The Penguin anthology of twentieth-century American poetry

Select an Action

Title:

The Penguin anthology of twentieth-century American poetry

ISBN:

9780143106432

Publication Information:

New York : Penguin Books, 2011.

Physical Description:

lii, 599 p. ; 25 cm.

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

The hill -- Fiddler Jones -- Petit, the poet / Miniver Cheevy -- Mr. Flood's party / The creation / The poet -- Life's tragedy / The death of the hired man -- Mending wall -- Birches -- Stopping by woods on a snowy evening -- Tree at my window -- Directive / Patters / Susie Asado -- From Tender buttons : A box ; A plate / I sit and sew / Grass -- Cahoots / Peter Quince at the Clavier -- Disillusionment of ten o'clock -- Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird -- Anecdote of the jar -- The emperor of ice-cream -- Of mere being / Fragment / Tract -- Danse Russe -- The red wheelbarrow -- The yachts -- From Asphodel, that greeny flower (book I, lines 1-92) / Moonlight -- There will come soft rains

The jewel stairs' grievance -- The river-merchants' wife: a letter -- In a station of the metro -- Hugh Selwyn Mauberley -- From Canto LXXXI (Libretto: "Yet / Ere the season died a-cold") / Sea rose -- Helen -- From The walls do not fall : 1 ("An incident here and there") -- From Hermetic definition: "Red rose and a beggar" : 1 ("Why did you come") ; 2 ("Take me anywhere") ; 5 ("Venice--Venus?") / Gale in April -- Shine, perishing republic -- Clouds at evening -- Credo / The fish -- Poetry -- Poetry / The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock -- Preludes -- The waste land / If we must die -- The Harlem dancer / Claude McKay -- Ars poetica / First fig -- Recuerdo / in Just- -- Buffalo Bill's -- the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls -- next to of course god america i -- somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond -- r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r / Reapers -- November cotton flower -- Portrait in Georgia / Medusa -- New moon / Dark symphony -- From Harlem gallery: Psi ("Black boy, / let me get up from the white man's table...") / From The bridge [excerpts] : Proem : To Brooklyn Bridge ; From II : Powhatan's daughter : The river / Silent poem

The Negro speaks of rivers -- I, too -- Dream boogie -- Harlem / Incident -- To John Keats, poet, at spring time -- Yet do I marvel -- From the dark tower / Father and son -- The portrait -- Touch me / Musée des Beaux Arts -- Epitaph on a tyrant / My papa's waltz -- The waking -- In a dark time / From The maximus poems : I, Maximus of Gloucester, to you -- The distances / The fish -- Sestina -- First death in Nova Scotia -- Visits to St. Elizabeths -- One art / Mourning poem for the queen of Sunday -- Those winter Sundays -- Frederick Douglass / Effort at speech between two people -- Then I saw what the calling was -- The poem as mask / The heavy bear who goes with me / From The dream songs : 4 ("Filling her compact & delicious body") ; 14 ("Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.") ; 29 ("There sat down, once") ; 149 ("This world is gradually becoming a place") -- Henry's understanding / 90 north -- The death of the ball turret gunner -- The woman at the Washington Zoo -- Next day / A different image / Traveling through the dark -- At the bomb testing site

Scars / For my people / The mother -- A song in the front yard -- The bean eaters -- The lovers of the poor -- We real cool -- The blackstone rangers / "To speak of woe that is in marriage" -- Skunk hour -- For the union dead / Often I am permitted to return to a meadow -- My mother would be a falconress / Robert Duncan -- Populist manifesto / Parents / Because you asked about the line between prose and poetry / The hyacinth garden in Brooklyn -- August 1945 / Love calls us to the things of this world -- Cottage Street, 1953 -- The winter / The sheep child / Love song: I and thou / "More light! more light!" / Degrees of gray in Philipsburg -- The freaks at Spurgin Road Field / The poem unwritten -- Caedmon -- Swan in falling snow / American poetry / A muse of water / Fresh air -- Permanently

Morning swim -- How it is / Behaving like a Jew -- The dancing -- Another insane devotion / The city limits -- Corsons Inlet / Snowfall in the afternoon -- Driving to town late to mail a letter -- Waking from sleep / The flower -- I know a man -- The language -- The rain -- Bresson's movies / The victor dog / Steps -- Poem ("Lana Turner has collapsed!") -- The day Lady died / Some trees -- Self-portrait in a convex mirror -- What is poetry / The bear -- After making love we hear footsteps -- Saint Francis and the sow / Air -- For the anniversary of my death -- Yesterday -- Chord / A blessing -- Autumn begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio -- Lying in a hammock at William Duffy's farm in Pine Island, Minnesota -- In response to a rumor that the oldest whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia has been condemned / My son my executioner -- Digging / Animals are passing from our lives -- They feed they lion -- You can have it -- The simple truth / Her kind -- The abortion -- Wanting to die -- In celebration of my uterus -- Rowing / Orion -- Planetarium -- A valediction forbidding mourning -- From Twenty-one love poems : XIII ("The rules break like a thermometer...")

Marriage / Hay for the horses -- Riprap -- Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout / A far cry from Africa -- Sea grapes -- From The schooner : Flight (part 11, After the storm : "There's a fresh light that follows...") -- The light of the world -- From Omeros, Book VII, LXIV, i ("I sang of quiet Achille, Afolabe's son...") / Let me tell you / The idea of ancestry / Preface to a twenty volume suicide note -- An agony. As now. -- SOS -- Black art / Wrong train -- A final sonnet / Power / poem at thirty / The prediction -- The night, the porch / A stone is nobody's / Singapore -- The summer day / Reunion -- Dead color -- California dreaming / homage to my hips -- [at last we killed the roaches] -- the death of fred clifton -- to my last period / Poem about my rights / 1968

From my window -- Blades / The mechanic / Dear John, Dear Coltraine -- Last affair : Bessie's blues song -- Grandfather -- Nightmare begins responsibility / Stone -- Fork -- Classic ballroom dances / Grandmother / Ellen West / Spring letter -- Two or three wishes / Allegory of the cave -- Tucson / History of my heart -- The questions -- Samurai song / Christmas comes to Moccasin Flat / Introduction to poetry -- The dead / Allen Ginsberg -- The Weakness / How to like it -- Lullaby / Song -- The pornographer -- The return of Robinson Jeffers / From My life : A name trimmed with colored ribbons / The machinist, teaching his daughter to play the piano / But he was cool or: he even stopped for green lights -- A poem to complement other poems / In memory of the Utah stars -- The accompanist

The language of the brag -- The lifting / Barbed wire / Black silk -- Under stars / I do not / The lost pilot / Elizabeth's war with the Christmas bear -- The funeral / August, Los Angeles, Lullaby / Turtle -- Bestiary / Childhood ideogram -- Winter stars / Looking for Judas / The people of the other village / The ballad of Aunt Geneva -- Star-fix / Albany / Cuba, 1962 -- The kid -- Finished / Thanks -- Tu Do Street -- Facing it -- Nude interrogation / Song of the Andoumboulou : 21 / Gathering the bones together -- Two lines from the Brothers Grimm -- Origin of the marble forest / Reaching Yellow River / Away

Language lesson -- What he thought / In cold storm light / Calypso / Latin & soul / Miami heart / Iris / Why Ralph refuses to dance -- Girl friend poem #3 -- Crescent / Taking off my clothes / San Sepolcro / What the living do / She had some horses -- My house is the red earth / The legend / Begotten -- We were simply talking / Imagining their own hymns -- Song / Meeting the British -- Errata -- The throwback / Quinceañera / Parsley -- Daystar -- After reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the third time before bed -- Claudette Colvin goes to work / Our calling / Thinking of Galileo -- Hatred

Unholy sonnet 13 / The traveling onion -- Arabic -- Wedding cake / Nani -- England finally, like my mother always said we would / Nocturne : Blue waves -- The unfinished / Field poem -- Oranges -- Black hair / Yellow stars and ice -- The forest / Brilliance -- Esta noche -- Bill's story / Black Nikes / Alcohol / To my brother -- "Love of my flesh, living death" / My wicked wicked ways -- Little clown, my heart / Jack Johnson does the eagle rock -- Crows in a strong wind -- I'm a fool to love you / Indian Boarding School : The runaways / Spooning / How I got that name -- Composed near the Bay Bridge -- The survivor / The youngest daughter / Another reluctance -- Insect / The gift -- Eating together

Our lady -- As from a quiver of arrows / Bag of mice -- Cartoon physics, part 1 / The Venus Hottentot -- Affirmative action blues Equinox / From White elephants : A million balconies ; Train windows / What the orphan inherits -- The powwow at the end of the world / How combs -- Amateur fighter -- Flounder / The tantrum / Spare / Postfeminism -- Your one good dress / Quivira city limits -- Everywhere is out of town -- Whatever you want / At Pegasus -- Lady sings the blues

Subject Term:

American poetry -- 20th century.

Added Author:

Dove, Rita.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	811.508 PEN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	811.508 PEN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury)	811.508 PEN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Stillwater Public Library	811.508 PEN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi)	811.508 PEN	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Penguin proudly presents an unparalleled survey of the best poems of the past century. Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U .S. Poet Laureate, introduces readers to the most significant and compelling poems of the past hundred years. Selecting from the canon of American poetry throughout the twentieth century, Dove has created an anthology that represents the full spectrum of aesthetic sensibilities-from styles and voices to themes and cultures-while balancing important poems with significant periods of each poet. Featuring poems both classic and contemporary, this collection reflects both a dynamic and cohesive portrait of modern American poetry and outlines its trajectory over the past century.

Author Notes

Rita Dove is an award-winning poet, former U .S. Poet Laureate, and Presidential Scholar. She has published numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, plays, and essays. She is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Dove takes a fresh look at the cannon of 20th-century American poetry in this hefty anthology. Dove by no means seeks to include an example of every kind of poem written during the century; rather, as she poetically says in her introduction, she picked "the poems I see emblazoned on pennants along the road we have just traversed." Later she writes, "This is the proper moment to look back-after the first decade of the twenty-first century has given us the illusion of distances, after we have reconciled ourselves to owning this scary new millennium...The past is never more truly the past than now." Of course readers will find classroom staples-Eliot's "Prufrock" and "The Waste Land"; Williams's "The Red Wheelbarrow"; Hughes's "The Negro Speaks of Rivers""-but also less of some poets (James Dickey gets only one poem, for instance) and longer poems (by poets such as John Ashbery and Frank Bidart) than one might expect in such a book. Dove shifts the emphasis slightly, suggesting, perhaps, that a highly esoteric poet like Nathaniel Mackey is as worthy of our attention as, say Carolyn Forche. This book is sure to become an important resource for those interested in poetry, and especially students, for decades to come. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Selecting poets and poems to represent a century of poetry, especially the riotous twentieth century in America, is a massive undertaking fraught with peril and complication. Poet Rita Dove a Pulitzer Prize-winning former U.S. poet laureate, professor, and presidential scholar embarked on what became a consuming four-year odyssey. She reports on obstacles and discoveries in an exacting and forthright introduction, featuring striking quotes, vivid profiles, and a panoramic view of the evolution of poetic visions and styles that helped bring about social as well as artistic change. Dove credits Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Ezra Pound with building the framework for modern poetry in the U.S., then applauds the first women poets who breached the ramparts of male power Amy Lowell, H. D., and Gertrude Stein. Dove writes incisively about African American poets and other poets of color and has included poems by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sherman Alexie, Sandra Cisneros, Kevin Young, and Elizabeth Alexander. Dove's incisive perception of the role of poetry in cultural and social awakenings infuses this zestful and rigorous gathering of poems both necessary and unexpected by 180 American poets. This landmark anthology will instantly enhance and invigorate every poetry shelf or section.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Choice Review

In her introduction Dove asks the reader to "cut [her] some slack" for omitting certain major poems and even major poets--e.g., Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath--poets whom she herself considers important enough to warrant mention as signal figures in the 20th century's chief poetic shifts in orientation. Dove ascribes the omissions to the outrageous cost of copyright payments for these particular works and figures. But there are questionable restrictions in this volume's coverage that rest solely in Dove's editorial judgment. Investing the calendar boundaries of the century with an inordinate critical significance, she excludes anything published before 1900 or later than 2000, thus excluding major poems by poets otherwise included in the volume. She ascribes a particular weight to the turn of the millennium with the suspect critical reasoning that "it's a unique marker" and that "humans assign significance to grand finales." Also suspect is her gloss, in the introduction, of the century's poetic trends. She confuses modernism's infatuation with aesthetic power, for instance, with postmodernism's absorption in epistemological entropy. In addition, she applies an anachronistic conception to the dramatic monologues of the early 20th century by referring to them as poetry of "witness." Nonetheless, the selections are reasonably representative. Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Large collections. R. J. Cirasa Kean University

Library Journal Review

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Dove presents a hefty anthology of important poems written by American poets of the last century. To well-known poems by Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, and others, Dove has added lesser-known poems by African American and women poets. Melvin B. Tolson's evocative meditation on racial inequality, "Dark Symphony," is here, as is "The Idea of Ancestry," a moving poem, also with racial themes, by Etheridge Knight. VERDICT Overall, Dove's introduction is informative and insightful, offering an engaging discussion of trends in modern American poetry. However, as former U.S. poet laureate and former consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress, Dove knows her subject, which makes it all the more egregious that she has excluded works by some major American 20th-century poets. Among the excluded poets are Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and the perhaps lesser-known Pulitzer Prize winner Karl Shapiro, also a U.S. poet laureate. Dove suggests some of the gaps occurred because the publishers' fees were beyond her budget, but that's a pity, because these are serious omissions.-Diane Scharper, Towson Univ., MD (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Booklist Review

Choice Review

Library Journal Review

Helpful Links

Research Links

Contact

Events and Rooms

Follow Us

Today's Hours