Twentieth-Century American Poetry - Softcover

Gioia, Dana; Mason, David; Schoerke, Meg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0072400196 ISBN 13: 9780072400199

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2004

Synopsis

20th Century American Poetry is a comprehensive and chronological anthology of 59 essays on poetry by 54 poets. Starting with James Weldon Johnson and Robert Frost, the book collects diverse and often conflicting accounts of the nature and function of poetry. The collection includes rarely anthologized essays by Jack Spicer, Rhona Espaillat, Anne Stevenson, and Ron Silliman, and also work by some of the finest younger critics in America, including William Logan, Alice Fulton, and Christian Wiman.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

A Great Experiment 100 Years of Crafting the American Tradition in Poetry
Diversity and inventiveness have always been defining traits of America, and over the past 100 years they have blossomed in the nation's poetry. By the beginning of the twentieth century, American poets had brought new and experimental voices to our literature. Twentieth-Century American Poetry culls the most inspiring and influential works of American poetry that, together, capture the spirit and sensibility of the nation.
The poems in this volume have been selected by a distinguished editorial team of scholar-poets: Dana Gioia, David Mason, and Meg Schoerke. Offering clear explanations of artistic movements and events of the twentieth century, the editors explore how the poetry affected and was affected by -the times in which it was written. The commentary will offer fresh insights to those well versed in poetry and provide a foundation of knowledge for newcomers to the genre.
These pages contain works from such well-known poets as Stephen Crane, Robert Lowell, and Gwendolyn Brooks and bring to the forefront poets like Amy Lowell and Sterling A. Brown, who were influential in their own day but are often neglected in anthologies. The future of American verse such young poets as Larissa Szporluk, Christian Wiman, and Kevin Young are also included here.
Twentieth-Century American Poetry carries readers across the bountiful, colorful, and sometimes stormy landscape of America. The editors describe American poetry as "traditional, ancient, strange, with never before heard music." Here the lyrical and the experimental, the dark and the comical, the formal and the free-wheeling are brought together in a celebration of American verse that will bring readers to the frontiers of one of literature's richest periods.
Dana Gioia (Washington, DC, and Northern California), noted poet and critic, won the prestigious American Book Award in 2003. He was selected in 2003 to direct the National Endowment for the Arts.
David Mason (Colorado Springs) is an award-winning poet and critic who has been a Fulbright Fellow to Greece. He teaches at Colorado College.
Meg Schoerke (San Francisco), whose collection of poems Anatomical Venus is forthcoming, teaches English at San Francisco State University.

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[Headline]
Celebrate the Visions and Voices of American Poetry
[Text]
The past century was host to unprecedented innovation in American poetry. Experimenting with language and form, poets rewrote all the rules established by their European forebears, developing a style and voice uniquely American.
With a distinguished editorial team including Dana Gioia (noted poet and critic), David Mason (professor, Colorado College), and Meg Schoerke (professor, San Francisco State University), Twentieth-Century American Poetry draws together the best poets of the past 100 years. From the well-established to the previously obscure, each poet featured here contributes his or her share to the vitality of our nation's poetry. The country's youngest poets those writers exploring poetry's newest frontiers speak here, too. As rich and diverse as America itself, this collection of poems is sure to offer both well-versed readers and newcomers to poetry fresh insight into the American experience.
Included are works by over 150 noteworthy poets including:
-Robert Frost
-Gertrude Stein
-Carl Sandburg
-Wallace Stevens
-Marianne Moore
-Langston Hughes
-Theodore Roethke
-Elizabeth Bishop
-Robert Lowell
-Gwendolyn Brooks
-Denise Levertov
-Adrienne Rich
-Billy Collins
-Louise Glück
-Yusef Komunyakaa
-Rita Dove
-Kim Addonizio
-Sherman Alexie
-Christian Wiman

About the Author:

David Mason grew up in Bellingham, Washington and has lived in Colorado, Alaska, New York, Pennsylvania and Greece. From 1989 to 1998, he taught at Moorhead State University, and he has since joined the faculty of his alma mater, The Colorado College. He received his doctorate from The University of Rochester. His two prize-winning collections of poems are The Buried Houses and The Country I Remember, both from Story Line Press. Chapbooks include Small Elegies and Land Without Grief. With Mark Jarman, he is co-editor of Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism. He has also published a book of essays, The Poetry of Life, and serves as an Advisory Editor for The Hudson Review. In 1997, he was a Fulbright Fellow to Greece. He is married to Anne Lennox, a photographer, and has a stepdaughter, Darcy.

About this edition

• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Higher Education
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0072400196
• ISBN 13: 9780072400199
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 1192