The Extraordinary Tide [Paperback]

Susan Aizenberg (Editor), Erin Belieu (Editor), Jeremy Countryman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2001

A collection of nearly 400 poems by more than 100 different writers, The Extraordinary Tide synthesizes and celebrates an entire era of poetry by women in America. Long overdue, the anthology includes America's most recognized poets as well as those emerging as exciting new artists of contemporary verse.

Featuring recent work by poets as aesthetically diverse as Ai, Jane Kenyon, Ann Lauterbach, Carolyn Forché, and Leslie Scalapino, the collection is the most complete map now available of a vastly underexplored landscape in American writing. Also included are poems by Julia Alvarez, Lucille Clifton, Alice Fulton, Tess Gallagher, Amy Gerstler, Jane Hirschfield, Heather McHugh, Alice Notley, Lucia Perillo, Marie Ponsot, Mary Jo Salter, Ellen Bryant Voigt, C. D. Wright, and many others.

"The delights of this anthology are in its plurality, its collection of such a rich and varied sampling of that tide flooding American shores." -- from the Foreword by Eleanor Wilner, author of Otherwise and Sarah's Choice

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

One had hoped that by this time there would be no need for an anthology like The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women, but its existence testifies to the continuing negative gender politics of poetry. Poet and Nebraska Review poetry editor Susan Aizenberg and poet Erin Belieu (Infanta) have brought together more than 400 poems by 118 poets; anyone who has doubted the richness of poetry by women in the U.S. will no longer be able to do so, despite the paucity of work by experimentalists.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

The Extraordinary Tide is an extraordinary and important anthology that anyone interested in contemporary American poetry will want to read and cherish. The voices in this book are diverse; the kinds of poems gathered here are various in style and subject. But the one assumption that underlies and animates every line of every poem is that inclusiveness, intellectual and imaginative restlessness, impurity and radical play are the life blood of our language and our literature, renewing the very conventions and traditions they resist. Contemporary American women poets have given a great gift to all students of poetry, to all of us who go to poetry for news of what it means to be a human being at this moment in our history.

(Alan Shapiro, University of North Carolina )

It has been too long since such a comprehensive collection was published, and anyone who cares about women's poetry should read it.... This book deserves a place on your bookshelf alongside the Norton and Oxford anthologies.

(San Diego Union Tribune )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (March 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231119631
• ISBN-13: 978-0231119634
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,410,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Those Who Love Poetry and American Women Writers!, October 29, 2007

By 

Sylviastel - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Extraordinary Tide (Paperback)

This book was designed by women about women but it's for all of us. The editors, Susan Aizenberg and Eric Belieu with a foreword by Eleanor Wilner. The poetry are written by some known and some unknown poets. The poetesses include the following: Marjorie Agosin; Ai; Susan Aizenberg; Sandra Alcoser; Elizabeth Alexander; Pamela Alexander; Julia Alvarez; Angela Ball; Dorothy Barresi; Erin Belieu; LInda Bierds; Chana Bloch; Michelle Boisseau; Catherine Bowman; Lucie Brock-Broido; Olga Broumas; Teresa Cader; Marilyn Chin; Lucille Clifton; Judith Ortiz Cofer; Martha COllins; Jane Cooper; Kate Daniels; Madeline DeFrees; Toi Derricotte; Deborah Digges; Rita Dove; Nancy Eimers; Lynn Emanuel; Angie Estes; Kathy Fagan; Candice Favilla; Carolyn Forche; Alice Fulton; Tess Gallagher; Amy Gerstler; Patricia Goedicke; Beckian Fritz Goldberg; Jorie Graham; Linda Gregorson; Linda Gregg; Marilyn Hacker; Rachel Hadas; Kimiko Hadas, Susan Hahn; Brenda Hillman; Jane Hirshfield; Linda Hogan; Janet Holmes; Fanny Howe; Marie Howe; Lynda Hull; Barbara Jordan; Allison Joseph; Brigit Pegeen Kelly; Jane Kenyon; Mary Kinzie; Carolyn Kizer; Maxine Kumin; Ann Lauterbach; Dorianne Laux; Cleopatra Mathis; Gail Mazur; Heather McHugh; Lynne McMahon; Sandra McPherson; Jane Miller; Susan Mitchell; Thylias Moss; Lisel Mueller; Laura Mullen; Carol Muske; Marilyn Nelson; Alice Notley; Naomi Shihab Nye; Sharon Olds; Jacqueline Osherow; Alicia Suskin Ostriker; Linda Pastan; Molly Peacock; Lucia Perillo; Marie Ponsot; Minnie Bruce Pratt; Claudia Rankine; Hilda Raz; Martha Rhodes; Adrienne Rich; Mary Ruefle; Kay Ryan; Mary Jo Salter; Leslie Scalapino; Grace SChulman; Maureen Seaton; Rebecca Seiferle; Vivian Shipley; Aleda Shirley; Betsy Sholl; Maurya Simon; Cathy Song; Elizabeth Spires; Pamela Stewart; Susan Stewart; Ruth Stone; Stephanie Strickland; Teresa Svoboda; Ann Townsend; Chase Twichell; Leslie Ullman; Jean Valentine; Mona Van Duyn; Ellen Bryant Voigt; Belle Waring; Rosanna Warren; Rachel Wetzsteon; Susan Wheeler; Elinor Wilner, and C.D WRight. The book concludes with a brief biography of each contributor.