Cold War Poetry [Paperback]

Edward J. Brunner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 14, 2004

Mainstream American poetry of the 1950s has long been dismissed as deliberately indifferent to its cultural circumstances. In this penetrating study, Edward Brunner breaks the placid surface of the hollow decade to reveal a poetry sharply responsive to issues of its time. "Cold War Poetry" considers the fifties poem as part of a dual cultural project: as proof of the competency of the newly professionalized poet and as a user-friendly way of initiating a newly educated, upwardly mobile postwar audience into high culture. Brunner revisits Richard Wilbur, Randall Jarrell, and other acknowledged leaders of the period as well as neglected writers such as Rosalie Moore, V. R. Lang, Katherine Hoskins, Melvin B. Tolson, and Hyam Plutzik. He also examines the one-sided authority of the (male-dominated) book review process, the ostracizing of female and minority poets, poetic fads such as the ubiquitous sestina, and the power of the classroom anthology to establish criteria for reading. Attributing the gradual change in poetic style during the 1950s to the slow collapse of the authority of the state, Brunner shows how a secretive, anxious poetics developed in the shadow of a disabled government. He recontextualizes the much-maligned domestic verse of the 1950s, reading its shift toward the private sphere and the recurrent image of the child as a reflection of the powerlessness of the post-nuclear citizen. Through a close examination of poetry written about the Bomb, he delineates how poets registered their growing sense of cosmic disorder in coded language, resorting to subterfuge to continue their critique in the face of sanctions levied against those who questioned government policies. Brilliantly decoding the politics embedded in the poetry of an ostensibly apolitical time, "Cold War Poetry" provides a powerful rereading of a pivotal decade.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Erudite and comprehensive... Commendable for its revisionist perspective and its wealth of scholarly information. " Choice "There are many close, instructive readings of poems (and careers). Altogether, a remarkable integration of social contexts and poetic details." Virginia Quarterly Review "Cold War Poetry changes our understanding not just of the fifties but of how that decade leaves its mark, however effaced, on everything after in contemporary poetics." -- Walter Kalaidjian, author of American Culture between the Wars: Revisionary Modernism and Postmodern Critique "This is quite simply the best book ever written on American poetry of the 1950s. Brunner's claim that 1950s mythological and domestic poetry displays displaced political anxiety is both new and persuasive. His treatment of minority and women's writing gives us our first full account of the period." -- Cary Nelson, editor of Oxford's Anthology of Modern American Poetry

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (July 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252072170
• ISBN-13: 978-0252072178
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,764,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Important perspectives on great cold war poets, March 9, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Cold War Poetry (Hardcover)

A great book, eagerly anticipated by lovers of the serious poets of the era. Especially appreciated are the critiques and commentary of the works of the late Hyam Plutzik, whose major work, Horatio, has been called brilliant by many reviewers and readers, over the last forty years, and who still has a following among serious students of poetry.

Brunner's introduction provides an important historical framework for his discourse. It reminds one of the push-pull between mass culture and classical ideals that existed in post war society, and the way this reality fueled the work of serious poets and artists at the time.

Hats off to Dr. Brunner for taking the time and care to provide a critical and historical perspective of poets who should be more widely known that the Beats, but aren't.

The issue is how to get a book like this to a wider audience.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection, December 17, 2007

By 

Alyssa A. Lappen (Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cold War Poetry (Paperback)

This is a wonderful collection of poems from an era when the world was at war--though not fighting everywhere--in many ways not dissimilar to our own era, when many supposed allies are in truth enemies.

The poems are unique, adept and cunningly capture the essence of an era at the same time more frightening and simpler than our own. People knew, then, that there were things of which they should be terrified, and that crystal understanding registers in each of these poems.

What is most terrifying today is that people are not sufficiently frightened, but live in a fantasy land, dreaming of peace while mass warfare against the West is planned everywhere.

Strangely enough, one finds hope in these poems.