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Contemporary American Poetry
Within the pages of this anthology, now in its second edition, you’ll find 39 American poets from across the twentieth century. In his introduction, editor and Guggenheim fellow Donald Hall, describes the face of American poetry as "subjective." The American poem “reveals through images not particular pain, but general subjective life . . . The poet uses fantasy and distortion to express feeling.”
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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About the author
Donald Hall
180 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 19, 2021
While this isn't contemporary American poetry anymore (it was last revised in 1972) it's a good collection and some of my favorite poems are in it. That said, it's filled with mostly white male poets and English professors. They are good white male poets and English professors, but I am glad that modern anthologies are finally shining lights elsewhere. Nonetheless, there are some really exceptional, moving poems in this little paperback.
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September 4, 2024It never harmed anyone, and yet it never helped anyone.
Random pick I saw in a junk shop and thought, Huh this would be pretty good for a survey of whatever was good fifty years ago! And I was pretty much right on the money with that one.
Some really forgettable dusty poets in here, it’s true — but it seems the biggest fault it has is that it’s so subject to the taste of the editor, Donald Hall, who has included himself here with some short and strange little poems. Even the more unusual poets have their most conventional works featured here, and all of Hall’s bios for each individual poet is overly focused on where each went to university and what university they teach at, which makes the tone of the whole collection overly academic really. A few loose beats, black folk, and women included in here (all really good, too) but they come late in the tome, and feel like afterthoughts (literally — most of them being added in the second edition printing). Knew that this would be the case going in but honestly didn’t think it would bother me (product of its time kinda thing) but yeah, the offense was so egregious that it became distracting.
Some standouts I hadn’t read before: Galway Kinnell, Anne Sexton, Tom Clark, John Haines, David Ignatow.
Some others like Plath, Snyder, and Levertov who are always good.
And W.S. Merwin who’s likely the goat and has the best poems in here hands down.
I wouldn’t recommend this probably. Really stuffy selection but an alright relic of its time.
Random pick I saw in a junk shop and thought, Huh this would be pretty good for a survey of whatever was good fifty years ago! And I was pretty much right on the money with that one.
Some really forgettable dusty poets in here, it’s true — but it seems the biggest fault it has is that it’s so subject to the taste of the editor, Donald Hall, who has included himself here with some short and strange little poems. Even the more unusual poets have their most conventional works featured here, and all of Hall’s bios for each individual poet is overly focused on where each went to university and what university they teach at, which makes the tone of the whole collection overly academic really. A few loose beats, black folk, and women included in here (all really good, too) but they come late in the tome, and feel like afterthoughts (literally — most of them being added in the second edition printing). Knew that this would be the case going in but honestly didn’t think it would bother me (product of its time kinda thing) but yeah, the offense was so egregious that it became distracting.
Some standouts I hadn’t read before: Galway Kinnell, Anne Sexton, Tom Clark, John Haines, David Ignatow.
Some others like Plath, Snyder, and Levertov who are always good.
And W.S. Merwin who’s likely the goat and has the best poems in here hands down.
I wouldn’t recommend this probably. Really stuffy selection but an alright relic of its time.
August 13, 2007
This is the textbook that made me love poetry. My favorite poem, "Saint Judas," by James Wright is in this collection.
March 18, 2022
Great selection of poems, I just wish more context was provided to the poems or authors.
August 31, 2021
one of the best anthologies of poetry i've found. lots of genuinely beautiful poems in here.
"Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken-hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life."
"Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken-hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life."
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January 17, 2016Sometimes contemporary poetry can be good, but not when it's one person after another trying to sound like Eliot and failing. I would like to read more of a few of the featured poets in this collection, but most of them left me thinking, "You know, if I wanted a word puzzle, I'd do a crossword."
April 7, 2008
good intro to a bunch of poetry from the 50's and 60's-- leaves out some cool stuff, but a lot of what includes is gold
January 31, 2019
Can't say that I loved all the poems or even all the poets, but there are far more hits than misses in this strong collection.
August 9, 2022
3.5 stars
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August 26, 2025Just read a purely Adrienne Rich anthology instead quite frankly she carried and always does
June 4, 2012
Didn't like this one as much as the last one, but when you're doing a bets of anthology for a specific period of about two decades (give or take) you have far less to choose from I guess than if you do an anthology that covers most of US literature...
I liked a lot of the poetry in this book, and there was plenty that I just read through to finish the book...glancing back (without taking the time to do more than glance and realizing that I read this in very small bites over a very LOOONNNNGGGG period of time) these were the poets that I enjoyed (doesn't mean i'm not forgetting a good one, or that a poet I may not have enjoyed in general didn't have a poem or two that I really liked):
Howard Nemerov
Richard wilbur
Anthony Hecht
James Dickey
Denise Levertov
Louis Simpson
John Haines
Donald Hall
Gary Snyder
Robert Bly
James Merrill
A. R. Amons
Allen Ginsberg
John Ashberry
James Wright
Anne Sexton
Sylvia Plath
Tom Clark
Highly subjective, and I'm not going to bother to provide any reasons. These were the good ones. The rest, for me, at least as selected here, were meh.
I liked a lot of the poetry in this book, and there was plenty that I just read through to finish the book...glancing back (without taking the time to do more than glance and realizing that I read this in very small bites over a very LOOONNNNGGGG period of time) these were the poets that I enjoyed (doesn't mean i'm not forgetting a good one, or that a poet I may not have enjoyed in general didn't have a poem or two that I really liked):
Howard Nemerov
Richard wilbur
Anthony Hecht
James Dickey
Denise Levertov
Louis Simpson
John Haines
Donald Hall
Gary Snyder
Robert Bly
James Merrill
A. R. Amons
Allen Ginsberg
John Ashberry
James Wright
Anne Sexton
Sylvia Plath
Tom Clark
Highly subjective, and I'm not going to bother to provide any reasons. These were the good ones. The rest, for me, at least as selected here, were meh.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews