The New American Poetry

Fifty Years Later

Edited by John R. Woznicki - Contributions by Carla Billitteri; Paul R. Cappucci; Terence Diggory; Seth J. Forrest; David Herd; Ben Hickman; Joshua S. Hoeynck; Megan Swihart Jewell; Burt Kimmelman; Peter Middleton; Joe Moffett and John R. Woznicki

The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later is a collection of critical essays on Donald Allen’s 1960 seminal anthology, The New American Poetry, an anthology that Marjorie Perloff once called “the fountainhead of radical American poetics.”

The New American Poetry is referred to in every literary history of post-World War II American poetry. Allen’s anthology has reached its fiftieth anniversary, providing a unique time for reflection and reevaluation of this preeminent collection.

As we know, Allen’s anthology was groundbreaking—it was the first to distribute widely the poetry and theoretical positions of poets such as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, and it was the first to categorize these poets by the schools (Black Mountain, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beats) by which they are known today. Over the course of fifty years, this categorization of poets into schools has become one of the major, if not only way, that The New American Poetry is remembered or valued; one certain goal of this volume, as one reviewer invites, is to “pry The New American Poetry out from the hoary platitudes that have encrusted it.”

To this point critics mostly have examined The New American Poetry as an anthology; former treatments of The New American Poetry look at it intently as a whole. Though the almost singularly-focused study of its construction and, less often, reception has lent a great deal of documented, highly visible and debated material in which to consider, we have been left with certain notions about its relevance that have become imbued ultimately in the collective critical consciousness of postmodernity.

This volume, however, goes beyond the analysis of construction and reception and achieves something distinctive, extendingthose former treatments by treading on the paths they create. This volume aims to discover another sense of “radical” that Perloff articulated—rather than a radical that departs markedly from the usual, we invite consideration of The New American Poetry that isradical in the sense of root, of harboring something fundamental, something inherent, as we uncover and trace further elements correlated with its widespread influence over the last fifty years.

University Press Copublishing Division / Lehigh University Press

Pages: 304 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61146-124-4 • Hardback • December 2013 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-1-61146-214-2 • Paperback • October 2015 • $62.99 • (£48.00)

978-1-61146-125-1 • eBook • December 2013 • $59.50 • (£46.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Criticism / Books & Reading, Literary Collections / Essays, Literary Criticism / American / General

The New American Poetry

Fifty Years Later

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Summary

The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later is a collection of critical essays on Donald Allen’s 1960 seminal anthology, The New American Poetry, an anthology that Marjorie Perloff once called “the fountainhead of radical American poetics.”

The New American Poetry is referred to in every literary history of post-World War II American poetry. Allen’s anthology has reached its fiftieth anniversary, providing a unique time for reflection and reevaluation of this preeminent collection.

As we know, Allen’s anthology was groundbreaking—it was the first to distribute widely the poetry and theoretical positions of poets such as Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, and it was the first to categorize these poets by the schools (Black Mountain, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beats) by which they are known today. Over the course of fifty years, this categorization of poets into schools has become one of the major, if not only way, that The New American Poetry is remembered or valued; one certain goal of this volume, as one reviewer invites, is to “pry The New American Poetry out from the hoary platitudes that have encrusted it.”

To this point critics mostly have examined The New American Poetry as an anthology; former treatments of The New American Poetry look at it intently as a whole. Though the almost singularly-focused study of its construction and, less often, reception has lent a great deal of documented, highly visible and debated material in which to consider, we have been left with certain notions about its relevance that have become imbued ultimately in the collective critical consciousness of postmodernity.

This volume, however, goes beyond the analysis of construction and reception and achieves something distinctive, extendingthose former treatments by treading on the paths they create. This volume aims to discover another sense of “radical” that Perloff articulated—rather than a radical that departs markedly from the usual, we invite consideration of The New American Poetry that isradical in the sense of root, of harboring something fundamental, something inherent, as we uncover and trace further elements correlated with its widespread influence over the last fifty years.

Details

University Press Copublishing Division / Lehigh University Press

Pages: 304 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼

978-1-61146-124-4 • Hardback • December 2013 • $128.00 • (£98.00)

978-1-61146-214-2 • Paperback • October 2015 • $62.99 • (£48.00)

978-1-61146-125-1 • eBook • December 2013 • $59.50 • (£46.00)

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Poetry, Literary Criticism / Books & Reading, Literary Collections / Essays, Literary Criticism / American / General

Author

John Woznicki is provost and assistant vice president of academic affairs at Union County College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………….
1. The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later
John R. Woznicki ………………………………………………………………..
1. “Trying to Build on Their Elders’ Work”: The Correspondence of Donald Allen and William Carlos Williams
Paul R. Cappucci……………………………………………………...………….
1. Without a Mammalia Maxima, Charles Olson and Robert Duncan Apprehend a Cosmological American Poetics
Joshua S. Hoeynck………………………………………...……………..............
1. Why The New American Poetry Stays News
Terrence Diggory……………………………………………………...................
1. “Big Kiss for Mother England”: The New American Poetry in Britain
Ben Hickman……………………………………...…………………...........….
1. The New American Poetry and the Development of the Long Poem
Joe Moffett……………………………………………………………………...
1. Becoming Articulate: Kathleen Fraser and The New American Poetry
Megan Swihart Jewell…………………………………...……………...............
1. “In the Dawn that is Nowhere”: The New American Poetry and the State of Exception”
David Herd………………………………………………………….…………..
1. Science and The New American Poetry
Peter Middleton……………………………………………………..…………..
1. Aurality and Literacy: The New American Poets and the Age of Technological Reproduction
Seth Forrest ………………………………………………………….....………
1. The New American Poetry’sObjectivist Legacy: Linguistic Skepticism, the Signifier, and Material Language
Burt Kimmelman..……………………………………………………..……….
1. Afterword
Carla Billitteri…………………………………………………...……..……….

Contributor Biographies…………..………………………………….…...........Index…………..……………………………..……………………….…...........

Reviews

Woznicki and his fellow contributors regard Donald Allen's The New American Poetry (1960) as a
'seminal anthology.' Featuring the work of 44 poets, Allen's compilation proclaimed itself the avant-garde alternative to New Poets of England and America, ed. by Donald Hall, Robert Pack, and Louis Simpson (1957), with its 'academic' verse. Championing poetry written in free verse and 'open' forms, Allen aligned poets in groups: Black Mountain College, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat Generation. Woznicki's volume reevaluates Allen's collection; explores its impact on later poets, styles, and schools; and in general celebrates its half-century existence. The volume illuminates the poetry and poetics of three prominent mid-century writers–Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. It persuasively identifies certain authors and developments influenced by the Allen collection: women poets such as Kathleen Fraser and Anne Waldman, the British avant-garde, the long poem as a genre, and Language poetry. Summing Up: Recommended.
— Choice Reviews

The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later, edited by John R. Woznicki, undertakes a much-needed reassessment of Allen’s anthology to offer new analyses of the weight of its cultural legacy.... The strength of this volume lies in its nuanced analyses of the New American Poets and their relations to poetic form, media, and the present state of the avant-garde itself.
— Journal of Modern Literature

Donald Allen’s anthology The New American Poetry: 1945-1960 marks a clear demarcation point in any historical discussion of American poetry, deserving mention in the same breath with, say, Allen Ginsberg’s ’55 'Howl' debut at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. . . .[I]t serves . . . as an extraordinary marker of its time, calling attention to a grouping of poets and poetics which otherwise subsisted beneath the radar of the vast majority of American literary culture. Its publication brought encouraging public acknowledgment of these poets from surprising quarters, such as Marianne Moore’s enthusing over Lew Welch’s poetry in her review of the book. . . .As poets, our experiences should of necessity be in a developing state of engagement. The New American Poetry: Fifty Years Later arrives at an opportune time to encourage ongoing reassessment of influences and responsibilities.
— Your Impossible Voice