Introduction to modern poetry
February 23, 2016 3:33 PM Subscribe
I have never really gotten into modern poetry, but I've recently read a few poems by Dana Gioia, and I'd like to learn more. A dozen years ago, I was in the same position with modern art and Mark Rothko. I happened to find a copy of H. H. Arnason's History of Modern Art in my college's library, and now I consider myself something of an expert on the subject. I'm looking for a book that will do the same for poetry.
What I liked about Arnason was that it was nearly encyclopedic, covering every major artistic movement since the Impressionists, and that it mixed a lot of example works with critical explanation. It showed clearly how one movement led into and influenced another. Something similar, organized by movement, with both full poems and analysis thereof, would be ideal.
Some background: I'm pretty familiar with poetry, especially in English, up to around the mid-19th century. I've read the Greeks and Romans, Dante, some Milton, Shakespeare, the Romantics, Tennyson, Whitman, Basho, etc. I am quite familiar with concepts like rhyme scheme, meter, etc. And I have a general knowledge of 20th century intellectual-cultural history, so I know who Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Ted Hughes, Robert Lowell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins are. In addition to Gioia, I've read a fair amount of William Carlos Williams, which I enjoy. So I don't need a "What Is Poetry?"-type book; I'm looking more for something more like a textbook for an incredibly broad yet incredibly deep upper-level college course. Any suggestions?
What I liked about Arnason was that it was nearly encyclopedic, covering every major artistic movement since the Impressionists, and that it mixed a lot of example works with critical explanation. It showed clearly how one movement led into and influenced another. Something similar, organized by movement, with both full poems and analysis thereof, would be ideal.
Some background: I'm pretty familiar with poetry, especially in English, up to around the mid-19th century. I've read the Greeks and Romans, Dante, some Milton, Shakespeare, the Romantics, Tennyson, Whitman, Basho, etc. I am quite familiar with concepts like rhyme scheme, meter, etc. And I have a general knowledge of 20th century intellectual-cultural history, so I know who Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Ted Hughes, Robert Lowell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Billy Collins are. In addition to Gioia, I've read a fair amount of William Carlos Williams, which I enjoy. So I don't need a "What Is Poetry?"-type book; I'm looking more for something more like a textbook for an incredibly broad yet incredibly deep upper-level college course. Any suggestions?
If you liked Gioia, something you might enjoy are essays introducing and discussing the concepts of New Formalism (many good books discussed in that Wiki article, particularly After New Formalism: Poets on Form and Narrative by Annie Finch and Rebel Angels by Mark Jarman).
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:20 PM on February 23, 2016
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:20 PM on February 23, 2016
I think you might want David Perkins "History of Modern Poetry, Volume II."
posted by FencingGal at 6:03 PM on February 23, 2016
posted by FencingGal at 6:03 PM on February 23, 2016
Also, as a former academic, I'd advise against calling yourself an "expert" after reading one book on anything.
posted by FencingGal at 6:06 PM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by FencingGal at 6:06 PM on February 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
I came in to say that I went from being "person who likes to read but didn't get modern and contemporary poetry" to "person who really cares about modern and contemporary poetry" as a result of taking David Perkins's course on post-war American poetry in college. He didn't assign his book, just poems, but if the experience of reading his book is anything like taking a course with him, it will do the trick. So I'm seconding FencingGal.
The syllabus for his course, if I remember correctly, was
Lowell
Bishop
O'Hara
Plath
Ashbery
Jorie Graham
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but those are the ones that stuck with me.
posted by escabeche at 6:26 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
The syllabus for his course, if I remember correctly, was
Lowell
Bishop
O'Hara
Plath
Ashbery
Jorie Graham
I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but those are the ones that stuck with me.
posted by escabeche at 6:26 PM on February 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: To clarify, the "expert" comment, while still being somewhat of an exaggeration, is coming from the years of further reading and museum-going on the subject once I had a solid base from the Arnason book, not just from the book itself.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:56 PM on February 23, 2016
posted by kevinbelt at 6:56 PM on February 23, 2016
Maybe an open online "courseware" would work well for you. Here are two I found: MIT: Modern Poetry and Yale: Modern Poetry. I have used MIT's open course materials online for other subjects before and have found them to be excellent. The Yale site looks pretty good as well.
posted by incolorinred at 7:59 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by incolorinred at 7:59 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Garrison Keillor has a good ear for poetry, and he posts a poem a day (mostly modern stuff) on the Writer's Almanac. Read that website every day for a year, or just dig through the archives, and you'll get a broad sense of modern poetry. He has also put together a bunch of anthologies that are quite good: Good Poems; Good Poems for Hard Times; Good Poems, American Places.
posted by colfax at 6:17 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by colfax at 6:17 AM on February 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by Diablevert at 3:46 PM on February 23, 2016 [3 favorites]