40. Sixty Years of American Poetry: Celebrating the Anniversary of the Academy of American Poets
OPD: 1996
format: 368-page hardcover
acquired: 2001 read: Apr 9 – Jul 21 time reading: 11:09, 1.9 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Poetry theme: random

contributors
Robert Penn Warren (Introduction)
Richard Wilbur (Preface)
Barry Moser (Illustrator)
Bruno Navasky (Editor)
Ellen Rosefsky Cohen (Abrams editor),
Poets:
Diane Ackerman , Léonie Adams , Ai , Conrad Aiken , Mark Anderson , William Arrowsmith , John Ashbery , W. H. Auden , Joseph Auslander , Leonard Bacon , John Balaban , Christianne Balk , Judith Baumel , Marvin Bell , William Rose Benét , April Bernard , Daniel Berrigan , John Berryman , Elizabeth Bishop , Michael Blumenthal , Louise Bogan , Thomas Bolt , Philip Booth , David Bottoms , George Bradley , Kathryn Stripling Byer , Witter Bynner , Constance Carrier , Jared Carter , Cyrus Cassells , Nicholas Christopher , Amy Clampitt , David Clewell , Padraic Colum , Jane Cooper , Alfred Corn , Henri Coulette , Louis Coxe , Michael Cuddihy , E. E. Cummings , J. V. Cunningham , Peter Davidson , Jon Davis , Alison Deming , Babette Deutsch , Stephen Dobyns , Mark Van Doren , Rita Dove , John Duval , Mona Van Duyn , Cornelius Eady , Max Eastman , Richard Eberhart , Peter Everwine , Robert Fagles , Irving Feldman , David Ferry , Edward Field , Dudley Fitts , Robert Fitzgerald , Carolyn Forché , Robert Francis , Robert Frost , Margaret Gibson , Christopher Gilbert , Laura Gilpin , Peter Gizzi , Greg Glazner , Oliver St. John Gogarty , Jorie Graham , Melissa Green , Martin Greenberg , Debora Greger , Horace Gregory , Allen Grossman , Marilyn Hacker , Donald Hall , Kenneth O. Hanson , Peter Hargitai , William Harmon , Jeffrey Harrison , Robert Hayden , Vicki Hearne , Anthony Hecht , Robert Hillyer , Edward Hirsch , Daniel Hoffman , John Hollander , Martha Hollander , Garrett Hongo , Richard Howard , Marie Howe , Richard Hugo , Rolfe Humphries , Josephine Jacobsen , Randall Jarrell , Robinson Jeffers , Rodney Jones , Donald Justice , Brigit Pegeen Kelly , X. J. Kennedy , Richard Kenney , Galway Kinnell , Carolyn Kizer , Maxine Kumin , Stanley Kunitz , Richmond Lattimore , Li-Young Lee , Brad Leithauser , Rika Lesser , Philip Levine , Larry Levis , Chris Llewellyn , William Logan , Robert Lowell , Richard Lyons , Percy MacKaye , Archibald MacLeish , Edwin Markham , Edgar Lee Masters , Cleopathra Mathis , J. D. McClatchy , William Meredith , James Merrill , Christopher Merrill , W. S. Merwin , Robert Mezey , Josephine Miles , Edna St. Vincent Millay , Stephen Mitchell , Marianne Moore , Howard Moss , Lisel Mueller , Robert Nathan , John Neihardt , Howard Nemerov , Louise Townsend Nicholl , John Frederick Nims , Naomi Shihab Nye , Ned O'Gorman , Sharon Olds , Eric Pankey , Anthony Petrosky , Sylvia Plath , Katha Pollitt , Ezra Pound , Minnie Bruce Pratt , John Crowe Ransom , Kenneth Rexroth , Stan Rice , Adrienne Rich , Jan Richman , Alberto Rios , E. A. Robinson , J. Allyn Rosser , Muriel Rukeyser , Mary Jo Salter , Carl Sandburg , Reg Saner , Andrew Schelling , Peter Schmitt , Gjertrud Schnackenberg , james Scully , Phillip Schultz , James Schuyler , Frederick Seidel , Lauren Shakely , Jane Shore , Charles Simic , W. D. Snodgrass , Karen Snow , Edward Snow , Leonora Speyer , George Starbuck , Timothy Steele , Gerald Stern , Adrien Stoutenberg , Mark Strand , Jesse Stuart , Barton Sutter , May Swenson , Allen Tate , Elaine Terranova , Ridgely Torrence , John Updike , David Wagoner , Rosmarie Waldrop , Michael Van Walleghen , Robert Penn Warren , Rosanna Warren , John Hall Wheelock , Richard Wilbur , William Carlos Williams , Norman Williams , Susan Wood , James Wright , Charles Wright , Audrey Wurdemann , John Yau , Stephen Yenser , Cynthia Zarin

I read this in 10 to 15-minute sittings, so 11 hours of reading is something like 50 sittings.

This is actually an oddball collection. There is one poem each from every chancellor, fellow and award winner of the Academy of American Poets as of 1996 (The academy was founded in a 1934). But who selected them? It comes across as a very haphazard anthology from a wonderful body of poets. So interesting, sometimes wonderful, many times really wonderful, but mostly curious and interesting. Each poem has a publication date, and they are roughly in order. Altogether it makes for an oblique history of American poetry, a perspective I appreciated.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/351556#8200798 ( )