Poems for the Millennium, Vol. 1: Modern and Postmodern Poetry from Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude

Poems for the Millennium #1

by Jerome Rothenberg (Editor), Pierre Joris (Editor)

As we come to the end of the century, the entire vista of modern poetry has dramatically changed. Poems for the Millennium captures the essence of that change, and unlike any anthology available today, it reveals the revolutionary concepts at the very heart of twentieth-century poetry.
International in its coverage, these volumes depart from the established poetic modes that grew out of the nineteenth century and instead bring together the movements that radically altered the ways that art and language express the human condition.
The first volume offers three "galleries" of individual poets—figures such as Mallarmé, Stein, Rilke, Tzara, Mayakovsky, Pound, H.D., Vallejo, Artaud, Césaire, and Tsvetayeva.
Included, too, are sections dedicated to some of the most significant pre-World War II movements in poetry and the other arts: Futurism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Objectivism, and Negritude. The second volume will extend the gathering to the present, forming a synthesizing, global anthology that surpasses other collections in its international scope and experimental range.
Poet-editors Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris provide informative and irreverent commentaries throughout. They challenge old truths and propose alternative directions, in the tradition of the revolutionary manifestos that have marked the art and poetry of the twentieth century. The result is both an essential source book for experiencing the full range of this century's poetic possibilities and a powerful statement on the future of poetry in the millennium ahead.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies, Literature, Canon

839 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 1995

About the author

Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.

Reviews

[Adrian Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typically I take my time with volumes of poetry. I tend to have one author or anthology going at all times as a kind of marginal supplement to my main reading focus. Indeed, that is how I initially approached this volume. Very quickly, however, I found all my other reading displaced by this intelligent and inspired collection of verse, which spans the most significant pre-World War II movements in poetry.

The selection of poets and the deft commentary by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris are so well accomplished I was actually a little disappointed when I came to the end of this 800 page tome. Fortunately there are two more volumes picking up where this one leaves off.

I really can't recommend this enough to anyone. Really, any reader. Not just poetry geeks. Not only do I think poetry is dangerously undervalued in our current educational structure (I'm looking at you, streamlined science/engineering major) and therefore, should be encouraged at every turn, but even a cursory reading of this anthology will leave the reader with a greater sense of poetry's importance (necessity) in the intellectual development of the world but also its intermingled origins and correspondence with more popular main stream movements. This book is that good. It takes a poet like Gertrude Stein and drops her in the midst of a context that makes works like Tender Buttons not seem so out of reach or discouraging.

Read this book. It will open up entire worlds for you.

[C.A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both volumes are indispensable. There are some anthologies we must take the time to delve into, despite what we think. I say this because I meet a lot of poets with conservative TAKES on poetry, yet they do not really WANT to go beyond their reach, in my opinion. Volumes One and Two of Joris and Rothenberg's Poems for the Millennium are essential to understanding the shifts in the floor of poetry. It's there, in there, you cannot deny it, and these two books hold it out for a closer look with some of the best commentary, and arrangement of the most radical branches on the world tree of poetry.

[Chet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without a doubt the best poetry anthology I've ever encountered. The selections range far beyond the ordinary western-centric bias. Much more than that, is that the commentary, which is, wonderfully, left for *after* each poems, enhances each work, & is quite simply brilliant. Not to mention the arrangement into "galleries". I've set myself to read it cover to cover & am half-way through volume 1.
Honestly, this is as good as it gets.

[Momo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me a while to get through because of one the size and because I originally started reading it from the library but had to stop because I knew I wanted to annotate my own copy.

This was a really good anthology! There were a few poems I had to skip so that's why I dropped a star but when the poem was good it was reallllllyyy good (which was often). There are also two subgenres of poetry in this collection that I don't like, so it's not that surprising I didn't like the ten or so poems in those pages. I can't wait to find time to start the next volume!

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris did a great thing by putting these two volumes together. Without a doubt essential collection to own and study and more important to enjoy.

[Felicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some great pieces in this collection, and then there are some really odd decisions on the part of the editors. A very broad selection, though, in its favor.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

An indispensable collection of poetry from the familiar to the avant-garde.

[Valeria · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best and (as far as i know) most diverse poetry anthologies out there. It's a relief to read an anthology that isn't 98% cis white men. Believe me, I love E.E. Cummings, and Philip Larkin, but there are other stories, uses of language, rhythms, lives out there. I'm just happy and grateful to have been exposed to books like this one.

[Sasha]

I kind of feel like this is the stuff that gives poetry a bad name? I'm all for expressing oneself, and being avante garde, but this felt like Jackson Pollock writing a poem and I just couldn't process it.

[Ramzzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arguably the greatest anthology on the rise of modern poetry.

By parts, rebellion; by the whole, revolution—this is avant-garde, this is modernism, this is poetry.

[Erik Akre · Rating 5 out of 5]

This unending volume of poetry dances (in each poem, in each section, in its entirety) on a ragged edge of chaos and/or insanity. It's dizzying and crazy, and the reader follows the poets-madmen through the upheaval of artistic sensibility that characterized the first half of the 20th century. If any book can truly describe in words the changes that came about during that time, this book does it.

Many of the poems must be followed as if following in the total darkness, relying only on sounds and expression. Some of the poems tantalize with imagery that shifts and changes at the whim of sanity's very edge. Others are more coherent, and some of them at least a little familiar to the less-experienced poetry reader (i.e. me).

I would recommend it as an historical survey of aesthetic and artistic sensibility, but how I really enjoyed it was poem by poem, over months of coming back to it. Each poem is its own world, and many of these worlds offered alien landscapes to explore fruitfully. Some were completely dark, or thoroughly noisy, or uncomfortably insane as well. This book is a very constructive challenge for the general reader, if she can keep with it and be attentive through the poetry that goes beyond any conscious comprehensibility.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did n0t like this book - at all. It was physically difficult to use (FAR TOO LARGE for comfortable reading), it was edited strangely (never have I ever seen so many &&&& in formal writing), and the content was haphazard, strange, and uninspiring. In all, this was the worst poetry anthology I've ever seen, much less read. What a huge waste of time.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read about 90% of this for a class. Some amazing stuff and I think it is one of the best anthologies I've ever had. I think the surrealism section was my favorite but there is something for everyone in this book.

[Eben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome introduction to turn of century to pre-WWI avant-garde poets, mostly outside the canon. Dada and surrealist greats and so many amazing poems breaking open language and keeping it really really fresh. Jerome Rothenberg - anthologist of the century. uh, last century.

[Luke Stevens · Rating 2 out of 5]

I genuinely can't believe I read all of this. I read the mountain sound poems out loud at my aunt's cottage with a partner that I was having a winter retreat with and then like immediately after we had REALLY loud sex. Weird memory. Anyways....

[Trevor Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best anthology of poetry from the last 500 years that I know.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely the best single-volume survey of various modernisms, and beautifully put together.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm really reading Vol.2. Can't find it on their list

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used both volumes as texts for a poetics course last spring and they went over quite well.

[Blueberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

both of these anthologies were really important to me (are) for getting back into poetry; as important as leaves of grass.

[Takipsilim · Rating 5 out of 5]

My education in modernist/avant-garde poetry. Absolutely essential for outsiders who don't walk the halls of stuffy academia.

[Jacob Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST read for poetry that transcends academic (or any) borders. Much more than an anthology, Rothenberg's comments to each section establish connections and affinities across time & geography.

[Oona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro to modernist poetry internationally and the cultural forced that shaped it. Major movements--surrealism, Dada, objectivists, negritude.