1. Contemporary American poetry covers a wide range of styles and subjects, from formal verse to free verse and from personal expression to historical commentary. 2. Major poets like Robert Lowell, Louise Glück, and Mary Oliver explore themes of self, family, nature, and spirit through various poetic forms and techniques. 3. Emerging forms of poetry, like cyber-poetry, are experimenting with new digital platforms and multimedia elements to engage with global audiences in new ways.

1. CONTEMPORARY
AMERICAN
POETRY
British and American Literature
ESPE
Learning activity 2.3.

2. Introduction
In the half of the
20th century
Well-defended
positions
Formalism versus free
verse, academic
versus experimental.
Schools
contributions
Rich cornucopia with a genuinely
popular base
Free imagination, a pot on the boil,
a
dynamic work in progress.
American poetry
Begin with
copious
disclaimers
Expression and
exploration of
emotions
The most influential
poet was Robert
Lowell

3. THE POETRY OF SELF
Direct address or
monologue
It states a
condition of soul.
May find somewhat
romantic, expressive
poetry.
Both Ashbery
and Merwin are
precursors
Recent poets have
pushed more into a
phenomenological
Ann Lauterbach Lyn Hejinian Rae Armantrout
Extension
of the mind
Movement of
consciousness
Silences and
subtle

4. Jorie Graham (1950- )
Biography Works
_ Born in New York
_ Studied at the
Sorbonne in France, at
New York University
_ She has been a
professor at Harvard
University
_Cosmopolitan references
POEMS
The Dream of the
Unified Field: Selected
Poems
Disparate elements
in large-gestured free
association
Contributions
The mind is a
portal of
meaning and
distortion

5. THE POETRY OF VOICE
Is a poetry of various voices or fictive
selves
It takes subjects from myth and
popular
culture
Poets
Brigit Pegeen Kelly,
Alberto Rios, and the
Canadian poet
Margaret Atwood.
Louise Glück (1943- )
Born in New York
City
She studied with
poets Leonie
Adams and
Stanley Kunitz
Much of her
poetry deals with
tragic loss.
The House on
Marshland
(l975) and The
Triumph of
Achilles (1985)
Meadowl
ands
(1996)
Glück merges the self into the world through a fluid
imagery of water.

6. THE POETRY OF PLACE
Find deep inspiration in specific
landscapes
Is a generative force implicated in
the way its people, including the
poet, live and think.
Poets
Robert Hass’s lyrical
Mark Jarman’s
Southern California
Tess Gallagher’s
poems
Simon Ortiz’s and
Jimmy Santiago
Baca’s poems
Charles Wright (1935- )
Born in
Tennessee
His poetry offers
moments of
spiritual insight
rescued.
Country Music:
Selected Early
Poems (l982);
Chickamauga
(1995); and
Negative
Blue: Selected
Later Poems
(2000).
Works
“Chickamauga”
It is an elegiac lament and
the poet’s ars poetica.

7. THE POETRY OF FAMILY
It is located in a matrix of belonging to family,
community, and changing traditions.
Sharon Olds
(1942- )
Lucille Clifton
(1936- )
Shirley Geok-lin
Lim (1944- )
Expose
their own
unhealed
wounds,
resorting
to
the
confession
al mode
Eastern
poetic
forms
Contrasts
her difficult
family in
Malaysia
with her
new family
in California.
Li-Young Lee (1957- )
Born in Jakarta,
Indonesia
Works Poems
Lee lived
the life of
a refugee
Rose
(1986) and
The City in
Which I
Love You
(1990).
“Persimmons”
(1986), from his
book Rose,
evokes
his Asian
background
“Irises” (1986)

8. THE POETRY OF THE BEAUTIFUL
Find deep inspiration in specific
landscapes
It use imagery to explore new
subjects
and terrain.
Poets
Joy Harjo (1951- )
Sandra McPherson
(1943- )
Henri Cole (1965- )
Mark Doty (l953- )
Through images,
makes us feel a
kinship with
animals, strangers,
and the work of
artistic creation,
which for him
involves a way of
seeing.
Works
A Little
Rabbit
Dead in
the Grass
My Alexandria (l993),
Atlantis (l995), and his
vivid memoir Firebird
(1999). Still Life With
Oysters and Lemon
(2001) is a recent
collection.
It provokes a
philosophi al
meditation
Influenced by
Walt Whitman

9. THE POETRY OF SPIRIT
The deepest relationship is that
between the individual and a timeless
essence
Poets
Gary Snyder
Robert Bly
Coleman Barks
Arthur Sze (1950- )
Jane Hirshfield (l953- )
Her poetry
manifests
what she
calls the
“mind of
indirection”
Works
Nine Gates:
Entering the
Mind of
Poetry
(1997).
It draws on
a reverence
for nature
The Lives
of the
Heart
(1997)
It evokes a mule
without ever
mentioning
it

10. THE POETRY OF NATURE
Philip Freneau made a point of celebrating
flora and fauna native to the Americas
A.R. Ammons
James Welch and
Leslie Marmon
Silko
Pattiann Rogers
(1940- ) and
Maxine Kumin
(1925- )
Recent
progenitor
Never lost
a
reverence
for nature
Contemporary
poets.
Mary Oliver (1935- )
Born in Ohio
but has lived in
New England
Works
Oliver
finds
meaning
in
encounter
s with
nature
Oliver’s
poems find
ways to
celebrate
the simple
yet
transcenden
t fact of
being alive
American
Primitive
(1983), New and
Selected Poems
(l992), White Pine
(1994), Blue
Pastures (1995),
and the essays in
The Leaf and the
Cloud (2000)

11. THE POETRY OF WIT
It depends on the intersection of two or
more frames of reference and on acute
discrimination
Usually the language is colloquial so
that the fantastic situations have the
heft of reality.
Poets
Charles Simic
Mark Strand
Stephen Dobyns
Mark Halliday.
Billy Collins (1941- )
He uses everyday
language to record the
myriad details of everyday
life
Collins’s is a
domesticated form
of surrealism.
Poem.
Sailing Alone
Around the Room:
New and Selected
Poems (2001))
It gives some sense of
Collins’s fanciful flight and
gentle settling down

12. THE POETRY OF HISTORY
Poetry inspired by history is in
some ways the most difficult and
ambitious of all.
The faith of these poets is in
experience.
Poets
Michael S. Harper
Frank Bidart
Ed Hirsch
Gjertrud
Schnackenberg
Rita Dove
Robert Pinsky (1940- )
Poet laureate
from 1997 to
2000
His poems extend
into historical and
national
contexts.
Works
The Situation of Poetry (l976)
An Explanation of America
(l979)
History of My Heart (l984)
The Want Bone (l990)
The Figured Wheel (1996)

13. THE POETRY OF THE
WORLD
This poetry cuts through multiple perspectives,
questions the very notion of personal identity,
and understands suffering from an ethical
perspective.
Elizabeth Bishop
Yusef Komunyakaa
(1947- )
Born in
Louisiana
Works
He has
written
vivid poems
set in the war
“Camoufla
ging the
Chimera
The Jazz
Poetry
Anthology
(1991, 1996)
Blue Notes
(2000)
Neon
Vernacular
(1993)
The need for poetry to
afford a “series of
surprises.”

14. CYBER-POETRY
Is a new worldly
poetry
The book is
secondary to the
computer monitor
The advent of the
World Wide
CD-ROM poetry Technique (1993)
The Little
Magazine,
Cyberpoetry, Java
Poetry,
New River, Parallel
Catalyze
experimental
poetry in the
electronic age