Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century

by Cate Marvin (Editor), Michael Dumanis (Editor)

This groundbreaking anthology offers a broad and representative introduction to some of the most exciting, fresh voices on the contemporary poetry landscape by gathering together generous selections from the work of 85 younger American poets. The poets selected were born after 1960, published their first book within the last 10 years, and have no more than three books published. Some are the recipients of numerous awards, while others, who are making their first appearance, are quickly making significant contributions to twenty-first-century poetry. The poets include Rick Barot, Joshua Beckman, David Berman, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, James Kimbrell, D.A. Powell, Spencer Reece, Matthew Rohrer, Rebecca Wolff, Kevin Young, Matthew Zapruder, Andrew Zawacki, and many others.

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Cate Marvin's first book, World's Tallest Disaster, was chosen by Robert Pinksy for the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and published by Sarabande Books in 2001. In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Her poems have appeared in The New England Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Fence, The Paris Review, The Cincinnati Review, Slate, Verse, Boston Review, and Ninth Letter. She is co-editor with poet Michael Dumanis of the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006). Her second book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen, was published by Sarabande in August 2007. A recent Whiting Award recipient and 2007 NYFA Gregory Millard Fellow, she teaches poetry writing in Lesley University's low-residency MFA program and is an associate professor in creative writing at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.

Reviews

[Erwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adorno may have claimed that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric, but he need not worry. For writing poetry — good poetry — seems impossible these days, if Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century is any indication, especially when it comes to practitioners who belong to my own generation.

I used Legitimate Dangers recently in a literary analysis course I'm teaching. My assumption was that, because poetry grows an ever more specialized and obscure mode of literary expression, the only thing which could offset such a drift toward irrelevance was to teach poetry written by my students' near contemporaries in the hope that at least the often racy and timely subject matter would capture their attention.

The results were uneven, because the anthology itself is terribly uneven. Something I should've expected, I guess, since the contributors are, as the anthology's subtitle indicates, "poets of the new century." I'm not suggesting that ce jeune siècle is without matter to be poetically treated; it's just that the poetry in this anthology tends to be ... well ... a bit predictable, and, in many cases, more than a bit puerile. Much of it seems workshopped to death, membra disjecta of some MFA program that have had all the expressive marrow sucked from them, leaving only the hollow bones of contrived formal novelty –– evidence of possibilities lost as opposed to opportunities seized. And others seem a bit too precious and shallow for my taste: identity–political catechisms of an annoyingly petit bourgeois sort, as if the guilty poets deliberately set out to confirm my suspicion that poetry has become a boutique industry, a playground of the mind for New–Urbanist bohos as they absently wipe lattè foam from their iBooks and survey their not-as-remarkable-as-they'd-have-us-believe psychic panoramas.

Not all the poetry is bad, though. I recommend Dave Berman's contributions (truth be told, I'm a Silver Jews fan), as well as Mark Bibbins "Slutty" and Jeffrey McDaniel's "The Archipelago of Kisses." There are a few others that stand as nimbly executed exercises in PoMo self-consciousness. But, all in all, the "poets of the new century" represented in Legitimate Dangers suggest to me the only real danger is the creeping decline of poetry itself.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though I didn't like all of the poets represented in this book (I suppose that's not entirely feasible with any anthology), I give the book 5 stars because, well, I enjoy this "type" of poetry and it was cool discovering new poets to read. Now, this anthology certainly won't be for everyone, I think many of these poems are "experimental" in the sense that the poets are trying to write a "new" type of poem that plays with and sometimes undermines traditional poetic form and even narrative; moreover, this is a sampling of emerging poets who are mostly in their 30s so the work is imperfect at times. Or it's imperfect because the traditional form is made so unstable in these poems that they can sometimes seem...I don't know...ragged, drifting, confusing. It's not Hass or Blake or Po Chu-I or Mary Oliver, in other words.

Also, if you're not into "intellectual" poetry or poetry riffing on theory, then you might not like these poems. I don't mean poetry for smart people, I just mean that sometimes the poems are consciously complicated, kind of like the poetry of Alice Fulton. I'm not always in the mood for that myself but luckily I am now so reading the book was a pleasure. Several reviewers have complained about the MFA influence in the book and I can totally see that, too, it seems like half the writers are from Iowa, which pretty much leaves out tons of wonderful new poets of the same generation. These poems are all different and somehow all the same. But I think that's the point--it's a type of buffet of a new kind of writing.

On the other hand, when the poems are hot in this anthology, they're hot! I loved the performative work of Dan Beachy-Quick and the sardonic, endlessly circular and repetitive voice of Joshua Beckman. Josh Bell has one awesome imagination frothing with invention and Joel Brouler displays some mysterious, wrenching narrative poems. That's just the Bs! I also really loved the lush language of Monica Ferrel and the playful language of Thomas Sayers Ellis. There are many old favorites of mine: Suji Kwock Kim, A. Van Jordan, Terrance Hayes, Dana Levin, Richard Siken, Natasha Tretheway, and Arielle Greenberg (she's why I bought the anthology in the first place). I was re-introduced to Matthea Harvey and ran across a new poet I recently discovered, Ilya Kaminsky.

Poets I've been meaning to read but haven't were also showcased in this collection: Maurice Manning, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Tracy K. Smith. My new new favorite is Mark Wunderlich. I'll definitely be on the look out for more of his work.

[Grace Bruenderman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The editors of this book have chosen about 30 or 40 of their favorite modern poets (poets born after 1970, I believe?) and each poet has anywhere from 3-4 poems in the book. The book has a wonderful layout, and also lets you get a sampling of some of the best poets of the new poetry territory. boo. yah. It's like buying a "Who's who?" book, and then if you like a particular poet, you can go out and read more, or if ya don't, just skip to the next one. The book has some number one stunnas and some bombs.

My faves in the bookity book were:

Josh Bell (bien sur)
Terrence Hayes
Ilya Kaminsky (Check out his "Dancing in Odessa")
Some Alaskan poet I can't remember. I'll look it up and post it later
The guy that wrote "Letters to Wendy's" just b/c he is a big enough jerk to write that book.
Major Jackson
Jeff McDaniel

These are the only poets I can remember off the top of my head, which should tell me that they're definitely up there.

One of the best things about this book is that each author has a lovely little bio and pic at the top of the page that tells just exactly how they came to be a poet, where they went to school, etc. It's very helpful if you want to break into the field.

ALSO: Albert Goldbarth isn't in this book, b/c he is too old and too awesome. But he needs to be mentioned. I love him.
He talks about Montagne and making out. I think the exact phrase he uses in his most recent poem in poetry is "slipping her the tongue."

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not every poet in here is awesome, but I found a lot of new poets I like and for an anthology of this size, its a bargain.

[Philip Coulter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the poems in here are fine, most of the poets in here are probably fine. But it drags on and seems much longer than its 450ish pages - as an anthology it is a real slog.
I don't know: too many poets, too many poems. I do like actual humour and I do like form and rhyme, none of which seem to be a common thing here.

Nevertheless, I found more than a few poets to return to.

I loved Natasha Trethewey, Juliana Spahr, D. A. Powell. I also want to read more of Dan Beachy-Quick, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Lisa Jarnot, Ilya Kaminsky, Karen Volkman, Matthew Zapruder. I'm sure more will emerge as I re-read.

[Sasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. I really struggled to get through this. I hate to say it, but the poems felt so pretentious, like they were constructed solely to sound interesting but the meaning itself didn't matter. I persevered for 300 pages but I couldn't make it farther. There's literally a poet introducing themselves as a terrorist. I just can't.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful book of incredible contemporary poets. Varied in scope with many fine voices. I can only hope that they produce another volume of matching quality. This was the book that taught me to fall in love with poetry.

[Eileen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult. I had to go through and put sticky notes over all the author pictures so I could read the poems without being possessed by bio. Then content varied by author. I have some problems with contemporary work. There's lots of confessionalism; things aren't daring enough for me, are too long, aren't interesting. My real problem is that not enough is interesting. Some is. It's an anthology of poems, and that is as specific as my review can get.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually disliked more than half the poets represented in the book but was introduced to some I find really interesting: Joshua Bell, Matthea Harvey, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Larrissa Szporluk, Matthew Zapruder to name some. On the downside, there's plenty of dull, dull poetry in here, unless you like that kind of thing in which case it's an upside.

[Nathan Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good writing in here - I do like a good chunk of it. But it's hard to ignore how much of this is just a writer's workshop-fest. I sometimes wonder if the world would come to an end if there was a poetry anthology put together without u. of iowa grads in it. good idea for an anthology - a non-iowa anthology.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

quite liked:

maurice manning
lisa jarnot
katie ford

several others

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes great, often good, occasionally unreadable. A pretty accurate survey.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best anthology out there.

[Sarabande Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is used more and more as a classroom textbook for contemporary literature.

[Thomasin Propson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me long enough, but I finished it!! Some poems were amazing, many failed to amaze (me). Feel like I've earned a badge. Where's my badge?!