American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language

by Claudia Rankine (Editor), Juliana Spahr (Editor)

Poetry in America is flourishing in this new millennium and asking serious questions of Is writing marked by gender and if so, how? What does it mean to be experimental? How can lyric forms be authentic? This volume builds on the energetic tensions inherent in these questions, focusing on ten major American women poets whose collective work shows an incredible range of poetic practice.
Each section of the book is devoted to a single poet and contains new poems; a brief "statement of poetics" by the poet herself in which she explores the forces -- personal, aesthetic, political -- informing her creative work; a critical essay on the poet's work; a biographical statement; and a bibliography listing works by and about the poet. Underscoring the dynamic give and take between poets and the culture at large, this anthology is indispensable for anyone interested in poetry, gender and the creative process.

Rae Armantrout, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Lucie Brock Broido, Jorie Graham, Barbara Guest, Lyn Hejinian, Brenda Hillman, Susan Howe, Ann Lauterbach, Harryette Mullen.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies, Feminism, Nonfiction

452 pages, Hardcover

First published July 28, 2002

About the author

Claudia Rankine is an American poet and playwright born in 1963 and raised in Kingston, Jamaica and New York City.

Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including "Citizen: An American Lyric" and "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely"; two plays including "The White Card," which premiered in February 2018 (ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theater) and will be published with Graywolf Press in 2019, and "Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue"; as well as numerous video collaborations. She is also the editor of several anthologies including "The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind." In 2016, she cofounded The Racial Imaginary Institute. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry and the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists and the National Endowment of the Arts. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
(source: Arizona State University)

Reviews

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The set-up of this book is particularly appealing: poetic statement, a chunk of poems, a scholarly essay (regarding the poet, but not by the poet). Like one of those food trays, with a space set out for each essential.

[Doralee Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just read Claudia Rankine, I wanted to read this book that she co-edited because I had hoped that it would give me an introduction to and a deeper appreciation of other poets who are breaking free so to speak of traditional structures and syntax in their work. I find that I relate to Mullen's work and Rankine's in particular because of the common ancestry we share. Their concerns are my concerns. However, it is more difficult for me to encounter other poets presented here. I do want to read more of Brenda Hillman because her work offers a bridge of sorts between the traditional and perhaps comfortable and the more innovative and challenging compositions that the so called L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E and new elliptical poets are writing. This is a good text because it offers poems, statements by the poets, and critical essays.

[Wendy Trevino · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why she's not mentioned in the goodreads description but Juliana Spahr is one of the editors of this anthology (the other being Rankine), and Spahr composed the Introduction.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I would really like the set-up of this book -- poems, poetic statement, and critical essay for each poet -- but in the end, I could have done without the essays, which on the whole were dry and contributed little to my appreciation of the work.

[clarissa cutrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some wonderful poets you find in other anthologies. Bought this when I was working for the Naropa Summer Writing Program, and it features many of the writers they often bring in.

[P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just read the poetry and some of the statements. I'm used to reading narrative poetry, so re-finding a way to read these poets was fun and refreshing.