This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| The New American Poetry | |
|---|---|
| Name | The New American Poetry |
| Editor | Donald Allen |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Poetry anthology |
| Publisher | Grove Press |
| Pub date | 1960 |
| Pages | 430 |
The New American Poetry
The anthology assembled by Donald Allen gathered a wide range of poets associated with the Beat Generation, Black Mountain College, New York School, San Francisco Renaissance, Confessional poetry, Deep Image, and Projective Verse tendencies, showcasing works by poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Frank O'Hara, Gary Snyder, and John Ashbery in a single volume that reshaped mid‑20th‑century American letters. Edited by Allen and published by Grove Press in 1960, the collection juxtaposed established figures like William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens with younger voices affiliated with venues such as the Poetry Project and journals like Poetry Magazine, The Nation, and The New Yorker, asserting an alternative canon. The volume linked transnational currents from the Harlem Renaissance and Modernism into emergent postwar networks involving institutions such as Black Mountain College, University of California, Berkeley, and the San Francisco Art Institute.
The anthology's formation drew on networks anchored in the San Francisco Renaissance, the New York avant‑garde, and academic programs at places like Black Mountain College and Cornell University, while responding to precedents set by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, and Gertrude Stein. Donald Allen curated manuscripts, magazine appearances, and readings linked to venues including the Six Gallery reading, the Poets Theatre, and the Poetry Center at San Francisco State College, privileging poets connected to small presses such as City Lights Books, New Directions Publishing, and Grove Press. Influences ranged from the imagist practices of H.D. and Amy Lowell to the oral performance modes of Langston Hughes and the philosophical engagements of Charles Olson and Derrida-adjacent continental thought mediated through figures like Hannah Arendt and Theodore Adorno in U.S. university contexts.
Contributors and associated movements included leading Beats such as Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Gregory Corso; Black Mountain poets including Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Ed Dorn; New York School poets like Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch; West Coast and ecological voices like Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen; and confessional precursors such as Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath. The anthology also highlighted figures linked to small magazines and presses including Poetry Review, Jargon Society, and The Floating Bear, while intersecting with theater and art worlds involving Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and the Guggenheim Fellowship community. Collectives and networks around readings at venues like the Portland Poetry Center and the St. Mark's Poetry Project amplified cross‑pollination among these figures.
Published in 1960, the anthology catalyzed broader recognition for poets previously circulated in little magazines such as Evergreen Review, The Hudson Review, and Black Mountain Review, accelerating careers of contributors and influencing editorial practices at houses like Grove Press and City Lights Books. Its publication intersected with cultural flashpoints including the Civil Rights Movement, the rise of countercultural networks in San Francisco, and academic shifts at institutions such as Columbia University and University of Iowa, prompting adoption of its selections in university syllabi, creative writing workshops, and festivals like the Yale Series of Younger Poets readings. Critical response from journals including The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and Partisan Review framed debates about canon formation and poetic value that rippled through grantmaking organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts and prize bodies such as the Pulitzer Prize committees.
The poems emphasized oral performance, breath‑based lineation, colloquial diction, and open form influenced by Charles Olson's theory of Projective Verse, the spontaneous prose ethos of Jack Kerouac, and the imagistic clarity of William Carlos Williams. Thematically, contributors addressed urban modernity in locales like New York City, ecological awareness situated in Sierra Nevada landscapes, spiritual encounters reflecting Zen Buddhism via figures like Gary Snyder, and political engagement informed by events such as the Korean War aftermath and early Vietnam War tensions. Techniques included variable meter, enjambment, concrete imagery, and intermedial exchanges with painters associated with Abstract Expressionism and choreographers in the Martha Graham circle, foregrounding experimentation over traditional formalism.
Reception ranged from acclaim in periodicals such as The Nation and The New Republic to sharp critique from academic modernists and conservative reviewers linked to outlets like The Saturday Review and The New York Times Book Review, who argued the anthology fragmented poetic standards established by predecessors like W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot. Critics debated editorial choices, inclusion and exclusion of regional and minority voices—responses that engaged activists and writers from the Black Arts Movement, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and feminist circles around figures like Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton. Scholarly reassessments in later decades appeared in volumes from Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and articles in PMLA and American Literary History.
The anthology's model for cross‑movement anthologizing influenced later collections and curricula at programs such as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Bennington Writing Seminars, and MFA programs nationally, shaping poets who emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries including those associated with the Language poets, Spoken Word scenes, New Formalism debates, and multiethnic movements centered in institutions like University of California, Irvine and New York University. Its imprint is visible in small‑press cultures, reading series, and digital archives maintained by organizations like the Poetry Foundation and Library of Congress, and in the curatorial practices of editors at FSG, Penguin Books, and academic presses that continue to negotiate canon formation.
Category:American poetry anthologies