Synopses & Reviews
Here is the eagerly awaited new edition of
The Oxford Book of American Poetry brought completely up to date and dramatically expanded by poet David Lehman. It is a rich, capacious volume, featuring the work of more than 200 poets-almost three times as many as the 1976 edition. With a succinct and often witty head note introducing each author, it is certain to become the definitive anthology of American poetry for our time.
Lehman has gathered together all the works one would expect to find in a landmark collection of American poetry, from Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry to Stevens's The Idea of Order at Key West, and from Eliot's The Waste Land to Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. But equally important, the editor has significantly expanded the range of the anthology. The book includes not only writers born since the previous edition, but also many fine poets overlooked in earlier editions or little known in the past but highly deserving of attention. The anthology confers legitimacy on the Objectivist poets; the so-called Proletariat poets of the 1930s; famous poets who fell into neglect or were the victims of critical backlash (Edna St. Vincent Millay); poets whose true worth has only become clear with the passing of time (Weldon Kees). Among poets missing from Richard Ellmann's 1976 volume but published here are W. H. Auden, Charles Bukowski, Donald Justice, Carolyn Kizer, Kenneth Koch, Stanley Kunitz, Emma Lazarus, Mina Loy, Howard Moss, Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, James Schuyler, Elinor Wylie, and Louis Zukosky. Many more women are represented: outstanding poets such as Josephine Jacobsen, Josephine Miles, May Swenson. Numerous African-American poets receive their due, and unexpected figures such as the musicians Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Robert Johnson have a place in this important work.
This stunning collection redefines the great canon of American poetry from its origins in the 17th century right up to the present. It is a must-have anthology for anyone interested in American literature and a book that is sure to be consulted, debated, and treasured for years to come.
Web Site
A companion web site is now available at (http://www.oxfordpoetry.com)www.oxfordpoetry.com
Review
"There is no one more qualified to undertake such a project...a brilliant updating of the previous edition." James Tate, a member of the Academy of American Arts and Letters and winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in poetry
Review
"It can't get much better than this." Rochelle Moore, Associated Content
Review
"The book is not only a sound historical survey, but also gives the reader a powerful taste of poetry's impact upon the wider world." The Economist
Review
"Indeed, for the reader otherwise disinclined to pick up a volume of poetry, you may also find yourself enjoying the selections in this collection. It will be a purchase that will stay with you far longer than any meal at a fancy restaurant upon which you might spend the money. And it will be better for you as well." The Washington Times
Synopsis
This stunning collection redefines the great canon of American poetry from its origins in the 17th century to the present. The Oxford Book of American Poetry is a must-have anthology for anyone interested in American literature and a book that is sure to be consulted, debated, and treasured for years to come.
Synopsis
Here is the eagerly awaited new edition of
The Oxford Book of American Poetry brought completely up to date and dramatically expanded by poet David Lehman. It is a rich, capacious volume, featuring the work of more than 200 poets-almost three times as many as the 1976 edition. With a succinct and often witty head note introducing each author, it is certain to become the definitive anthology of American poetry for our time.
Lehman has gathered together all the works one would expect to find in a landmark collection of American poetry, from Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" to Stevens's "The Idea of Order at Key West," and from Eliot's "The Waste Land" to Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror." But equally important, the editor has significantly expanded the range of the anthology. The book includes not only writers born since the previous edition, but also many fine poets overlooked in earlier editions or little known in the past but highly deserving of attention. The anthology confers legitimacy on the Objectivist poets; the so-called Proletariat poets of the 1930s; famous poets who fell into neglect or were the victims of critical backlash (Edna St. Vincent Millay); poets whose true worth has only become clear with the passing of time (Weldon Kees).
Among poets missing from Richard Ellmann's 1976 volume but published here are W. H. Auden, Charles Bukowski, Donald Justice, Carolyn Kizer, Kenneth Koch, Stanley Kunitz, Emma Lazarus, Mina Loy, Howard Moss, Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, James Schuyler, Elinor Wylie, and Louis Zukosky. Many more women are represented: outstanding poets such as Josephine Jacobsen, Josephine Miles, May Swenson. Numerous African-American poets receive their due, and unexpected figures such as the musicians Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Robert Johnson have a place in this important work.
This stunning collection redefines the great canon of American poetry from its origins in the 17th century right up to the present. It is a must-have anthology for anyone interested in American literature and a book that is sure to be consulted, debated, and treasured for years to come.
Synopsis
When Harriet Monroe founded
Poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912, she began with an image: the Open Door. “May the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius!” For a century, the most important and enduring poets have walked through that door—William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens in its first years, Rae Armantrout and Kay Ryan in 2011. And at the same time,
Poetry continues to discover the new voices who will be read a century from now.
Poetry’s archives are incomparable, and to celebrate the magazine’s centennial, editors Don Share and Christian Wiman combed them to create a new kind of anthology, energized by the self-imposed limitation to one hundred poems. Rather than attempting to be exhaustive or definitive—or even to offer the most familiar works—they have assembled a collection of poems that, in their juxtaposition, echo across a century of poetry. Adrienne Rich appears alongside Charles Bukowski; poems by Isaac Rosenberg and Randall Jarrell on the two world wars flank a devastating Vietnam War poem by the lesser-known George Starbuck; August Kleinzahler’s “The Hereafter” precedes “Prufrock,” casting Eliot’s masterpiece in a new light. Short extracts from Poetry’s letters and criticism punctuate the verse selections, hinting at themes and threads and serving as guides, interlocutors, or dissenting voices.
The resulting volume is an anthology like no other, a celebration of idiosyncrasy and invention, a vital monument to an institution that refuses to be static, and, most of all, a book that lovers of poetry will devour, debate, and keep close at hand.
About the Author
David Lehman is Poetry Coordinator of the New School Writing Program in New York City. His most recent books of poetry are
The Evening Sun and When a Woman Loves a Man and he has written five books of critical prose, including
The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets and
The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection. He founded
The Best American Poetry series in 1988 and continues to serve as general editor of this prestigious anthology. He also edited
Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present and co-edited
The KGB Bar Book of Poems, based on the reading series he directed with Star Black in New York's East Village.
John Brehm (Associate Editor) is a poet and free-lance writer. His works include The Way Water Moves and Sea of Faith, which won a Brittingham Prize for Poetry. He lives in New York City.
Table of Contents
Mastery and Mystery: Twenty-One Ways to Read a Century
Editors Note
Ezra Pound In a Station of the MetroKay Ryan Sharks TeethMarie Ponsot Anti-Romantic Roddy Lumsden The YoungLeRoi Jones Valéry as DictatorEdwin Arlington Robinson Eros TurannosAnge Mlinko It Was a Bichon Frisés Life . . .Muriel Rukeyser SongAugust Kleinzahler The HereafterT. S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockLaura Kasischke LookWeldon Kees From “Eight Variations”Robert Creeley For LoveMary Karr DisgracelandLucille Clifton sorrowsA. E. Stallings On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in ArcadiaCharles Wright Bedtime StoryDelmore Schwartz In the Naked Bed, In Platos CaveWilliam Matthews Mingus at the ShowplaceDonald Justice Men at FortyRuth Stone ForecastCraig Arnold Meditation on a GrapefruitJosephine Miles The Hampton Institute AlbumP. K. Page My Chosen LandscapeTheodore Roethke Florists Root CellarWallace Stevens Tea at the Palaz of HoonBasil Bunting From BriggflattsLouise Bogan NightRodney Jack After the DiagnosisMargaret Atwood Pig SongMichael S. Harper Blues AlabamaIsaac Rosenberg Break of Day in the TrenchesGeorge Starbuck Of LateRandall Jarrell ProtocolsTom Disch The Prisoners of WarSeamus Heaney A Dog Was Crying To-Night in Wicklow AlsoHart Crane At Melvilles TombRobert Hayden O Daedalus, Fly Away HomeCharles Bukowski A Not So Good Night in the San Pedro of the WorldAdrienne Rich Final NotationsW. H. Auden The Shield of AchillesAlbert Goldbarth He HasAlice Fulton What I LikeEdna St. Vincent Millay RendezvousSylvia Plath Fever 103Lisel Mueller In the Thriving SeasonEleanor Wilner MagnificatAtsuro Riley HutchThomas Sayers Ellis Or,Marianne Moore No Swan So FineJohn Berryman The TravelerAverill Curdy Sparrow Trapped in the AirportH. D. His PresenceRae Armantrout TransactionsGwendolyn Brooks The Children of the PoorE. E. Cummings What If a Much of a Which of a WindFrederick Seidel Mu‘allaqaGeoffrey Hill The Peacock of AldertonMay Swenson Green Red Brown and WhiteAnne Stevenson Inheriting My Grandmothers NightmareJeanne Murray Walker Little Blessing for My FloaterBrooklyn Copeland Prayers EndJack Spicer “Any fool can get into an ocean . . . ”Alan Dugan Fabrication of AncestorsEdward Dorn Dark CeilingW. S. Merwin Search PartyLorine Niedecker Three PoemsDenise Levertov Our BodiesJames Wright The BlessingRobinson Jeffers Grass on the CliffW. S. Di Piero Big City SpeechCid Corman From “Cahoots”Richard Wilbur Hamlen BrookRita Dove Old Folks Home, JerusalemDon Paterson The LieMaxine Kumin NurtureWilliam Carlos Williams Paterson, Book V: The River of HeavenTed Hughes HeatwaveFrank OHara Chez JaneReginald Dwayne Betts “For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers”Rachel Wetzsteon On Leaving the Bachelorette BrunchAdrian Blevins How to Cook a WolfA. R. Ammons Gravelly RunSamuel Menashe HereRobert Duncan Returning to Roots of First FeelingLangston Hughes Blues in StereoJames Schuyler Korean MumsJacob Saenz Sweeping the StatesGeorge Oppen Birthplace: New RochelleGary Snyder Song of the TangleBelle Randall A Childs Garden of GodsIsabella Gardner The Widows YardThom Gunn Lines for a BookFrank Bidart From “The Third Hour of the Night”William Meredith The IlliterateRhina P. Espaillat ChangelingMaria Hummel StationJames Merrill The Mad SceneW. S. Graham The Beast in the SpaceWilliam Butler Yeats The Fisherman
Acknowledgments
Contributors