, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

I really want to pick Jane Yeh's poem because I like its self-consciousness, its knowing way, its superb control and choice language. I'd give anything to have wriiten that poem. Almost anything. It is a brilliant finish and I made it best poem on the shortlist for the National Poetry Competition anyway. But Mahon's An Aspiring Spirit has set a passionate standard, even if it is only 'after Quevedo' and all the clever irony in the world isn't convincing me yet.
It takes not only Muldoon's immense and almost objectional talent and cleverness to outdo Mahon's elemental life-enhancing sonnet but also his mesmeric use of the word 'tatterdemalion', which I now see has attracted some other internet discussion. I'm not entirely sure I gather entirely everything that The Fish Ladder is about and how it does what it does but I sometimes like that air of mystery when one knows something is even better than one is capable of appreciating.
Although at first I had no idea which was the best poem of 2010, it has become clearer now. An award from this tatterdemalion little website is hardly likely to show up on Paul Muldoon's list of poetry honours, but it is sincerely meant and has been thought about a lot.

It's been a big year, with several big names publishing new poems in books, but, one might think, not all of them doing any better than they've done before.
Next year we can look forward to new books from Roddy Lumsden and Martin Mooney, or so I've heard. I can only look forward to the challenge of deciding which book and which poem I like best out of those.