The Empire's New Clothes: Anthologizing American Poetry in the 1990s

Abstract

An interesting discrepancy now prevails in the world of contemporary American poetry: the activity that occasioned the most conspicuous scholarly attention during the past decade remains largely unacknowledged in other registers of the poetic community. Academic scrutiny of is impressive, particularly for a small press movement of poets, now mostly in their forties, who have yet to win any literary awards. Despite this, Charles Bernstein, Bruce Andrews, Barrett Watten, Ron Silliman, Lyn Hejinian, Bob Perelman-to mention only a few-have become well-known and frequently cited figures along with Clark Coolidge, Susan Howe, and Michael Palmeraffiliates once removed. In the domain of poetry anthologies, however, they are all personae non gratae, despite the fact that ambitious anthologies have been appearing steadily since the mid-1980s. There are no Language poets to be found in the over 5,000 pages comprised by the following anthologies: New American Poets of the 80's, edited by Jack Myers and Roger Weingarten (1984); Singular Voices, edited by Stephen Berg (1985); The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets, edited by Dave Smith and David Bottoms (1985); The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Helen Vendler (1985); The Direction of Poetry, edited by Robert Richman (1988); The Longman Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Stuart Friebert and David Young (1983; second edition, 1989); Contemporary American Poetry, edited by A. Poulin, Jr. (fourth edition, 1985; fifth edition, 1991); The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by J. D. McClatchy; and New American Poets of the 90's, edited by Jack Myers and Roger Weingarten (1991). Needless to add, they are not to be found in any of the omnibus textbook anthologies of American literature (where their contemporaries and ethnically appropriate juniors are favored). Yet this group of outre poets has been repeatedly and favorably singled out in prestigious scholarly journals (including Critical Inquiry, New Literary History, South Atlantic Quarterly,