The Poets And Poetry Of America

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.

One of the most important American poetry anthologies of the nineteenth century, including the works of nearly every major and minor poet of the day, selected by Edgar Allan Poe's future literary executor, and rarely encountered in the correct first printing. Poets included are Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, Bryant, Emerson, Jones Very, William Gilmore Simms, Christopher P. Cranch, Richard Henry Dana, and an impressive selection of female poets now mostly forgotten: Sigourney, Gould, Brooks, Mrs. Seba Smith, Hall, Embury, Ellett, Dinnies, Welby, Hooper, Davidson.

What is more direct and intimate than one-to-one conversation? Here two forces in American poetry, the Kenyon Review and the University of Arkansas Press, bring together discussions between one of America's leading poets and editors, David Baker, and nine of the most exciting poets of our day. The poets, who represent a wide array of vocations and aesthetic positions, open up about their writing processes, their reading and education, their hopes for and discontents with the contemporary scene, and much more, treating readers to a view of the range and capacity of contemporary American poetry.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.