Short Form American Poetry

Abstract

Discussion of the modernist line in American 20th century and contemporary poetry has been dominated by such long-form monuments as Pound’s Cantos, Williams’s Paterson, and Olson’s Maximus. This study analyses and discusses a countervailing tradition of short-form work. Beginning with Imagism, it argues that the short and short-lined poem is a central feature of American 20th-century poetry, lacking neither the intellectual ambition nor the expressive range of the well known epics. The counter-tradition it suggests runs from imagism through such key figures as Williams, Oppen, Niedecker, Creeley and Grenier, to the recent Pulitzer prize-winner Rae Armantrout. The book aims to expand our understanding of the speculative reach of poetry, combining discussion of themes of objecthood, cognition and language with insightful analysis of many short-form poems.