Short Form American Poetry

Reading a century of American poetry through the prism of short form, this book analyses the centrality of an aesthetic of brevity to American modernist verse.

American poetry's two characteristics -- American English as a poetic resource -- Convention and idiosyncrasy -- Auden and Eliot : two complicating examples -- On the present and future of American poetry.

A major addition to the literature of poetry, Edward Hirsch’s sparkling new work is a compilation of forms, devices, groups, movements, isms, aesthetics, rhetorical terms, and folklore—a book that all readers, writers, teachers, and students of poetry will return to over and over. Hirsch has delved deeply into the poetic traditions of the world, returning with an inclusive, international compendium. Moving gracefully from the bards of ancient Greece to the revolutionaries of Latin America, from small formal elements to large mysteries, he provides thoughtful definitions for the most important poetic vocabulary, imbuing his work with a lifetime of scholarship and the warmth of a man devoted to his art. Knowing how a poem works is essential to unlocking its meaning. Hirsch’s entries will deepen readers’ relationships with their favorite poems and open greater levels of understanding in each new poem they encounter. Shot through with the enthusiasm, authority, and sheer delight that made How to Read a Poem so beloved, A Poet’s Glossary is a new classic.

Redefines the great canon of American poetry from its origins in the 17th century right up to the present.

Bringing together over 100 years of creative and vital American poetry in one volume, Anthology of Modern American Poetry includes over 750 poems by 161 American poets ranging from Walt Whitman to Sherman Alexie. It represents not only the traditionally familiar poetic works of the last hundred years but also includes numerous poems by women, minority, and progressive writers only rediscovered in the past two decades. It is also the first anthology to give full treatment to American long poems and poetic sequences.

Since Whitman and Dickinson, most of the major poetry in the United States has been written against the literary establishments and prevailing canons of taste, and often far from the cultural centers. This is the first anthology in many years to gather the work from this continuing tradition of innovators and outsiders, presenting poets and poems that are still excluded from the academic collections. Opening with the last poems of the Modernist masters Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and H.D., the book follows through four generations of writers who have been the primary figures of the new poetries and poetics since 1950. With a historical afterword, complete bibliographies, and generous selections from each of the thirty-five poets, this anthology is the only available introduction to the poets connected with such groups and movements as the Objectivists, the Beats, Black Mountain, the New York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, and ethnopoetics. American Poetry Since 1950 is a new map of the territory, an array of known and unknown contemporary classics. It is full of strange texts and startling procedures, histories and natural histories, high lyricism and extended meditations - extraordinary works that challenge our notions of what a poem ought to be.

“Conjunctions offers a showplace for some of the most exciting and demanding writers now at work.” —The Washington Post With work from the seventy-five poets who are the game-changing, bar-setting voices of our time first published in this volume, Conjunctions: 35, American Poetry is the definitive collection for the contemporary poetic landscape. Includes astonishing uncollected work from masters of the form, as well as breathtaking new ventures from risk takers such as Juliana Spahr and Kevin Young. Contributors include John Ashbery, Susan Wheeler, and James Tate.