The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry

by Helen Vendler (Editor)

Join Professor Helen Vendler in her course lecture on the Yeats poem "Among School Children". View her insightful and passionate analysis along with a condensed reading and student comments on the course. The poetry collected in this volume reveals the range and power of the contemporary American imagination. The verve, freedom, and boldness of American English are combined with the new harmonies of modern cadence. Here are distillations of twentieth-century perception, feeling, and thought, and reflections of changing social realities, scientific and psychoanalytic insights, and the strong voices of feminism and black consciousness. This is a book for those who value fresh and original poetry and for readers worldwide who are curious about contemporary American experience. Helen Vendler relies on her own taste and judgment in singling out excellent poems, beginning with the late modernist flowering of Wallace Stevens and continuing to the present. Her wide-ranging Introduction places recent American poetry in its aesthetic and social contexts. The anthology provides an extensive offering of the work of major poets and introduces many writers who are only now beginning to make their reputation. Thirty-five poets are included, with a representative selection from the earlier to later work of each and a significant number of long poems. Brief biographies of the poets are appended.

Genres: Poetry

452 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1985

About the author

Helen Vendler is the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard University, where she received her PhD in English and American Literature in 1960. Before joining the Harvard faculty, Vendler taught at Cornell, Swarthmore, Haverford, Smith, and Boston University.



Vendler has written books on Yeats, Herbert, Keats, Stevens, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Heaney, and, most recently, Our Secret Discipline: Yeats and Lyric Form (2007), Last Looks, Last Books: Stevens, Plath, Lowell, Bishop, Merrill (2010); Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries’ (2010); and The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: Essays on Poets and Poetry (2015). She also reviews contemporary poetry for the New Republic, London Review of Books, and other journals. She has held fellowships from, among others, the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Center, and National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a member of the American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Swedish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Modern Language Association, of which she was president in 1980.

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of many contemporary artist's works. The poems vary in quality, length, and style, though all tend to be fairly good, at least of the ones that I actually focused on. The poems give quite a range of content and are mostly appropriate, though there are some that had questionable themes. The collection of Langston Hughes works gave more perspective than I encountered in school, and a more complete view into his perspective. It was interesting and well written. I do not think poetry should be read in this style though, as reading every poem at once without really having time to think through them defeats part of the purpose of poetry of this level. I gave it 4 stars because I might want to come back and finish it when I have time.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was curious to know why this book got such low reviews on this site. If other reviews are any indication, the problem may be that some people feel the book left out too many important poets, and was too narrow in scope. Imagine a book that would encapsulate the breadth of American contemporary life, social movements, etc. You'd need two people to lift it.

So, I don't think that's necessarily a flaw against the book. Even the critics online left important names out in their responses.

It's not a bad collection otherwise; a great place for beginners to start out, especially with the help of the commentary (not bad or great either.)

I liked it well enough, but I probably would've been better off borrowing the individual writers' works instead.

[Aine MacAodha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book and the diverse writers in the book, how thy write etc. Its one I Dip into often

[Gary Mcgreal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The top 35 living American poets circa 1996. Well selected.