American Poetry Now: Pitt Poetry Series Anthology

Introduction

INTRODUCTION keeptheliteraryscholarsoutand sticktotheoriginalwriting —charleS SiMic This book commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the Pitt Poetry Series and the thirtiethyearofmyeditorshipofit.Overtheyearstheserieshasbecome“arepublic of many voices,” which reflects not only many of the forms and styles of American poetry, but the various backgrounds of American poets—in terms of gender, race and ethnicity, class—to a greater degree than any other publisher. It’s truly a crosssectionofthebestofcontemporaryAmericanpoetry . It was clear to me early in the editing process for this book that if it were going to contain enough poems by each author to make a satisfying introduction to the poet’s work we couldn’t include selections from every book in print in the series —there are just too many, and I didn’t want to produce one of those forbidding anthologiesasbigandasexpensive asa tombstone. Iwanted a book easy tobrowse through and to put in a backpack, a book that would say “there’s some pleasure in this” rather than “you have a duty to read it even if it weighs ten pounds, but we are notresponsibleforeyeorbackstrainorpossiblehernias.”SoImadeseveraldifficult decisions.Ididnotincludeselectionsfromsomefinebooksthatforvariousreasons are difficult to excerpt. I did not include selections from the many fine books we publishastheprizewinnersfromseveralcompetitions:ourStarrettfirstbookprize, the Donald Hall Prize of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and the Cave Canem Prize—unless the authors had published at least one other book. The series has always supported the publication of first books, is proud of the authors who have come to us through these contests, and will publish many of the winners’ subsequent books. We urge you to check out the suggested reading list at the end of thisvolume,inwhichprizewinningbooksarenoted. This is, I hope, an anthology of delight, which will be enjoyed by all readers of poetry, the novice and the veteran alike. I have included here those poems that after long acquaintance interest me and move me. More important than my particular taste, though, is the fact that all of these poems have been tested on other readers and listeners and have met with joy and, in some cases, awe. I’ve used many of thesepoemswithlargesuccessduringmostofalifetimeofteaching,andIhopethat the variety represented here will be particularly useful as a text in poetry reading xix 4 introdUction and writing classes. I hope that it will be a portal for many into a literary genre that Dylan Thomas called the oldest and the greatest of the arts, one that is essential and life-giving. I hope that after using this book readers will not be content with anthologies alone, but will seek out whole books by individual authors. And I hope that readers will also become listeners by attending readings. In most ages of most cultures,poetrywasanoralart,notfirstormerelyabookart. Itistruethatpoetryinthetwenty-firstcenturyinthiscountryhasanaudience that is small in relation to the audiences for television or the movies, though it’s not as small as many people believe. The audience for poetry has been growing for years, despite the fact that commercial (“trade”) publishers are publishing less and less poetry, and the art is represented increasingly by university presses and small independent presses, the garage bands of the publishing industry. While poetry’s readership in America is increasing, there are still many people who avoid it. There aremanyhistoricalandculturalreasonsforthis.Iwenttoapublichighschoolinthe cityofNewYork,andrememberthatoneofouroldtextbooks—anditwasold,kept presumably to be used until it wore out—featured the poetry of Edmund Spenser, the elegant Elizabethan allegorist whose place in the English canon is secure, but whoistheworstpossiblechoiceforkidswhohavereadnexttonothing.InTheFaerie Queene, Spenser writes about the urgent issues of his day, which are no longer our issues, in a style and diction that are opaque to unsophisticated new readers. What has possessed (and still possesses) some makers of textbooks to do it all backward? Instead of starting with contemporary work and then moving back in time, they emphasizeolderwriterswhomstudentsrightlyconsiderdry,andthenperhapsoffer here and there a few contemporary plums. Yet for many years, I participated in our state’s “poets-in-the-schools” program, and found that most students—at all levels ofachievement—wereinterestedandoftenwildlyenthusiasticwhenpresentedwith contemporarypoemsthatspoketotheirconcernsintheirownlanguage. It’s important to emphasize that poetry does not have to be “difficult.” This is the hangover from High Modernism. Yes, T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” is difficult, andrequiresanddeservesstudy.Somepoetryisdifficultbecausesomesubjectsand somepersonaearedifficult.Butmostpoemsfrommostagesandmostcultureshave a surface texture, an approachability, that requires no more special reading skills or knowledge than reading a newspaper—and the profit is much greater. The Pitt Poetry Series publishes some poets who are legitimately difficult—Reginald Shepherd and Larry Levis, for example—but poets like Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, and Denise Duhamel exemplify accessibility. As I choose books for the series I try...