The Best American Poetry 1998, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor John Hollander.
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| "Mr. Moto's Confession" | The New Republic | |
| "The Floating Post Office" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "The Cove" | The Hudson Review | |
| "Now Then" | Michigan Quarterly Review | |
| "A Possum's Tale" | Raritan | |
| "Botanical Garden: The Coastal Plains" | The Southern Review | |
| "Hot" | Poetry | |
| from "Visits from the Seventh" | The Paris Review | |
| "Wakefulness"] | The New Yorker | |
| "The Second Hour of the Night" | The Threepenny Review | |
| "A Week of Poems at Bennington" | AGNI | |
| "In an Old Garden" | The New Yorker | |
| from "Just Let me Say This About That" | Southwest Review | |
| "TV Men: Antigone (Scripts 1 and 2)" | The Paris Review | |
| "Symbol of the Faith" | Southwest Review | |
| "Self-Portrait as Four Styles of Pompeian Wall Painting" | The New Republic | |
| "Lines Composed Over Three Thousand Miles from Tintern Abbey" | Poetry | |
| "Jaffa" | New England Review | |
| "Echo" | The Antioch Review | |
| "What Else Is There" | Poetry | |
| "The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope" | Salt Hill | |
| "Like God" | Boston Review | |
| "Movietime" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "Apollo's Kiss" | Chelsea (magazine) | |
| "Mass in B Minor" | New England Review | |
| "Weird River" | Partisan Review | |
| "To Cupid" | The New Yorker | |
| "Again, The River" | Ploughshares | |
| "Pomegranate Variations" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "Letter with No Address" | Ploughshares | |
| "The Cretonnes of Penelope" | The Paris Review | |
| "Rara Avis in Terris" | The New Republic | |
| "The World Is Everything That Is the Case" | Poetry | |
| "The Lectures on Love" | The Paris Review | |
| "The Job Interview" | The New Republic | |
| "The Hanging Gardens" | River Styx | |
| "The Word "Answer" | Connecticut Review | |
| "Stanzas on a Hidden Theme" | The New Yorker | |
| "The Orchard" | New England Review | |
| "Roman Hours" | The Yale Review | |
| "Second Time Around" | Michigan Quarterly Review | |
| "Ballade" | The Yale Review | |
| "The Secret Amplitude" | Southwest Review | |
| "About Her" | Poetry | |
| "Ontological" | The New Criterion | |
| "Drum" | Michigan Quarterly Review | |
| "Making Love" | The Gettysburg Review | |
| "Descartes's Dream" | Southwest Review | |
| "Past All Understanding" | Denver Quarterly | |
| "Chalk-Circle Compass" | Poetry | |
| "The Chinese Mountain Fox" | The Yale Review | |
| "Joe Simpson [1919-1996]" | The New Yorker | |
| "Artisan and Clerk" | The Yale Review | |
| "The Right Empowerment of Light" | Michigan Quarterly Review | |
| "Enchanted Rock" | The Yale Review | |
| "Flamingos" | The Gettysburg Review | |
| "Views of La Leggenda della Vera Croce" | Western Humanities Review | |
| "Ode to Meaning" | The Threepenny Review | |
| "The Closing, the Ecstasy" | Poetry | |
| "March" | Connecticut Review | |
| "Four Corners, Vermont" | The New Republic | |
| "The Coat" | Ploughshares | |
| "A Geode" | The Hudson Review | |
| "Ambiguity's Wedding" | FIELD | |
| "The View" | The London Review of Books | |
| "Dream On" | American Poetry Review | |
| "A Calm November. Sunday in the Fields." | Denver Quarterly | |
| "Signs" | Conjunctions | |
| "'Departure'" | The New Republic | |
| "from "Home and Away"" | The Paris Review | |
| "Shanked on the Red Bed" | The New Yorker | |
| "For C." | The New Yorker | |
| "The Bed" | Ontario Review | |
| "The Dark Days" | The Yale Review | |
| "Returned to the Yaak Cabin, I Overhear an Old Greek Song" | Poetry | |