Customer Reviews

The New Young American Poets: An Anthology

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OK, this book has generated about as much hubbub as a poetry anthology is likely to generate. Everyone wants their say about who the next generation of poets is . . . and everyone will have a gripe with at least a couple of the people included here. Fact is, though, this is a very carefully put together selection of solid -- sometimes terrific -- poems by many of the most talented poets writing today. It's discerningly edited with a good ear for both the sense and the music of the poems.

Of course, if you want a truly democratic anthology, you'll have to go elsewhere. But why the hell should an anthology be democratic? Good anthologies have editors who enforce their own aesthetic values and tastes on the book--who select poems THEY like. In a way, good anthologies are anti-democratic. They go for range, of course, but ultimately have one person in making the decisions. Bad anthologies are often democratic, though. It takes no skill, after all, to include everyone . . . to merely survey the field.

I recommend this effort wholeheartedly. It'll inspire you or make you mad -- but there's a mind at work putting it together and lots of talent in the poems.

Most of the poets in this collection are good. That makes it better than most contemporary anthologies. I especially liked Ruth P. Schwartz, Mark Wunderlich, and Paul Beatty. A few are less good, but the book is a real service to people who want to find out what's happening right now in American poetry. And the poets' discussions in the back of the book are pretty interesting. Overall: very very good.

Of the recent "new young poetry" anthologies, this is the only one with a real editor at work. Kevin Prufer knows what he likes -- and it's good stuff. He's talked to each poet in the book and worked with them to select the best of their poems -- and it shows. Several of the poems are published for the first time here -- and most are very new. From this anthology, I got a clear picture of what the very best young poets are writing today.

How disappointing to see the same old, same old represented here. While a few voices are fresh and interesting, the majority (whose poems have been encountered in too many publications lately) feel stale. This anthology contributes nothing new to the broad and exciting spectrum of today's poetry. See American Poetry: The Next Generation for a more democratic and surprising vision.