The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

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If people aren't going to sign their names or bother to write grammatically, why respond to them? Or, more to the point, why publish their comments? I think we'd all be much better off if everyone had to sign their damn names. Screw Anonymous (whose lazy dismissal of Ginsberg & inability to write suggest a very young person who hasn't thought things through very carefully yet). I understand that those very close to the project feel they've done all they could -- and I appreciate your input, Fred and Fred. post-WWII USAPO have been able to have their endless egotistic verse published constantly over their lifetimes thanks to the economic wealth, the splendific superfluity of our society; poets in poorer countries will not have had the luxury of being so professionally prolific: they may have been forced to limit their output: to make each word count. Well, any number of people have committed suicide without being poets of “personal exposure”; and in the poets named by Dove the causes of suicide other than poetry-writing are numerous (childhood trauma, alcoholism, manic-depressive illness, marital breakdown). Dove’s brisk post hoc, propter hoc diagnosis of these heartbreaking events and their accompanying poems seems oddly imperceptive in a poet. My guess is that Penguin was not surprised. The publisher likely tapped Dove precisely because she represented the possibility of a different approach. Though condescending appraisals of Dove’s introduction (written “in a genre not her own”) suggest she was not sufficiently scholarly, it may be instead that she was just scholarly enough. The raft of new challenges confronting the publishing industry‘s profitability (indeed, sustainability) give houses like Penguin strong incentives to register and respond to changes in the book-buying market, where course adoptions are perhaps more important than ever. Penguin may have shrewdly identified the emergence of a nationwide demand for poetry anthologies designed with classrooms of budding creative writers (and non-English majors, broadly) in mind.

With this in mind, Dove’s vision for her anthology becomes more clearly legible and coherent. For one thing, the difference between the casual, inviting tone of her introduction and the crisp elegance of, say, her earlier analytical essays on Melvin Tolson and Derek Walcott can be understood as an astute awareness of audience. The imagined readership for the anthology is evidently not the community of scholars, but the classrooms of undergraduates who may well find the introduction’s welcome—and the immediacy and variety of the collected work—the crucial antidote to whatever factors have led too many of them to regard to poetry with fear and loathing. for "Eshleman" you could substitute almost any name from the Avantipoo list (spicer kelly howe et al) and the joke would still apply . . . Although I have tried to be objective, the contents are, of course, a reflection of my sensibilities; I leave it to the reader to detect those subconscious obsessions and quirks as well as the inevitable lacunae resulting from buried antipathies and inadvertent ignorance. In anticipation of the naysayers, all I can say in my defense is: I have tried my best. And sometimes one wonders whether Dove is being hasty. She speaks, for instance, of “the cacophony of urban life on Hart Crane’s bridge.” But the bridge in his “Proem” exhibits no noisy “cacophony”; its panorama is a silent one. The seagull flies over it; the madman noiselessly leaps from “the speechless caravan” into the water; its cables breathe the North Atlantic; the traffic lights condense eternity as they skim the bridge’s curve, which resembles a “sigh of stars”; the speaker watches in silence under the shadow of the pier; and the bridge vaults the sea. The automatic—and not apt—association of an urban scene with noise has generated Dove’s “cacophony.”

Poetry anthologies are, in general, the bêtes noires of the literary world. Feared and suffered by many, loved and appreciated by few. Oft criticized, rarely praised, they are the staple of survey literature courses, and the bane of students everywhere. Selecting poets and poems to represent a century of poetry, especially the riotous twentieth century in America, is a massive undertaking fraught with peril and complication. Poet Rita Dove—a Pulitzer Prize–winning former U.S. poet laureate, professor, and presidential scholar—embarked on what became a consuming four-year odyssey. She reports on obstacles and discoveries in an exacting and forthright introduction, featuring striking quotes, vivid profiles, and a panoramic view of the evolution of poetic visions and styles that helped bring about social as well as artistic change [...] Dove's incisive perception of the role of poetry in cultural and social awakenings infuses this zestful and rigorous gathering of poems both necessary and unexpected by 180 American poets. This landmark anthology will instantly enhance and invigorate every poetry shelf or section."

Under Dove’s hand, Penguin has given us a book that will not only speak to professors and students of poetry, but will likely have an even broader audience appeal, partly due to Dove’s notoriety, and partly due to the breadth and accessibility of her selection. Chronicling the poetry of the last century as well as she did, in such a handsome, solidly crafted book at the modest price of twenty-five dollars is practically a public service.With regard to things "beyond the editor's wishes": it is my belief that, when one allows oneself to be listed as the editor of a work, one accepts responsibility for the contents of that work. Good intentions, as we all know, pave the way to a very specific destination. And I hope you'd agree that we must judge the work we are given, not the work the author or editor wishes we were given. I question the reprint rights fees explanation, on the grounds that that hasn't stopped Penguin before. Unless of course HC is gouging at the moment. Having been in publishing a long time myself, I know that money can be an issue.