The New American Poetry
Fifty Years Later
Contributions by Carla Billitteri, Paul R. Cappucci, Terence Diggory, Seth J. Forrest, David Herd, Ben Hickman, Joshua S. Hoeynck, Megan Swihart Jewell, Burt Kimmelman, Peter Middleton, Joe Moffett, John R. Woznicki Edited by John R. Woznicki
Not available to order
Publication date:
24 December 2013Length of book:
300 pagesPublisher
Lehigh University PressISBN-13: 9781611461251
The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later is a collection of critical essays on Donald Allen’s 1960 seminal anthology, The New American Poetry, an anthology that Marjorie Perloff once called “the fountainhead of radical American poetics.”
The New American Poetry is referred to in every literary history of post-World War II American poetry. Allen’s anthology has reached its fiftieth anniversary, providing a unique time for reflection and reevaluation of this preeminent collection.
As we know, Allen’s anthology was groundbreaking—it was the first to distribute widely the poetry and theoretical positions of poets such as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, and it was the first to categorize these poets by the schools (Black Mountain, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beats) by which they are known today. Over the course of fifty years, this categorization of poets into schools has become one of the major, if not only way, that The New American Poetry is remembered or valued; one certain goal of this volume, as one reviewer invites, is to “pry The New American Poetry out from the hoary platitudes that have encrusted it.”
To this point critics mostly have examined The New American Poetry as an anthology; former treatments of The New American Poetry look at it intently as a whole. Though the almost singularly-focused study of its construction and, less often, reception has lent a great deal of documented, highly visible and debated material in which to consider, we have been left with certain notions about its relevance that have become imbued ultimately in the collective critical consciousness of postmodernity.
This volume, however, goes beyond the analysis of construction and reception and achieves something distinctive, extending those former treatments by treading on the paths they create. This volume aims to discover another sense of “radical” that Perloff articulated—rather than a radical that departs markedly from the usual, we invite consideration of The New American Poetry that is radical in the sense of root, of harboring something fundamental, something inherent, as we uncover and trace further elements correlated with its widespread influence over the last fifty years.
The New American Poetry is referred to in every literary history of post-World War II American poetry. Allen’s anthology has reached its fiftieth anniversary, providing a unique time for reflection and reevaluation of this preeminent collection.
As we know, Allen’s anthology was groundbreaking—it was the first to distribute widely the poetry and theoretical positions of poets such as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, and it was the first to categorize these poets by the schools (Black Mountain, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beats) by which they are known today. Over the course of fifty years, this categorization of poets into schools has become one of the major, if not only way, that The New American Poetry is remembered or valued; one certain goal of this volume, as one reviewer invites, is to “pry The New American Poetry out from the hoary platitudes that have encrusted it.”
To this point critics mostly have examined The New American Poetry as an anthology; former treatments of The New American Poetry look at it intently as a whole. Though the almost singularly-focused study of its construction and, less often, reception has lent a great deal of documented, highly visible and debated material in which to consider, we have been left with certain notions about its relevance that have become imbued ultimately in the collective critical consciousness of postmodernity.
This volume, however, goes beyond the analysis of construction and reception and achieves something distinctive, extending those former treatments by treading on the paths they create. This volume aims to discover another sense of “radical” that Perloff articulated—rather than a radical that departs markedly from the usual, we invite consideration of The New American Poetry that is radical in the sense of root, of harboring something fundamental, something inherent, as we uncover and trace further elements correlated with its widespread influence over the last fifty years.
Donald Allen’s anthology The New American Poetry: 1945-1960 marks a clear demarcation point in any historical discussion of American poetry, deserving mention in the same breath with, say, Allen Ginsberg’s ’55 “Howl” debut at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. . . .[I]t serves . . . as an extraordinary marker of its time, calling attention to a grouping of poets and poetics which otherwise subsisted beneath the radar of the vast majority of American literary culture. Its publication brought encouraging public acknowledgment of these poets from surprising quarters, such as Marianne Moore’s enthusing over Lew Welch’s poetry in her review of the book. . . .As poets, our experiences should of necessity be in a developing state of engagement. The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later arrives at an opportune time to encourage ongoing reassessment of influences and responsibilities.