Contemporary American Poetry

Rating:
Summary: An excellent sample of poets for novice readers
Review: I took a mandatory poetry-writing class in college and this was my textbook. Unfortunately, I learned I am no poet and am probably a very unsophisticated reader of poetry as well. But I have been trying to develop a taste for it, and this book has been invaluable.

This book is a 700+ anthology of 60 poets who have been influential since the end of World War II. Each author has a short bio that sums up the prevalent themes of his/her works. The book features several Pulitzer Prize winners, and showcases all of the prevalent styles and forms of modern poetry.

I recommend this book to anyone unfamiliar with the contemporary poetry scene (or to poetry in general). It has been an invaluable educational aid to me and has given me hours of relaxing reading.

Rating:
Summary: and yet another anthology
Review: On my ever growing shelf of poetry anthologies, I have added Poulins' Contemporary American Poetry. It is a fair selection of poems. Of course it is a matter of opinion as to who is missing and who should be in there (no Hecht or Thom Gunn, which is a big loss). There are excellent selections of poems for Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Bly, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Alan Dugan, Robert Hayden, Maxine Kumin, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and W.D Snodgrass. There are other excellent poets in here (such as Marilyn Nelson and Andrew Hudgins), but the selection of poems isn't the best work they have. For content you might want to look elsewhere, there are important poems and poets that are missing here.

What I do like about this anthology is the way it is put together. Before each poet's selection there is a full page picture of the poet--so you can see what they looked like. It's not important, but it is nice to see. And they bios at the end are great. They cover the poet's life and a little critical work about the poems themselves. The Notes on the Poets is what truly makes this anthology worthwhile.