The New American Poetry

"Donald Allen's prophetic anthology had an electrifying effect on two generations, at least, of American poets and readers. More than the repetition of familiar names and ideas that most anthologies seem to be about, here was the declaration of a collective, intelligent, and thoroughly visionary work-in-progress: the primary example for its time of the anthology-as-manifesto. Its republication today--complete with poems, statements on poetics, and autobiographical projections--provides us, again, with a model of how a contemporary anthology can and should be shaped. In these essentials it remains as fresh and useful a guide as it was in 1960."--Jerome Rothenberg, editor of Poems for the Millennium "The New American Poetry is a crucial cultural document, central to defining the poetics and the broader cultural dynamics of a particular historical moment."--Alan Golding, author of From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry

This anthology includes many of the major poets to have emerged and gained pre-eminence since World War II, and whose writing reflects not only the significant changes in this nation's postwar history, and the coming to grips with a nuclear age, but also an entirely new way of looking at and structuring reality. United by their "postmodernist" concerns with spontaneity, "instantism," formal and syntactic flexibility, and the revelation of both the creator and the process through the writing itself, these 38 poets represent very diverse strains of an essential American individualism. Included are many of the poets whose work first gained widespread national attention with the 1960 publication of The New American Poetry: Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Blackburn, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan, and others. Among the poets included here for the first time are Anne Waldman, Diane di Prima, Ed Sanders, Jerome Rothenberg, and James Koller. In addition to a new preface by Allen and Butterick, the book provides autobiographical notes of all the poets and listings of their major works.

This book examines Donald M. Allen’s crucially influential poetry anthology The New American Poetry, 1945–1960 from the perspectives of American Cold War nationalism and literary transnationalism, considering how the anthology expresses and challenges Cold War norms, claiming post-war Anglophone poetic innovation for the United States and reflecting the conservative American society of the 1950s. Examining the crossroads of politics, social life, and literature during the Cold War, this book puts Allen’s anthology into its historical context and reveals how the editor was influenced by the volatile climate of nationalism and politics that pervaded every aspect of American life during the Cold War. Reconsidering the dramatic influence that Allen’s anthology has had on the way we think about and anthologize American poetry, and recontextualizing The New American Poetry as a document of the Cold War, this study not only helps us come to a more accurate understanding of how the anthology came into being, but also encourages new ways of thinking about all of Anglophone poetry, from the twentieth century and today.

Intense, resonant, and deeply literary, this account of an American poetics shows how today's consumerist and conformist culture subverts the imagination of a free people. Poetry, the author maintains, is central to any coherent vision of life.

Poetry. Anthology. AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW (AMERICAN) POETS features the work of thirty-five young poets who represent "a new opening of the field for American poetry [and] a turn to living figures and essential issues" --Paul Hoover. The poems are characteristically aware of the traditions they are falling out of step with, making a "'thinking' compendium of the planetary poetry scene and a boon to the ongoing struggle to keep the world safe for poetry" --Anne Waldman. The Anthology is co-edited by Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz and Chris Stroffolino, and contains work by Lee Ann Brown, Candace Kaucher, Jeffrey McDaniel, Claire Needell, Mark Nowak, Edwin Torres and many more.

This anthology of poetry collects 21st century American works by both established and emerging poets that deal with the public events, government policies, ecological and political threats, economic uncertainties, and large-scale violence that have largely defined the century to date. But these 138 poems by 50 poets do not simply describe, lament, or bear witness to contemporary events; they also explore the linguistic, temporal, and imaginative problems involved in doing so. In this way, the anthology offers a comprehensive look at contemporary American poetry, demonstrating that poets are moving at once toward a new engagement with public concerns and toward a focus on the problems of representation. A detailed introduction by the editors along with poetics statements by many of the poets add depth and context to a book that will appeal to anyone interested in the state and evolution of contemporary American poetry. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Presents a diverse sample of twentieth century Latin American poems from eighty-four authors in Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, Spanglish, and several indigenous languages with English translations on facing pages.

A galaxy of writers epitomizes the state of American poetry at the century's close.

A first-of-its-kind anthology of hip-hop poetica written for and by the people.

In The Vintage Book of African American Poetry, editors Michael S. Harper and Anthony Walton present the definitive collection of black verse in the United States--200 years of vision, struggle, power, beauty, and triumph from 52 outstanding poets. From the neoclassical stylings of slave-born Phillis Wheatley to the wistful lyricism of Paul Lawrence Dunbar . . . the rigorous wisdom of Gwendolyn Brooks...the chiseled modernism of Robert Hayden...the extraordinary prosody of Sterling A. Brown...the breathtaking, expansive narratives of Rita Dove...the plaintive rhapsodies of an imprisoned Elderidge Knight . . . The postmodern artistry of Yusef Komunyaka. Here, too, is a landmark exploration of lesser-known artists whose efforts birthed the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts movements--and changed forever our national literature and the course of America itself. Meticulously researched, thoughtfully structured, The Vintage Book of African-American Poetry is a collection of inestimable value to students, educators, and all those interested in the ever-evolving tradition that is American poetry.