americanA HISTORY OF poetry Also by Richard Gray: A History of American Literature, Second Edition A Brief History of American Literature After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11 A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American South (edited with Owen Robinson) americanA HISTORY OF poetry RICHARD GRAY This edition first published 2015 © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148‐5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley‐blackwell. The right of Richard Gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data Gray, Richard, 1944– A history of American poetry / Richard Gray. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-118-79534-7 (cloth) – ISBN 978-1-118-79535-4 (pbk.) 1. American poetry–History and criticism. I. Title. PS303.G73 2015 811.009–dc23 2014040569 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover image: Edward Hopper, Rooms by the Sea, 1951, oil on canvas. Yale University Art Gallery, Bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark, B.A. 1903, 1961.18.29 Set in 10.5/13pt Minion by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India 1 2015 To Sheona Contents Preface and Acknowledgments x 1 The American Poem 1 The United States … the Greatest Poem 1 The Poem is You 8 The Breaking of the New Wood 21 Forging the Uncreated Conscience of the Nation 27 2 Beginnings 39 In My Beginning is My End 39 The word and the Word: Colonial Poetry 44 Towards the Secular: Colonial Poetry 53 Writing Revolution: The Poetry of the Emergent Republic 57 Across the Great Divide: Poetry of the South and the North 63 To Sing the Nation: American Poetic Voices 69 To Sing of Freedom: African American Voices 89 Looking Before and After: Poetic Voices of Region and Nation 91 3 The Turn to the Modern: Imagism, Objectivism, and Some Major Innovators 106 The Revolution is Accomplished 106 The Significance of Imagism 111 From Imagism to Objectivism or Dream 115 From Imagism to the Redemption of History 128 From Imagism to Contact and Community 136 From Imagism to Discovery of the Imagination 141 vii viii Contents 4 In Search of a Past: The Fugitive Movement and the Major Traditionalists 153 The Precious, the Incommunicable Past 153 The Significance of the Fugitives 157 Traditionalism and the South 160 Traditionalism Outside the South 174 Traditionalism, Skepticism, and Tragedy 179 Traditionalism, Quiet Desperation, and Belief 185 Traditionalism, Inhumanism, and Prophecy 191 5 The Traditions of Whitman: Other Poets from Between the Wars 201 Make this America for Us! 201 Whitman and American Populism 205 Whitman and American Radicalism 211 Whitman, American Identity, and African American Poetry 217 Whitman and American Individualism 224 Whitman and American Experimentalism 232 Whitman and American Mysticism 237 6 Formalists and Confessionals: American Poetry since World War II 250 A Sad Heart at the Supermarket 250 From the Mythological Eye to the Lonely “I”: A Progress of American Poetry since the War 253 Varieties of the Personal: The Self as Dream, Landscape, or Confession 258 From Formalism to Freedom: A Progress of American Poetic Techniques since the War 264 The Imagination of Commitment: A Progress of American Poetic Themes since the War 270 The Uses of Formalism 274 The Confessional “I” as Primitive 278 The Confessional “I” as Historian 281 The Confessional “I” as Martyr 285 The Confessional “I” as Prophet 289 New Formalists, New Confessionals 292 7 Beats, Prophets, and Aesthetes: American Poetry since World War II 302 Who Am I? 302 Rediscovering the American Voice: The Black Mountain Poets 306 Restoring the American Vision: The San Francisco Poets 316 Contents ix Recreating American Rhythms: The Beat Poets 323 Resurrecting the American Rebel: African American Poetry 330 Reinventing the American Self: The New York Poets 340 And the Beat Goes On: American Poetry and Virtual Reality 351 8 The Languages of American Poetry and the Language of Crisis: American Poetry into the Twenty-First Century 367 What is the Language of American Literature? 367 The Actuality of Words: The Language Poets 376 The Necessity of Audience: The New Formalists 384 Remapping the Nation: Chicano/a and Latino/a Poetry 395 Improvising America: Asian American Poetry 418 New and Ancient Songs: The Return of the Native American 448 Legends of the Fall: American Poetry and Crisis 476 Epilogue: What Is an American? The Problem of Literary Nationality 509 Index 519 Preface and Acknowledgments In this history of American poetry, I have tried to be faithful to the sheer range and plurality of the American poetic tradition. I have also attempted to focus on both individual poets and the poetic communities to which they variously belong, and to anchor my discussion in specific, significant or symptomatic poems, and the imagi- native journeys on which they take us. It is, after all, the experience of reading the single poem and encountering the voice of a singular poet that fires the reader’s imagination into life; and so it is to this that any study of poetry must eventually return, no matter how detailed or protracted its investigation may be of poetry’s social and ideological underpinnings. “One is the Population – ,” Emily Dickinson wrote in one of her most frequently quoted poems, “/ Numerous enough – / This Ecstatic Nation / Seek – it is Yourself.”1 As in so many American poems, there is a subtle negotiation going on here between “one” and “nation,” the notion of “Yourself” and the equally compelling idea of “Population,” the community to which any self must irrevocably belong. In writing this history, I have attempted a similar, if far less adventurous, negotiation by placing my accounts of individual poets and poems in the context of dialogue. As I see it, texts exist intertextually, just as people exist interpersonally. Every poem we encounter is in conversation with other poems; every poet is engaged, whether he or she is aware of it (although they usually are), in talking back to other poets, talking with and, it may be, talking against them. This is what we mean when we refer to a poetic tradition, local, regional, national or transnational: that a work, any work, draws its strength and depth, ultimately, from being situated in a constantly changing, constantly expanding series of circles; each poetic utterance is enhanced, enriched, and given meaning by its connection to a complex if often fragile web of other poetic utterances from other times and places. Each poem, in short, is part of a greater conversation – what Mikhail Bakhtin called a great dialogue.2 In the opening chapter of this book, and in the first section of the second chapter, I expand on this idea of any poetic tradition – and, in this particular instance, the American poetic tradition – as a great, open dialogue that, strictly speaking, never x Preface and Acknowledgments xi reaches an end. I also suggest what I hope are other useful contexts for looking at, understanding, and appreciating American poetry. After that, the structure of this book is basically chronological and probably needs no further explanation. It might be worth adding, however, that the final chapter is longer than the others, in part because it is here I discuss, not just American poetry of the last few decades, but also Chicano/a and Latino/a poetry, Asian American poetry, and Native American poetry of the contemporary period and their antecedents. This, after all, seemed the appro- priate place to emphasize both the growing importance of these poetic traditions and their specific histories, the ways in which they have added to the rich cultural mosaic that is America and American poetry. All that remains is for me to thank the people who have helped with this book. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my friends, colleagues, and students at the University of Essex.