May 1, 2003
These inaugural volumes in "The American Poets Project" series form a useful introduction to the evolution of modern American poetry in loose historical progression. The volume on Whitman, father of modern American poetry, restores the voice of a poet who initiated free verse to speak of a growing America and thus takes us into the 20th century and beyond. Fortunately, editor Bloom ignores all of the psycho-social-sexual labels doled out to Whitman and lauds him simply as "the principal writer that America...has brought to us." Selections include some of Whitman's best, e.g., "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" and the spiritual bridge between Whitman and his future readers, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry." Millay, one of America's strongest female poets, is similar in her metrics to 19th-century poets, but her flamelike intensity is pure 20th century. When she died in 1950, her poetry almost died with her; not until after the women's rights movements did her once acclaimed verse resurface. Editor McClatchy provides a generous sample of her poetry, highlighting her early years ("Renascence," "A Few Figs from Thistles"), the lesser-known poems never before published, and the posthumously published "Mine the Harvest." World War II sliced the 20th century in half and forever changed the American way of life as idealism and self-reliance ceded to franchising and instant gratification. The poets appearing in the World War II anthology-compiled by Harvey Shapiro, himself a poet of the war-portend this major mind shift by their tone, which questions rather than sanctions patriotism, valor, and the values of the 1940s. Arranged by the poets' birth dates, the poems include Robinson Jeffers's cynical nod to violence as a natural cause of earth events; Randall Jarrell's graphic depictions of airborne death; and John Ciardi's whimsical renditions of horror. Lastly, Karl Shapiro, one of the more influential voices of the late 20th century, displayed complex and contrary tendencies in both his life and his poetry. Editor Updike notes that Shapiro's experimentation with voices and forms alienated those who admired the metrical dexterity of his early poems. This commanding new series, which the Library of America will expand each spring and fall season by adding two or three titles, is a worthy addition to all libraries.-Nedra Crowe Evers, Sacramento P.L., CA
Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2003
Editor McClatchy's is the largest Millay selection ever, drawn from all her verse books to display her career-long adroitness in her favorite form, the sonnet, and her variety by including even excerpts from an opera libretto and the one-act antiwar play "Aria da Capo." Immensely popular in her lifetime (she was the first poet to broadcast regularly), Millay (1892-1950) won fame as a teenager with her al fresco and imaginatively "post obitum" effusion on love and death, "Renascence," and as her preoccupation with the sonnet suggests, she stuck with those themes and the related one of time. That implies a certain one-chord quality about her, and indeed, the sonnets rather blur together. Read occasionally and mixed with her saucy lyrics about erotic love, they reveal their strengths--not of imagery, but of surprising attitudes expressed within strictly observed poetic conventions. Her work is very much new (modern) wine in old (classical) bottles. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)