American poetry in the contemporary era has moved away from traditional constraints like rhyme and meter and embraced free verse. This has led to a diverse, decentralized field with many disparate influences and impulses. The document then profiles different types of contemporary American poetry, focusing on major authors in each category: poetry of self, voice, beauty, spirit, place, nature, wit, history, world, and cyber poetry. It explores the characteristics and themes of each type.

1. CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN POETRY
formalism versus free verse, academic versus
experimental
American poetry broke free from constraints
such as rhyme
meter and flung itself heart-first into new dimensions alongside the
abstract expressionists in American painting

2. Recall the era’s
blindness to issues of
race and gender
Writing programs
flourish at all levels
Their contributions
present a rich
cornucopia with a
genuinely popular
base
Brisk poetic
exchanges zip over
the internet, and
universities
magazines, web
sites
Provide support
and critiques, and
reading clubs
proliferate
Generate
camaraderie among
beginning writers,
informal writing
groups
Look forward to
freedoms

3. Present is a vast territory of free imagination, a
pot on the boil, a dynamic work in progress.
Makes the field decentralized and
hard to define
Begin with copious disclaimers and dwell on its disparate
impulses: postmodernism, the expansion of the canon,
ethnicities, immigration

4. The influence of
specific teachers or
writing programs or
regional impulses
The role of the poet
as the lone
individual voice
Raised against the
din of
commercialism and
conformity
Poets themselves
struggle to make
sense of the flood of
poetry
Poetry of the speaking self
tends to focus on vivid
expression and exploration of
deep

5. Detail
Context
It sets careful
scenes
Tends to build
up meaning
from
narrative
drive

6. Contemporary
American Poets
Charles Bukowski,
Gary Soto
Donal Hall, Arthur Sze

7. Alice Walker,
Jean Valentine
John Williams,
Richard Wilbur
Emanuel Xavier,
Cecilia Woloch

8. POETRY OF SELF
Tends toward
direct adress or
monologue
It is
Psychological r
spiritual
Undercut spiritual
certainty by
referring all
meaning back to
language
Main Author:
Jorie Graham
POETRY OF VOICE
Break the monolithic
idea of self into
fragments and
characters
Takes subjects from
myth and popular
culture
Typically seeing modern
relationships as
redefinitions or versions
of older patterns.
Usually is written in the
first person.
Main Author: Louise
Gluck

9. POETRY OF THE
BEAUTIFUL
Celebrates beauty
despite mordern life
in all its suffering and
confusion
Use imagery not as
decoration,
but to expllore new
subjects and terrain
Poems shows
mediations on art
and relationships.
Main Author: Mark
Doty
POETRY OF SPIRIT
Focus on the
deepest
relationship
between
The individual and
a timeless essence
beyond.
Related with the
human sensibility
Shows the mind of
indirection
Main Author: Jane
Hirshfield

10. POETRY OF place
They are nationwide
tendencies
It finds deep inspiration
in specific landscapes
Is not based on
landscape description,
rether, the land, and its
history
It is a generative force
implicated in the way its
people, including the
poet, live and think.
Main Author: Charles
Wright
POETRY OF
NATURE
Focus on the
flora and fauna
Shows
envioronmental
concerns
inform a
powerful strain
of ecologically
Rooted in a
natural vision.
Main Author:
Mary Oliver

11. POETRY OF WIT
On the spectrum
from poetry of self to
poetry of the world
Including humor, a
sense of the
incongrous
Includes flights of
fancy, lies to close
world
Depends on the
inresection of frames
of reference and on
acute discrimination.
Main Author: Billy
Collins
THE POETRY OF
HISTORY
Inspirated by
history
Shows the most
difficult and
ambitious side of
the world
The faith of these
poets is experience
Related with
politics, economics,
social conflicts,etc
Main Author:
Robert Pinsky

12. POETRY OF WORLD
Presided over by
the spirit of
Elizabeth Bishop
Is downbeat,
outcast
At first reading
seems anti-poetical
Understands
suffering from
ethical perspective.
Main Author: Yusef
Komunyakaa
CYBER POETRY
Computer-based
literature took place
with the advent od
the World Wide Web
Include self-reflexive
critiques of
technologically
driven work.
Proliferate in multiple
directions
Sometimes created
by multiplle and
unknown authors