MIDCENTURY AMERICAN POETRY AND THE IDENTITY OF PLACE by JENIFER R. RINNER A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2014 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Jenifer R. Rinner Title: Midcentury American Poetry and the Identity of Place This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Karen Jackson Ford Chairperson Paul Peppis Core Member Courtney Thorsson Core Member Leah Middlebrook Institutional Representative and J. Andrew Berglund Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded September 2014. ii © 2014 Jenifer R. Rinner iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Jenifer R. Rinner Doctor of Philosophy Department of English September 2014 Title: Midcentury American Poetry and the Identity of Place This dissertation argues that the midcentury period from 1945-1967 offers a distinct historical framework in American poetry that bears further study. This position counters most other literary history of this period wherein midcentury poets are divided into schools or coteries based on literary friendships and movements: the San Francisco Beats, the New York School, the Black Mountain poets, the Confessionals, the Black Arts poets, the Deep Image poets, and the New Critics, to invoke only the most prominent designations. Critics also typically share a reluctance to cross gender or racial lines in their conceptualizations of the period. Of the few books that survey this period as a whole, most propose the defining features of midcentury poetry as formal innovation (or lack thereof) and a renunciation of the past. By contrast, I argue that such divisions and limiting categories do not attend to some of the most important features of midcentury poetry. I suggest that midcentury poetry most often demonstrates a renewed interest in locating a particular identity in a specific place. To illustrate this point, I explore depictions of identity and place in the works of three poets who are rarely studied together, Gwendolyn Brooks, Theodore Roethke, and Elizabeth Bishop. Each chapter examines the changes in poets’ careers by focusing on how the relationship between place and identity differs in their early and late iv work. I contend that the few generalizations we have about the trajectory of this period (that poets moved from using more traditional forms to more open forms, for example) are not entirely accurate and, even more, that the accounts that we have of the poets’ individual careers could be enhanced by a comparison between their early and late depictions of identity and place. I argue that the concerted exploration of the intersection of place and identity calls for a reconsideration of midcentury poetry: not just the categories we have but the poets and poems we read. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Jenifer R. Rinner GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene University of Denver, Denver, CO University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, English, 2014, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Digital Media Studies, 2007, University of Denver Master of Education, 2003, University of Notre Dame Bachelor of Arts, Program of Liberal Studies, 2001, University of Notre Dame AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Twentieth-century Poetry and Poetics American Literature Ethnic Literature Modernism Digital Media and Theory PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of Oregon, 2009-2014 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Outstanding Composition Teacher Award, University of Oregon, 2014 Malarkey Essay Prize in African American Studies, University of Oregon, 2011- 2012 Graduate School Research Award, University of Oregon, 2011-2012 Travel Award, University of Oregon, 2008 General Education Scholarship, University of Denver, 2007-2008 Stephen Rogers PLS and NDC Denver/Bishop George Evans Scholarships. 1997- 2001 Magna cum Laude, University of Notre Dame, 2001 vi PUBLICATIONS: Rinner, Jenifer R. “From Bronzeville to Mecca and After: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Location of Black Identity.’” MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (forthcoming). vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although this project bears my name as the author, it’s important to acknowledge that it would not have been possible without the gracious support of many others. I would like to sincerely thank the Department of English for their support. In particular, I am grateful for Karen Ford’s guidance, wisdom, and endless patience throughout the dissertation process. In our conversations and work, I have become a better and more careful reader of poetry as well as a more precise and fluent writer; these are gifts that not only color this project but also my way of seeing the world, and I’m profoundly grateful for them. I wish to thank Paul Peppis for always being a model teacher and colleague: I appreciate the ways he challenged me to think about literature in new ways and the questions he posed in my oral exam that prompted the development of this project. I am grateful for the support of Courtney Thorsson, in particular for her example of careful scholarship, her deep knowledge of black literature and history, and her continual encouragement. Thank you to Leah Middlebrook for her generous comments on my work and her willingness to contribute to a project that is outside of her field. I will be forever grateful for my husband Jeremy Gates for the imprint he made on this project. I could not have finished without his unflagging belief in my work, his encouragement of my creative process, and the sacrifices he made for our family. I am grateful to my son Jackson for bringing such light and life into our cloudy Oregon skies. Thanks to the many excellent teachers who have encouraged me throughout my educational journey. I also wish to thank my parents, for their continual support of my intellectual pursuits and for teaching me to love books in the first place. To my friends from the University of Oregon, thank you. I don’t think I’ll ever viii again be in a place where I am surrounded by so many impressive thinkers, dedicated scholars, and generous colleagues. In particular, thanks go to Jenny Noyce, Bethany Jacobs, Chelsea Bullock, Mary Ganster, Bill Fogarty, Lizzy LeRud, Paul Bellew, Eleanor Wakefield, Rachel Bash, Matt Hannah, Katie Riddle, Phoebe Bronstein, Paul Bindel, Veronica Vold, and Lisa May. I have learned so much from our conversations and from your work. ix For my family. x TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 26 II. FROM BRONZEVILLE TO THE MECCA AND AFTER: GWENDOLYN BROOKS AND THE LOCATION OF BLACK IDENTITY .................................... 28 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 72 III. FROM “LOST SON” TO “LOST SELF”: THE PLACE FOR IDENTITY IN THEODORE ROETHKE ............................................................................................ 77 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 130 IV. FROM “CORRESPONDENCES” TO CONNECTIONS: ELIZABETH BISHOP’S “GEOGRAPHY OF THE IMAGINATION” ........................................... 133 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 177 V. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 180 Notes ............................................................................................................................ 186 REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 187 xi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION After a hearty New England breakfast, I weigh two hundred pounds this morning. Cock of the walk, I strut in my turtle-necked French sailor’s jersey before the metal shaving mirrors, and see the shaky future grow familiar in the pinched, indigenous faces of these thoroughbred mental cases, twice my age and half my weight. We are all old-timers, each of us holds a locked razor. Robert Lowell I’m with you in Rockland where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb I’m with you in Rockland where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale I’m with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep I’m with you in Rockland where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re free I’m with you in Rockland in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night