Heartland: Poets of the Midwest

by Lucien Stryk (Editor)

Book by

Genres: Poetry

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Lucien Stryk was born in Poland in 1924, and moved to the United States in 1927.
He was a student of the Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Maryland, the Sorbonne, the University of London, and the University of Iowa.

Reviews

[Stephen Rynkiewicz]

This 1960s anthology includes Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Carroll and other urban voices, but mostly writing inspired by farms and small towns, scenery of dwindling interest to the current Iowa Workshop crop. Short bios reveal the prosaic jobs of the poetic R.R. Cuscaden (Paperboard Packaging magazine) and Geneva, Illinois neighbor Bruce Etter (Encyclopedia Britannica); documentarian and children's author Thomas McGrath "has the distinction of having made several of the better political blacklists." Memorable lines come from Bruce Cutler ("We'd rule with water if/ our souls knew the metabolism of rain"), Frederic Eckman ("She said: mix me a drink, philosopher"), John Knoepfle ("The radio/ dredges an old channel/ among obsolete songs") and James Wright ("He died in public. He claimed the secret right/ to be ashamed"). The rural vibe of this volume suggests the future direction of its editor: Recent obits for Lucien Stryk trace a long career writing and translating zen poetry.