Sunday, April 8, 2012

Two contemporary poetry anthologies

I thought I'd do a quick summary of 2 contemporary poetry anthologies that I like.  Sorry for the lack of world representation.

1.) The Swallow Anthology: New American Poets - 2009 by Ohio University Press (Edited by David Yezzi):  This anthology seems to pride and define itself in representing new voices that do not follow the extreme experimentalism of contemporary poetry (so sort of the opposite of American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics): "As David Yezzi notes in his astute introduction, these thirty-five poets seems simply to have ignored the ideological wars that had raged in the magazines for half a century.  He calls them 'unified sensibilities,' and that seems an apt term to describe a group of poets - I wouldn't say 'a poetry' because these are a set of very individual writers - who haven't been blinded by fealties or hardened against traditional ways"  (xx). Some poets worth noting in this collection: Geoffrey Brock, Bill Coyle, and John Foy.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Swallow-Anthology-American-Poets/dp/0804011214/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333928767&sr=1-1

2.) The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry - Second edition 2003 (Edited by J.D. McClatchy):  This collection "gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past fifty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations [...] this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings" (back cover). It is a pretty standard collection of the big names, including: Sharon Olds, W.S. Merwin, Robert Creeley, Frank Bidart, Ellen Bryant Voigt, etc.  This would be a good quick read for those who need a comps reading list refresher as well. And the cover is sweet.

http://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Book-Contemporary-American-Poetry/dp/1400030935

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