Innovative Women Poets: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and Interviews

by Elisabeth A. Frost (Editor), Cynthia Hogue (Editor)

In this unusual and insightful collection, fourteen full-length literary interviews with innovative female poets of the last forty years, enhanced with a selection of their poems and prefaced by short introductions, present a wide and accessible range of forms, schools, politics, and conversations. By giving us each poet’s own voice in a medium other than poetry, the interviews provide important cultural and historical contexts that help define notions of innovation and contribute to a fuller understanding of these experimental poems.Poets and literary scholars Elisabeth Frost and Cynthia Hogue selected writers with particular attention to diversity in terms of ethnicity, philosophical concerns, and aesthetic movements, including the New York School, the Black Arts Movement, and language writing. By bringing together poets not usually considered in the same critical context, the editors clarify the ways in which these innovative women have affected ideas of poetry and poetic practice.The engaging interviews (whose questions are often as interesting and informed as the responses), introductory texts, and selected poems allow readers to forge productive connections among the most important voices of late twentieth-century American poetry.

Genres: Poetry

422 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
A good selection of poets with plenty of historical context and interviews with the writer's themselves. I was happy to be introduced to many new-to-me poets with this work. I will say that the main detractor of this book for me was actually the interviews. The two page biographies at the beginning of each writer's section were helpful to place the works in context, but in a 400 page book I found that nearly 70% of it was devoted to poets talking about their work (or in some of the worst interviews, interviewers telling poets what their work was about). Considering so many of the pieces here are excerpts from longer works, I would have much rather have had many more pages of poetry than interviews. Most of the time I think that the work of these poets speaks for itself.

[Shanae · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say that Innovative Women Poets is one of the best literary collections I've ever read. The collection includes poetry from literary greats likes Gloria Evangelina Anzaldua, Jayne Cortez, Sonia Sanchez, Susan Howe, Harryette Mullen and so many others. More interesting that these well-written poems is the interviews included in the collection. The interviews not only provide readers with great insight about the poetry and the writers, they are theoretical in nature - perfect for people seeking to learn literary theory and criticism without studying those you're bound to find in the Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism (which, let me state now, is not a bad collection - it's just VERY Eurocentric...white + male = good and everything else is jammed in the back of the text).

Anyway, I totally recommend Innovative Women Poets, the collection is on time and just what I needed as a student of literature.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for broadening horizons--this introduced me to several poets I wasn't too familiar with & now want to read more of (Duplessis, Mullen, Howe, Fulton...). A couple of the interviews struck me as a little expected, or just didn't hold my attention. The ones I found most interesting: Duplessis, Mullen, Ostriker, Scalapino, Wright ( great interview by Sarah Vap & Charles Jensen ).

This would make a good course text.

[David Gallin-Parisi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful interview with Susan Howe, speaking about her development as a visual artist into a writer.