Anthologies
One of the special emphases of the Poetry Center collection is anthologies. There are 10 sections of anthologies, subdivided into geographic and cultural units. The largest section is that devoted to American poetry anthologies. Four new anthologies can serve as examples of what you might find in this section:
American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets is published by Oberlin College Press in 2006, and includes generous selections of the work of a "concentrated" number of poets than is usually the case with anthologies. The 25 poets might be best described as mainstream and include Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Norman Dubie, Carl Phillips. Mary Ruefle and Franz Wright. There are generous selections of work for each poet, generally 18-20 pages each.
The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by poet Sue Ellen Thompson, is another story altogether. This anthology, published in 2005, includes 94 poets with an average of four pages each. As it happens, there is only a small overlap with the Oberlin volume. Only Rita Dove, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Bob Hicox, Larry Levis, Thomas Lux and Mary Ruefle are in both volumes. The criteria for inclusion in the Autumn House volume seem a little random, and the mix of poets includes those published by Autumn House Press as well as habitues of the Bread Loaf Writers conference. The volume also includes a number of little known writers balancing out the big names that have 'sustained' the editor over the years (William Matthews, Sharon Olds, Phil Levine, Gerald Stern, Robert Hass, Stephen Dunn and Jane Kenyon).
A third new anthology is Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006), which includes 76 'younger' poets in early stages of their career. Only one poet of the 76 appears in the other two volumes mentioned above (Nick Flynn is also in The Autumn House anthology). The Sarabande volume seems to be well balanced aesthetically, but tending toward the risky and unique, including work by Dan Beachy-Quick, Sherwin Bitsui, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Timothy Donnelly, Arielle Greenburg, Christine Hume, Noelle Kocot, D. A. Powell, Richard Siken and G. C. Waldrep). This volume provides an excellent overview of the current poetry scene; it is both varied and representative.
The most interesting and important of the new anthologies is American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (Wesleyan, 2007) edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell. Although this anthology has only 13 poets each poet is treated more fully than in most anthologies. For each poet there is a generous selection of work along with a statement of poetics and a critical piece by another poet. This allows the reader to get a full picture of the poet under consideration. The poets chosen are all on the experimental end of the spectrum (Mark Levine, Karen Volkman, D. A. Powell, Peter Gizzi, Juliana Spahr, Joshua Clover, Kevin Young, Tracie Morris, Myung Mi Kim, Stacy Doris, Susan Wheeler, Mark Nowak, Kenneth Goldsmith). This is an important work and is highly recommended.
American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets is published by Oberlin College Press in 2006, and includes generous selections of the work of a "concentrated" number of poets than is usually the case with anthologies. The 25 poets might be best described as mainstream and include Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Norman Dubie, Carl Phillips. Mary Ruefle and Franz Wright. There are generous selections of work for each poet, generally 18-20 pages each.
The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by poet Sue Ellen Thompson, is another story altogether. This anthology, published in 2005, includes 94 poets with an average of four pages each. As it happens, there is only a small overlap with the Oberlin volume. Only Rita Dove, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Bob Hicox, Larry Levis, Thomas Lux and Mary Ruefle are in both volumes. The criteria for inclusion in the Autumn House volume seem a little random, and the mix of poets includes those published by Autumn House Press as well as habitues of the Bread Loaf Writers conference. The volume also includes a number of little known writers balancing out the big names that have 'sustained' the editor over the years (William Matthews, Sharon Olds, Phil Levine, Gerald Stern, Robert Hass, Stephen Dunn and Jane Kenyon).
A third new anthology is Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006), which includes 76 'younger' poets in early stages of their career. Only one poet of the 76 appears in the other two volumes mentioned above (Nick Flynn is also in The Autumn House anthology). The Sarabande volume seems to be well balanced aesthetically, but tending toward the risky and unique, including work by Dan Beachy-Quick, Sherwin Bitsui, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Timothy Donnelly, Arielle Greenburg, Christine Hume, Noelle Kocot, D. A. Powell, Richard Siken and G. C. Waldrep). This volume provides an excellent overview of the current poetry scene; it is both varied and representative.
The most interesting and important of the new anthologies is American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics (Wesleyan, 2007) edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell. Although this anthology has only 13 poets each poet is treated more fully than in most anthologies. For each poet there is a generous selection of work along with a statement of poetics and a critical piece by another poet. This allows the reader to get a full picture of the poet under consideration. The poets chosen are all on the experimental end of the spectrum (Mark Levine, Karen Volkman, D. A. Powell, Peter Gizzi, Juliana Spahr, Joshua Clover, Kevin Young, Tracie Morris, Myung Mi Kim, Stacy Doris, Susan Wheeler, Mark Nowak, Kenneth Goldsmith). This is an important work and is highly recommended.
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