Product Description

The poetry in this collection demonstrates the full range and power of the contemporary American imagination. The verve, freedom and boldness of American English are combined with the harmonies of modern cadence. Here are distillations of 20th-century thought and reflections of changing social realities, scientific and psychoanalytical insights and the strong voices of feminism and black consciousness. Included are works by: Sylvia Plath; John Berryman; Amy Clampitt; Allen Ginsberg; Rita Dove; Robert Lowell; Wallace Stevens; John Ashbery; Adriennce Rich; Robert Hayden; Theodore Roethke; Langston Hughes; and Louise Gluck.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #421037 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review
The Observer, 10th July 2005. Hanif Kureishi: 'Sufficient reminder, if we need it, that the US isn't just Bush and Jerry Springer.' 'Ms. Vendler's ear is as imagined by Keats, "open like a greedy shark".' - Seamus Heaney, Observer 'Intensely illuminating and enjoyable.' - Marina Vaizey, Critics Forum

About the Author
Helen Vendler is poetry critic of The New Yorker, and the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard. Her books on poetry have won the James Russell Lowell Prize, the Exlicator Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.