The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

I'm no expert on poetry, but it's highly readable and covers a great breadth of poets. The biographical paragraphs on each poets, which often list the poets' notable work are a nice touch and a great resource for digging deeper

this anthology is ver-well edited by Rita Dove a well-known american poet. Her introduction is the key to fullest enjoyment of the book's contents. IT is a very useful reference work for anyone who is interested in having readily to hand such a comprehensive volume of US poets and their works, both well-known and the true gems which may be unfamiliar to many readers. I can imagine this book will be of much use in secondary schools as a working English text. Further the physical quality of the book is remarkable for such a modest price, the binding, the fancy endpaper and the ribbon bookmark is something we rarely see in new hardcover editions. I'm glad I made this purchase it is great value for such a modest price. I commend it to all who have an interest however one's depth of delight in the American poetry.

I ordered this book after seeing Rita Dove interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS in which the poet read selections from the collection including "Touch Me" by Stanley Kunitz. This is a compilation which validates the reader's experience in the twentieth century , revisiting poems we have grown up loving and also surprising us with pearls and golden ingots and smooth river stones we missed along the way. It is our record of the poetic journey of the past century. It is also the book that should be in the home where children are growing for its pure poetry and vivid insight into the human experience. I have only just begun to explore; It is a book to visit daily. The selections are arranged chronologically by the poets's birth years. A thoughtful gift.

Rita Dove has taken a broad approach to this anthology, published in 2011. Although she doesn't shy away from including multiple poems per poet or even including some long poems, her goal was clearly to make sure there was representation from the beginning of the century to the end and across the varied tapestry of the American cultural landscape. At the end of her 52pg introduction, she talks frankly about the financial challenges of putting the anthology together and how those challenges resulted in some key people (she names Plath and Ginsberg) being left out. However, she also included many poets that often get short shrift when it comes to these sorts of anthologies, such as Muriel Rukeyser and Russell Edson. The anthology starts with people who wrote into the 20th Century but were born in the latter half of the 19th, so the span across 570 pages stretches from Edgar Lee Masters to Terrance Hayes. The introductions to the poets are spare, providing birthplaces, colleges attended and taught at, a list of books, book prizes and other hallmarks of importance, and then where the poet lives or died (and the cause of death in many cases). This anthology strikes me as a good first volume for someone who was only exposed to earlier poetry in high school and is wondering what happened during the 20th Century. It's surprising how many people aren't aware of all of the poetry published in the US over that 100 year stretch. It really deserves two full volumes to cover it. Considering the impossible task Rita Dove was asked to finesse, she did an excellent job of providing us with a worthwhile, inclusive anthology of 20th Century poetry.

How wonderful to read an anthology that represents a cross-section of voices reflecting the emotional and cultural experiences of the time. I especially liked the fact that the century began with white male writers and ended with selections that also included women and men of every possible minority group expressing many points of view. How refreshing! Fortunately, our libraries and book shelves house the collected works of most of the well-established poets . Now, Ms. Dove pays homage to them as well as introduces us to new poets to explore. It is an engrossing anthology: fun, thought-provoking, and beautiful! Rita Dove is to be commended in full measure!

This collection of 20th Century poets gives a good taste of the progress of poetry since 1900. It is a fresh and interesting look at the great poets and how they approached the art of poetry to come up with each specific style and voice. It is quite helpful for students and aspiring poets, but also for the sheer pleasure of reading the work of such wonderful poets. A good textbook, as well as a good read.

You need not be deep into poetry to enjoy this book. I got it from my library and marked the pages of poems I liked best. Finally, after many renewals at library, I bought it. It is worth having, and relaxes the mind.

This is a poetry anthology born in fire, a fire lit by a sharply critical review by the poetry critic Helen Vendler in The New York Review of Books and by a vituperative response in that same journal by the anthology's editor, poet Rita Dove. At issue are two things: Dove's 24 page Introduction to the volume and her criteria for which twentieth century American poets to include in the anthology. I read the Introduction with care. Was it as poorly written as Vendler said it was? Alas, the answer is yes. At the outset, Dove declares her intention to present the poets in chronological order as opposed to, say, alphabetical order. Because of this choice, she feels impelled to offer background material; she is reluctant to let a poem stand alone, without our knowing "the conditions that spawned and nurtured it." At the same time, she freely acknowledges the difficulty of writing literary history, "for there are so many exceptions to whatever grid one tries to superimpose on living, breathing material." Dove should have heeded that inner warning, for the grid she does impose---"trends---patterns in a tapestry whose many colorful threads exult in running riot" is superficial and clichéd. Decades get their own little tags: "start[ing] afresh" (the early century); "the party before the knock on the door" (the 20's); "the self-satisfied fifties;" and so on. The "melting pot" gets several mentions. Poets stride onto the poetic stage (Wallace Stevens), woo "an entire generation" (Ezra Pound), "plunge headlong in the Long Poem" (H.D., William Carlos Williams, Melvin B. Tolson). The effect is like one of those illustrated Time Marches On timelines in a student's textbook. Believe me, you can skip the opening here; it offers little by way of insight. If you're interested in a particular poet, Wikipedia is probably more efficient. The pleasures of this anthology are, of course, in the poems. Each poet gets a brief biography and list of published works. It goes almost without saying that no anthology is going to make everyone completely happy. Here, Dove dedicates herself to what she calls "the panorama of twentieth-century American poetry," which signals that she will offer a little bit by many poets (176 in all) rather than a more in-depth look at fewer. Thus more than one-third of her poets, including many born in the 1940's and later, are granted only one poem. Accomplished living poets like Carl Phillips, Sherman Alexie, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Alberto Rios, Marilyn Nelson, and Joy Harjo, to name a few, are limited to two each. An anthology offers readers a chance to fall in love with poets they've never read, but it's awfully hard to do so on the basis of just one poem. As for the great poets of the first part of the century, you may find yourself looking in vain for old favorites, since Dove uses selection criteria that are often hard to figure out. You'll find "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" but not "After Apple Picking, "The Emperor of Ice Cream but not "Sunday Morning," "The Red Wheelbarrow" but not "To Elsie," "Harlem" but not "Theme for English B." In order to fit all of those 176 poets in, Dove had to put even the great ones on starvation diets of five or six pages. And because of problems with permissions (as Dove explains), there is no Ginsburg or Plath. Are there pleasures to be had in this anthology, with its imperfect introduction and "panorama" approach? Well, of course. There is wonderful poetry here, including four by Dove herself. This book will do---until somebody writes a better one. M. Feldman

I had seen this volume at the library and knew it was special, and well crafted as a clothbound hardcover. The editor compiled a rich range of poets and poems that feels historical and current to its time.

おそらくこれ以降、包括的な現代アメリカ詩のアンソロジーは出版されていない。その意味で貴重。 （これは中古品で、やや汚れていたので本としてややマイナスなので星4つ。）

Wonderful introduction and stunning poetry with a wide range across the century.

Enjoyed some poems but some a bit off the wall.