Table of Contents

Topical Table of Contents:
Preface:
Acknowledgements:
MARY CORNELIA HARTSHORNE (born c. 1910-)



CHARLES HENRI FORD (1910-2002)
---Plaint
---Flag of Ecstasy
---Pastoral for Pavlik
CHARLES OLSON (1910-1970)
---Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele
---Maximus, to himself
---Cole's Island
ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911-1979)
---The Fish
---The Man-Moth
---At the Fishhouses
---Filling Station
---Questions of Travel
---The Armadillo
---In the Waiting Room
---Pink Dog
---Crusoe in England
---One Art
WILLIAM EVERSON (1912-1994)
---The Making of the Cross
---A Canticle to the Waterbirds
TILLIE LERNER OLSEN (1912-2007)
---I Want You Women Up North To Know
ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980)
---Middle Passage
---Runagate Runagate
---A Letter from Phillis Wheatley
---Those Winter Sundays
---Night, Death, Mississippi
---Aunt Jemima of the Ocean Waves
------ from Elegies for Paradise Valley
----------No. 1
---The Dogwood Trees
---O Daedalus, Fly Away Home
WELDON KEES (1914-1955)
---June 1940
---Travels in North America
RANDALL JARRELL (1914-1965)
---The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
---A Front
---Losses
---Second Air Force
---Protocols
JAPANESE AMERICAN CONCENTRATION CAMP HAIKU (1942-1944)
---Shiho Okamoto (Being arrested--)
---Sadayo Taniguchi (Hand-cuffed and taken away)
---Kyotaro Komuro (Lingering summer heat--)
---Taro Katay, (Shouldering)
---Komuro (Passed guard tower)
---Okamoto (In the shade of summer sun)
---Shonan Suzuki (Withered grass on ground)
---Hakuro Wada (Young grass red and shriveled)
---Hyakuissei Okamoto (Dandelion has bloomed)
---Shizuku Uyemaruko (On certain days)
---Wada (Released seagull)
---Ryokuin Matsui (Sprinkling water outside)
---Komuro (Want to be with children)
---Wada (Even the croaking of frogs)
---Hangetsu Tsunekawa (Sentry at main gate)
---Shokoshi Saga (Thin shadow of tule reed)
---Tokuji Hirai (Looking at summer moon)
---Suzuki (Moon shadows on internment camp)
---Hirai (Early moon has set)
---Suiko Matsushita (Rain shower from mountain)
---Kyokusui (Thorns of the iron fence)
---Neiji Ozawa (Desert rain falling)
---Senbinshi Takaoka (Frosty morning)
---Oshio (Stepping through snow)
---Jyosha Yamada (Black clouds instantly shroud)
---Takaoka (Winter wind)
---Hekisamei Matsuda (Doll without a head)
---Sei Sagara (Suddenly awakened)
---Hyakuissei Okamoto (Jeep patrolling slowly)
---Shizuku Uyemaruko (Grieving within)
---Okamoto (In the sage brush)
---Matsushita (Oh shells--)
JOHN BERRYMAN (1914-1972)
---from The Dream Songs
------1 Huffy Henry
------4 Filling her compact & delicious body
------5 Henry sats
------14 Life, friends
------22 Of 1826
------29 There sat down, once
------40 I'm scared a lonely
------45 He stared at ruin
------46 I am, outside
------55 Peter's not friendly
------76 Henry's Confession
------382 At Henry's bier
------384 The marker slants
WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914-1993)
---Traveling Through the Dark
---At the Bomb Testing Site
---At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
---The Indian Cave Jerry Ramsey Found
DUDLEY RANDALL (1914-2000)
---Ballad of Birmingham
---A Different Image
JOY DAVIDMAN (1915-1960)
---This Woman
---For The Nazis
MARGARET WALKER (1915-1998)
---For My People
RUTH STONE (1915-2011)
---In an Iridescent Time
---I Have Three Daughters
---Pokeberries
---American Milk
---From the Arboretum
---Drought in the Lower Fields
---Some Things You'll Need to Know/ Before You Join the Union
THOMAS McGRATH (1916-1990)
---Deep South
---Crash Report
---First Book of Genesis According to the Diplomats
---Ars Poetica: Or: Who Lives in the Ivory Tower?
---A Little Song About Charity
---Against the False Magicians
---After the Beat Generation
---Ode for the American Dead in Asia
---Poem at the Winter Solstice
ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977)
---Inauguration Day: January 1953
---A Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich
---Commander Lowell
---"To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage"
---Man and Wife
---Memories of West Street and Lepke
---Skunk Hour
---For the Union Dead
---The Mouth of the Hudson
---July in Washington
---The March I
---The March II
---Central Park
---Epilogue
GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917-2000)
---A song in the front yard
---Of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery
---Gay Chaps at the Bar
---We Real Cool
---The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
---The Blackstone Rangers
---Malcolm X
---Young Afrikans
---The Boy Died in My Alley
---To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals
---To the Diaspora
WILLIAM BRONK (1918-1999)
---At Tikal
---The Mayan Glyphs Unread
---I Thought It Was Harry
---Where It Ends
---Left Alone
ROBERT DUNCAN (1919-1988)
---Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
---My Mother Would Be a Falconress
---The Torso (Passages 18)
---Up Rising (Passages 25)
BARBARA GUEST (1920-2006)
---from Quilts
------ "Couch of Space"
---Words
---Twilight Polka Dots
AARON KRAMER (1921-1997)
---Denmark Vesey
RICHARD WILBUR (b. 1921)
---The Pardon
---A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra
---Beasts
---Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
---Advice to a Prophet
---Children of Darkness
MONA VAN DUYN (1921-2004)
---Toward a Definition of Marriage
JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969)
---The Perfect Love of Mind Essence
--- Haiku
JAMES DICKEY (1923-1997)
---The Sheep Child
---Falling
DENISE LEVERTOV (1923-1997)
---The Ache of Marriage
---Olga Poems
---What Were They Like?
---Life at War
ANTHONY HECHT (1923-2004)
---A Hill
---"More Light! More Light!"
---The Book of Yolek
BOB KAUFMAN (1925-1986)
---The Biggest Fisherman
---Crootey Songo
---No More Jazz at Alcatraz
---from Jail Poems, Nos. 1-3
MAXINE KUMIN (b. 1925-2014)
---Voices from Kansas
---Saga
---Oblivion
---Pantoum, With Swan
---With William Meredith in Bulgaria
DONALD JUSTICE (1925-2004)
---An Old Fashioned Devil
---The Wall
---Early Poems
---Presences
---Absences
PAUL BLACKBURN (1926-1971)
---At the Crossroad
---At the Well
FRANK O'HARA (1926-1966)
---from Alma
---Poem (The eager note on my door)
---A Step Away From Them
---The Day Lady Died
---Why I Am Not a Painter
---A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island
---On Seeing Larry Rivers' Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Museum of Modern Art
---Thinking of James Dean
JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995)
---An Urban Convalescence
---The Broken Home
---Willowware Cup
---Lost in Translation
ALLEN GINSBERG (1926-1997)
---Love Poem on Theme By Whitman
---Howl
---A Supermarket in California
---Who to Be Kind To
---Rain-wet asphalt heat, garbage curbed cans overflowing
---Father Death Blues
---Sphincter
ROBERT CREELEY (1926-2005)
---After Lorca
---I Know a Man
---The Flower
---For Love
---America
---Age
ROBERT BLY (b. 1926)
---Counting Small-Boned Bodies
---Hearing Gary Snyder Read
A. R. AMMONS (1926-2001)
---Corsons Inlet
---Gravelly Run
---Coon Song
JAMES WRIGHT (1927-1980)
---Saint Judas
---Beginning
---Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio
---Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
---A Blessing
---A Centenary Ode: Inscribed to Little Crow, Leader of the Sioux Rebellion in Minnesota, 1862
JOHN ASHBERY (b. 1927)
---"They Dream Only of America"
---Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
---Mixed Feelings
---Street Musicians
---Syringa
---Daffy Duck in Hollywood
---Paradoxes and Oxymorons
---The Problem of Anxiety
---Dull Mauve
---A Kind of Chill
---Spooks Run Wild
---Marine Shadow
---Words to That Effect
GALWAY KINNELL (b. 1927)
---The Porcupine
---The Bear
---The Vow
W. S. MERWIN (b. 1927)
---The Drunk in the Furnace
---It Is March
---Caesar
---The Room
---December Among the Vanished
---For the Anniversary of My Death
---When The War Is Over
---The Asians Dying
---For a Coming Extinction
---Looking For Mushrooms at Sunrise
---The Gardens of Zuni
---Beginning
---The Horse
---Sun and Rain
---Berryman
---Daylight
---The Name of the Air
---Far Along in the Story
---Worn Words
ANNE SEXTON (1928-1974)
---Her Kind
---The Truth the Dead Know
---And One for My Dame
---Jesus Asleep
---Jesus Raises up the Harlot
---The Room of My Life
PHILIP LEVINE (b. 1928)
---For Fran
---The Horse
---Animals Are Passing From Our Lives
---Belle Isle, 1949
---They Feed They Lion
---Francisco, I'll Bring You Red Carnations
---Fear and Fame
---On the Meeting of García Lorca and Hart Crane
ADRIENNE RICH (1929-2012)
---Aunt Jennifer's Tigers
---From Shooting Script
---Trying to Talk With a Man
---Diving into the Wreck
---Twenty-One Love Poems
---Power
---from An Atlas of the Difficult World
---
---Behind the Motel
---Hotel
DEREK WALCOTT (b. 1930)
---A Far Cry from Africa
---Laventille
---The Fortunate Traveller
---from Omeros
---
GARY SYNDER (b. 1930)
---Riprap
---Beneath My Hand and Eye the Distant Hills. Your Body
---I Went Into the Maverick Bar
---Straight-Creek--Great Burn
---Axe Handles
GREGORY CORSO (1930-2001)
---Marriage
---Bomb
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT (1931-1991)
---Haiku 1, 4, 9
---Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane
---The Idea of Ancestry
---A Poem for Myself
---For Malcolm, a Year After
---Television Speaks
---For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide
SYLVIA PLATH (1932-1963)
---The Colossus
---The Bee Meeting
---The Arrival of the Bee Box
---Stings
---The Swarm
---Wintering
---Daddy
---Ariel
---Lady Lazarus
HENRY DUMAS (1934-1968)
---Son of Msippi
---Kef 24
---Kef 16
---Fish
---Knees of a Natural Man
---Low Down Dog Blues
---Black Star Line
---Peas
---Yams
AMIRI BARAKA (Leroi Jones) (b. 1934-2014)
---SOS
---Black Art
---When We'll Worship Jesus
N. SCOTT MOMADAY (b. 1934)
---Plainview: 3
---Buteo Regalis
---Crows in a Winter Composition
---Carriers of the Dream Wheel
---Rings of Bone
---The Stalker
--- from The Colors of Night
---
---The Burning
---December 29, 1890
---The Shield That Came Back
---The Snow Mare
---To an Aged Bear
---A Benign Self-Portrait
MARK STRAND (b. 1934)
---The Prediction
---Where Are the Waters of Childhood?
AUDRE LORDE (1934-1992)
---From Coal
---Sisters in Arms
---Outlines
---Call
KATHLEEN FRASER (b. 1935)
---In Commemoration of the Visit of Foreign Commercial Representatives to Japan, 1947
CHARLES WRIGHT (b. 1935)
---Spider Crystal Ascension
---Clear Night
---Homage to Paul Cézanne
MARY OLIVER (b. 1935)
---Morning Walk
---At Great Pond
---Black Snake This Time
JAYNE CORTEZ (1936-2012)
---I Am New York City
---Do You Think
LUCILLE CLIFTON (1936-2010)
---I Am Accused of Tending To the Past
---At the cemetery, Walnut grove plantation, South Carolina, 1989
---Reply
---The Message of Crazy Horse
---Poem to My Uterus
---To My Last Period
---Brothers
SUSAN HOWE (b. 1937)
---From Articulation of Sound Forms in Time:
------The Falls Fight
------Hope Atherton's Wanderings
MICHAEL S. HARPER (b. 1938)
---Song: I Want a Witness
---Blue Ruth: America
---Brother John
---American History
---We Assume: On the Death of Our Son, Reuben Masai Harper
---Reuben, Reuben
---Deathwatch
---Dear John, Dear Coltrane
ISHMAEL REED (b. 1938)
---I am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra
---Oakland Blues
LAWSON FUSAO INADA (b. 1938)
--- Listening Images
ROBERT PINSKY (b. 1940)
---Dying
---The Unseen
---Shirt
---Veni, Creator Spiritus
WELTON SMITH (1940-2006)
---Malcolm
WILLIAM HEYEN (b. 1940)
---Riddle
---from Crazy Horse in Stillness:
------Forces
------White & Gold
------One World
------Bone & Velvet
------Mother
------The Count
------Surveyors
------Rot
------V
------Resolve, 1876
------Treaty
------Snowbirds
------The Slowing
------The Paper It's Written On
------The Tooth
------Wakan Tanka
------Disequilibrium
------Eclipse
JUDY GRAHN (b. 1940)
---I Have Come to Claim Marilyn Monroe's Body
---Vietnamese Woman Speaking to an American Soldier
---Carol
---Plainsong
---The Woman Whose Head is On Fire
CAROLYN M. RODGERS (1941-2010)
---How I Got Ovah
---And When the Revolution Came
---Mama's God
ROBERT HASS (b. 1941)
---Rusia En 1931
---A Story About the Body
---Forty Something
---Sonnet
LYN HEJINIAN (b. 1941)
---from My Life
------A pause, a rose, Something on paper
---from The Distance
------Nos. III, XIX, XXIV, XXX, XXXII, XXXVII
SHARON OLDS (b. 1942)
---The Pope's Penis
---Ideographs
---Photograph of the Girl
---Things That Are Worse Than Death
---The Waiting
---His Father's Cadaver
---Known to Be Left
---Left-Wife Goose
LOUISE GLÜCK (b. 1943)
---The Drowned Children
---Vespers (You thought we didn't know)
---Vespers (More than you love me, very possibly)
---The Wild Iris
---from Meadowlands:
------Penelope's Song
------Quiet Evening
------Parable of the King
------Parable of the Hostages
------Circe's Power
------Circe's Grief
------Reunion
------Telemachus' Burden
---Before the Storm
---A Village Life
MICHAEL PALMER (b. 1943)
---Song of the Round Man
---All those words
---I Have Answers to All of Your Questions
---Fifth Prose
---Autobiography
PAUL VIOLI (1944-2011)
---Index
---Tanka
---A Moveable Snack
THOMAS JAMES (1946-1974)
---Mummy of a Lady Named Jemutesonekh XXI Dynasty
---Dissecting a Pig
RON SILLIMAN (b. 1946)
---from Ketjak
---from Sunset Debris
---The Chinese Notebook
---from Toner
ADRIAN C. LOUIS (b. 1946)
---Dust World
---Wakinyan
---Without Words
---Coyote Night
---How Verdell and Dr. Zhivago Disassembled the Soviet Union
---Wanbli Gleska Win
---Looking for Judas
---A Colossal American Copulation
---Petroglyphs of Serena
---Jesus Finds His Ghost Shirt
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA (b. 1947)
---Tu Do Street
---Prisoners
---Communiqué
---The Dog Act
---The Nazi Doll
---Fog Galleon
---Work
Ai (1947-2010)
---The Root Eater
---Twenty-Year Marriage
---The German Army, Russia, 1943
---The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer
WENDY ROSE (b. 1948)
---Truganinny
TIMOTHY STEELE (b. 1948)
---Daybreak, Benedict Canyon
---April 27, 1937
ALBERT GOLDBARTH (b. 1948)
---Swan
---Coinages: A Fairy Tale
---1400
C. D. WRIGHT (b. 1949)
---Obedience of the Corpse
---from Just Whistle:
------THE BODY, ALIVE, NOT DEAD BUT DORMANT
------BECAUSE CONDITIONS ARE IDEAL FOR CROWING
------AND NOTHING
------THE CORPSE WAS IN THE BED
------ON THE MORN OF
------A PARTITION SEPARATES IT FROM OTHER BODIES
------OVER EVERYTHING
---Song of the Gourd
----From Cooling Time:
------Only the crossing counts
------Until words turn to moss
------What Would Oppen Say,
----DEAR DYING TOWN
JESSICA HAGEDORN (b. 1949)
---Ming the Merciless
CHARLES BERNSTEIN (b. 1950)
---You
---from Foreign Body Sensation
---The Kiwi Bird in the Kiwi Tree
---Riddle of the Fat Faced Man
---The Boy Soprano
JORIE GRAHAM (b. 1950)
---History
---From the New World
RAY A. YOUNG BEAR (b. 1950)
---In Viewpoint: Poem for 14 Catfish and The Town of Tama, Iowa
---It is the Fish-faced Boy Who Struggles
CAROLYN FORCHÉ (b. 1950)
---The Colonel
---The Museum of Stones
---The Lightkeeper
---Morning on the Island
ANDREW HUDGINS (b. 1951)
---At Chancellorsville: The Battle of the Wilderness
---The Summer of the Drought
---He Imagines His Wife Dead
GARRETT KAORU HONGO (b. 1951)
---Ancestral Graves, Kahuku
---Kubota to Miguel Hernandez in Heaven, Leupp, Arizona, 1942
RITA DOVE (b. 1952)
---Parsley
---Receiving the Stigmata
JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA (b. 1952)
---Mi Tío Baca El Poeta De Socorro
---The Painters
ALBERTO RÍOS (b. 1952)
---Madre Sofía
---What Happened to Me
ANITA ENDREZZE (b. 1952)
---Return of the Wolves
---Birdwatching at Fan Lake
---La Morena and Her Beehive Hairdo
ANA CASTILLO (b. 1953)
---Seduced by Natassja Kinski
---Hummingbird Heart
MARK DOTY (b. 1953)
---Homo Will Not Inherit
---The Embrace
HARRYETTE MULLEN (b. 1953)
---from Trimmings
---from S*PeRM**K*T
LOUISE ERDRICH (b. 1954)
---Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
---Dear John Wayne
---The Fence
LORNA DEE CERVANTES (b. 1954)
---Refugee Ship
---Poema para los Californios Muertos
---Starfish
SANDRA CISNEROS (b. 1954)
---Little Clown, My Heart
THYLIAS MOSS (b. 1954)
---Fullness
---There Will Be Animals
---The Lynching
---Interpretation of a Poem by Frost
---Ambition
---Crystals
PATRICIA SMITH (b. 1955)
---Blond White Women
---Skinhead
---From Blood Dazzler:
------from Tankas
---------(Never has there been)
---------(Go, they said. Go. Go.)
------Man on the TV Say
------Company's Coming
------Voodoo II: Money
------Voodoo V: Enemy Be Gone
------from What to Tweak
---------(Stifle the Stinking, shut down the cameras)
------Back Home
---Motown Crown
MARILYN CHIN (b. 1955)
---How I Got That Name
---Altar
JANICE N. HARRINGTON (b. 1956)
---Falling
---If She Had Lived
SESSHU FOSTER (b. 1957)
---We're caffeinated by rain inside concrete underpasses
---You'll be fucked up
---Look and look again, will he glance up all of a sudden
---I'm always grateful no one hears this terrible racket
---The Japanese man would not appear riding a horse
---Life Magazine, December, 1941
---I try to pee, but I can't
---Game 83
LI-YOUNG LEE (b. 1957)
---Persimmons
---Little Father
MARTíN ESPADA (b. 1957)
---Bully
---Revolutionary Spanish Lesson
---Niggerlips
---The New Bathroom Policy at English High School
---Fidel in Ohio
---Federico's Ghost
---The Saint Vincent de Paul Food Pantry Stomp
---Imagine the Angels Of Bread
---Blues for the Soldiers Who Told You
---The Trouble Ball
---Hard-Handed Men of Athens
---The Right Foot of Juan de Onate
ATSURO RILEY (b. 1960)
---From Romey's Order
------Picture
------Skillet
------Bell
------Roses
CLAUDIA RANKINE (b. 1963)
---from Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
------pp. 7, 23, 47-48, 71, 82-83, 113
D. A. POWELL (b. 1963)
---[the cocktail hour finally arrives: whether ending a day at the office]
---[dogs and boys can treat you like trash. And dogs do love trash]
---[came a voice in my gullet: rise up and feast. thunderous]
HEID E. ERDRICH (b. 1963)
---True Myth
---The Theft Outright
---Some Elsie
NATASHA TRETHEWAY (b. 1966)
---Native Ground
---Providence
---Believer
---Liturgy
SHERMAN ALEXIE (b. 1966)
---Indian Boy Love Song (#2)
--- from The Native American Broadcasting System: Evolution
---Scalp Dance by Spokane Indians
---How to Write the Great American Indian Novel
---Tourists
RICHARD SIKEN (b. 1967)
---Visible World
---A Primer for the Small Weird Loves
GRAPHIC INTERPRETATIONS:
CHARLES HENRI FORD
---Serenade to Leonor
---28
GWENDOLYN BROOKS
---We Real Cool
ALLEN GINSBERG
---Kraj Majales
---Moloch
---Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake
William Everson
---A Canticle to the Waterbirds
DAVID IGNATOW
---The Form Falls in On Itself
W. S. MERWIN
---When The War is Over
GARY SNYDER
---O Mother Gaia
RICHARD WILBUR
---A Difference
Index of Poem Titles:
Index of Poets:
About the Editor:

About the Author

Cary Nelson is Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author or editor of 28 books, including Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory, 1910-1945 (1989), which helped revolutionize the study of American poetry.

Reviews

"The Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry is an impressive collection, ranging in style--from traditional to experimental-and in content--from private to public concerns. It provides poetic sustenance for a variety of student hungers."--Rhonda Pettit, University of Cincinnati