Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Space of Public Memory
- Chapter 2 Poetry and Propaganda
- Chapter 3 Depression-Era Poetics and the Politics of How to Read
- Chapter 4 The Politics and Poetics of Revolution
- Chapter 5 Wallace Stevens, Stanley Burnshaw, and the Defense of Poetry in an Age of Economic Determinism
- Chapter 6 The Line of Wit
- Chapter 7 US Poets on War and Peace
- Chapter 8 Institutions of American Poetry
- Chapter 9 African American Political Poetries
- Chapter 10 Our Terribly Excluded Blue
- Chapter 11 Poetry and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Chapter 12 “Oh Say Can You See”
- Chapter 13 The Political Resonances of Hip Hop and Spoken Word
- Chapter 14 Language as Politics in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century American Poetry
- Chapter 15 Renovating the Open Field
- Chapter 16 Transcultural Agency
- Chapter 17 Ecopoetry Now
- Chapter 18 The Politics and History of Digital Poetics
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
- References
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2023
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry and Politics since 1900
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Space of Public Memory
- Chapter 2 Poetry and Propaganda
- Chapter 3 Depression-Era Poetics and the Politics of How to Read
- Chapter 4 The Politics and Poetics of Revolution
- Chapter 5 Wallace Stevens, Stanley Burnshaw, and the Defense of Poetry in an Age of Economic Determinism
- Chapter 6 The Line of Wit
- Chapter 7 US Poets on War and Peace
- Chapter 8 Institutions of American Poetry
- Chapter 9 African American Political Poetries
- Chapter 10 Our Terribly Excluded Blue
- Chapter 11 Poetry and the Prison Industrial Complex
- Chapter 12 “Oh Say Can You See”
- Chapter 13 The Political Resonances of Hip Hop and Spoken Word
- Chapter 14 Language as Politics in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century American Poetry
- Chapter 15 Renovating the Open Field
- Chapter 16 Transcultural Agency
- Chapter 17 Ecopoetry Now
- Chapter 18 The Politics and History of Digital Poetics
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to …
- References
Summary
Noting the lack of poetry reviews in newspapers and the rise of the novel as the preeminent literary genre in the United States, Gioia, writing in The Atlantic, worries that an insulated subculture has taken custody of poetry: “Even if great poetry continues to be written, it has retreated from the center of literary life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, poetry has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.” Contra Gioia, the success of US poet laureate Robert Pinsky’s 1997 “Favorite Poem Project,” to which, as the project website reports, “18,000 Americans wrote in to share their favorite poems – Americans from ages 5 to 97, from every state, representing a range of occupations, kinds of education, and backgrounds” – suggests a strong undercurrent of enthusiastic poetry readers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Works Cited
“About the Favorite Poem Project.” Favorite Poem Project website, www.favoritepoem.org/about.html.Google Scholar
Alter, Alexandra. “Publishers and Writers Race to Depict the Outbreak.” New York Times, May 19, 2020, B6.Google Scholar
Däumer, Elisabeth. “On Rukeyser’s Enduring Importance.” Unpublished essay.Google Scholar
Gioia, Dana. “Can Poetry Matter?” The Atlantic Monthly, May 1991. https://danagioia.com/essays/american-poetry/can-poetry-matter/.Google Scholar
Kennedy-Epstein, Rowena. Unfinished Spirit: Muriel Rukeyser’s Twentieth Century. Cornell University Press, 2022.Google Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T. “The Violence of Public Art: ‘Do the Right Thing.’” Critical Inquiry, vol. 16, no. 4, summer 1990.Google Scholar
Nelson, Cary. Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry & Politics of Cultural Memory. University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Pressman, Jessica. Digital Modernism: Making It New in New Media. Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Quinn, Alice, ed. Together in a Sudden Strangeness: America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic. Knopf, 2020.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, Paula. “Between the Outhouse and the Garbage Dump: Locating Collapse in Depression Literature,” American Literary History, vol. 23, no. 1, spring 2011, pp. 32–55.Google Scholar
Rich, Adrienne. What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. W. W. Norton, 2003.Google Scholar
Smith, Tracy K. “Politics & Poetry.” New York Times. December 10, 2018, p. 1 of the Sunday Book Review, www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/books/review/political-poetry.htmlGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Neely. “Tracy K. Smith Bids Farewell as U.S. Poet Laureate.” April 19, 2019. Library of Congress website, https://medium.com/@librarycongress/tracy-k-smith-bids-farewell-as-u-s-poet-laureate-715861f2f1dd.Google Scholar
“U.S. Poet Laureate: Deepen Civic Engagement through Poetry.” October 30, 2017, www.georgetown.edu/news/u-s-poet-laureate-deepen-civic-engagement-through-poetry/.Google Scholar