New American Poets

by Jack Myers (Editor), Roger Weingarten

The best contemporary American poets are represented in this essential anthology.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

443 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jack Elliott Myers was an American poet and educator. He was Texas Poet Laureate in 2003, and served on the faculty of Southern Methodist University in Dallas for more than 30 years. He was director of creative writing at SMU from 2001 through 2009. Myers co-founded The Writer's Garret, a nonprofit literary center in Dallas, with his wife, Thea Temple. He published numerous books of and about poetry, and served as a mentor for aspiring writers at SMU and as part of the writers' community and mentoring project of The Writer's Garret.

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent almost twelve years picking my way through this after buying it for a class (for which only about 5% was required reading). Given that time span, I'm not sure how accurate a review this will be, but my memory is that I solidly enjoyed pretty much everything in it. It's certainly full of poets I continue to admire. My only regret is the lack of biographical information on the poets. I know that information is generally available online, but I like having it on hand as I'm reading (and I only read paper books - no digital copies for this girl!) I do have a complaint about the title, though: how could a book of already-established poets published in 1991 truly contain new poets of the 90s? Robert Hass published his first book in the 70s! That's a minor complaint, though, and I'm certain the blame lies with marketing idiots, so. Overall an excellent collection. I anticipate reading it again someday.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

features big names like dove, gallagher, harjo, and jorie graham, but also plenty of lesser known poets who are equally as good. one, mark halliday, was a professor of mine, and i think his four poems are some of the best in the collection. "reality u.s.a." is my favorite.

[John Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

A broad but shallow sampling of poetry from the late 80s.

[Danielle Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of different stuff in here some of it I found really boring but some of the poems were amazing and this definitely introduced me to poets I might not have otherwise checked out

[Diana Rosengard · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite collections.