autobiographical explorations and
sions toward a more colloquial dic-
technical innovations, drawing upon
tion. “My own poems seemed like
his experience of psychoanalysis.
prehistoric monsters dragged down
Lowell’s confessional poetry has
into a bog and death by their ponder-
been particularly influential. Works
ous armor,” he wrote later. “I was
by John Berryman, Anne Sexton,
reciting what I no longer felt.”
and Sylvia Plath (the last two his
At this point Lowell, like many
students), to mention only a few,
poets after him, accepted the chal-
are impossible to imagine without
lenge of learning from the rival tradi-
Lowell.
tion in America — the school of
William Carlos Williams. “It's as if no
IDIOSYNCRATIC POETS
poet except Williams had really seen
oets who developed unique
America or heard its language,”
styles drawing on tradition
S
P
YLVIA PLATH
Lowell wrote in 1962. Henceforth,
but extending it into new
Lowell changed his writing drastical-
realms with a distinctively contem-
ly, using the “quick changes of tone,
porary flavor, in addition to Plath
atmosphere, and speed” that Lowell
and Sexton, include John Berryman,
most appreciated in Williams.
Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo,
Lowell dropped many of his
Philip Levine, James Dickey,
obscure allusions; his rhymes
Elizabeth Bishop, and Adrienne
became integral to the experience
Rich.
within the poem instead of superim-
posed on it. The stanzaic structure,
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
too, collapsed; new improvisational
Sylvia Plath lived an outwardly
Photo © UPI / The Bettmann
forms arose. In Life Studies (1959),
Archive
exemplary life, attending Smith
82
College on scholarship, graduating first in her
You have an eye, it’s an image.
class, and winning a Fulbright grant to Cambridge
My boy, it’s your last resort.
University in England. There she met her charis-
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
matic husband-to-be, poet Ted Hughes, with
whom she had two children and settled in a coun-
Plath dares to use a nursery rhyme language, a
try house in England.
brutal directness. She has a knack for using bold
Beneath the fairy-tale success festered unre-
images from popular culture. Of a baby she
solved psychological problems evoked in her high-
writes, “Love set you going like a fat gold watch.”
ly readable novel The Bell Jar (1963). Some of In “Daddy,” she imagines her father as the
these problems were personal, while others
Dracula of cinema: “There’s a stake in your fat
arose from her sense of repressive attitudes
black heart / And the villagers never liked you.”
toward women in the 1950s. Among these were
the beliefs — shared by many women themselves
Anne Sexton (1928-1974)
— that women should not show anger or ambi-
Like Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton was a passionate
tiously pursue a career, and instead find fulfill-
woman who attempted to be wife, mother, and
ment in tending their husbands and children.
poet on the eve of the women’s movement in the
Professionally successful women like Plath felt
United States. Like Plath, she suffered from men-
that they lived a contradiction.
tal illness and ultimately committed suicide.
Plath’s storybook life crumbled when she and
Sexton’s confessional poetry is more autobio-
Hughes separated and she cared for the young
graphical than Plath’s and lacks the craftedness
children in a London apartment during a winter of
Plath’s earlier poems exhibit. Sexton’s poems
extreme cold. Ill, isolated, and in despair, Plath appeal powerfully to the emotions, however. They
worked against the clock to produce a series of
thrust taboo subjects into close focus. Often they stunning poems before she committed suicide by
daringly introduce female topics such as child-
gassing herself in her kitchen. These poems were
bearing, the female body, or marriage seen from a
collected in the volume Ariel (1965), two years woman’s point of view. In poems like “Her Kind”
after her death. Robert Lowell, who wrote the
(1960), Sexton identifies with a witch burned at
introduction, noted her poetry’s rapid develop-
the stake:
ment from the time she and Anne Sexton had
attended his poetry classes in 1958.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
Plath’s early poetry is well crafted and tradition-waved my nude arms at villages going by,
al, but her late poems exhibit a desperate bravura learning the last bright routes, survivor
and proto-feminist cry of anguish. In “The
where your flames still bite my thigh
Applicant” (1966), Plath exposes the emptiness in
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
the current role of wife (who is reduced to an
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
inanimate “it”):
I have been her kind.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
The titles of her works indicate their concern
It can sew, it can cook.
with madness and death. They include To Bedlam It can talk, talk, talk.
and Part Way Back (1960), Live or Die (1966), and the posthumous book The Awful Rowing Toward
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
God (1975).
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
83
John Berryman (1914-1972)
hand or ancient riddles: “Who
John Berryman’s life paralleled
stunned the dirt into noise? / Ask the
Robert Lowell’s in some respects.
mole, he knows.”
Born in Oklahoma, Berryman was
educated in the Northeast — at prep
Richard Hugo (1923-1982)
school and at Columbia University,
Richard Hugo, a native of Seattle,
and later was a fellow at Princeton
Washington,
studied under
University. Specializing in traditional
Theodore Roethke. He grew up poor
forms and meters, he was inspired
in dismal urban environments and
by early American history and wrote
excelled at communicating the
self-critical, confessional poems in
hopes, fears, and frustrations of
his Dream Songs (1969) that feature
working people against the back-
a grotesque autobiographical char-
drop of the northwestern United
acter named Henry and reflections
States.
on his own teaching routine, chronic
Hugo wrote nostalgic, confession-
alcoholism, and ambition.
al poems in bold iambics about
Like his contemporary, Theodore
shabby, forgotten small towns in his
Roethke, Berryman developed a
part of the United States; he wrote
supple, playful, but profound style
of shame, failure, and rare moments
enlivened by phrases from folklore,
of acceptance through human rela-
children’s rhymes, clichés, and
tionships. He focused the reader’s
slang. Berryman writes, of Henry,
attention on minute, seemingly
“He stared at ruin. Ruin stared
inconsequential details in order to
straight back.” Elsewhere, he wittily
make more significant points.
writes, “Oho alas alas / When will
“What Thou Lovest Well, Remains
indifference come, I moan and
American” (1975) ends with a per-
rave.”
son carrying memories of his old
hometown as if they were food:
Theodore Roethke
(1908-1963)
in case you’re stranded in some
The son of a greenhouse owner,
odd empty town
JAMES DICKEY
Theodore Roethke evolved a special
and need hungry lovers for
language evoking the “greenhouse
friends, and need feel
world” of tiny insects and unseen
you are welcome in the street
roots: “Worm, be with me. / This is
club they have formed.
my hard time.” His love poems in
Words for the Wind (1958) celebrate
Philip Levine (1928- )
beauty and desire with innocent
Philip Levine, born in Detroit,
passion. One poem begins: “I knew
Michigan, deals directly with the
a woman, lovely in her bones, / When
economic sufferings of workers
small birds sighed, she would sigh
through keen observation, rage, and
back at them.” Sometimes his
painful irony. Like Hugo, his back-
poems seem like nature’s short-
Photo © Nancy Crampton
ground is urban and poor. He has
84
been the voice for the lonely individ-
includes later work, Dickey’s repu-
ual caught up in industrial America.
tation rests largely on his early
Much of his poetry is somber and
collection Poems 1957-1967 (1967).
reflects an anarchic tendency amid
the realization that systems of gov-
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
ernment will endure.
and Adrienne Rich (1929- )
In one poem, Levine likens him-
Among women poets of the idio-
self to a fox who survives in a dan-
syncratic group, Elizabeth Bishop
gerous world of hunters through his
and Adrienne Rich have garnered
courage and cunning. In terms of his
the most respect in recent years.
rhythmic pattern, he has traveled a
Bishop’s crystalline intelligence and
path from traditional meters in his
interest in remote landscapes and
early works to a freer, more open
metaphors of travel appeal to read-
line in his later poetry as he
ers for their exactitude and subtlety.
expresses his lonely protest against
Like her mentor Marianne Moore,
the evils of the contemporary world.
Bishop wrote highly crafted poems
in a descriptive style that contains
James Dickey (1923-1997)
hidden philosophical depths. The
James Dickey, a novelist and
description of the ice-cold North
essayist as well as poet, was a native
Atlantic in “At the Fishhouses”
of Georgia. At Vanderbilt University
(1955) could apply to Bishop’s own
he studied under Agrarian poet and
poetry: “It is like what we imagine
critic Donald Davidson, who encour-
knowledge to be: / dark, salt, clear,
aged Dickey’s sensitivity to his
moving, utterly free.”
southern heritage. Like Randall
With Moore, Bishop may be
Jarrell, Dickey flew in World War II
placed in a “cool” female poetic tra-
and wrote of the agony of war.
dition harking back to Emily
As a novelist and poet, Dickey was
Dickinson, in comparison with the
often concerned with strenuous
“hot” poems of Plath, Sexton, and
effort, “outdoing, desperately /
Adrienne Rich. Though Rich began
Outdoing what is required.” He
by writing poems in traditional form
ELIZABETH BISHOP
yearned for revitalizing contact with
and meter, her works, particularly
the world — a contact he sought in
those written after she became an
nature (animals, the wild), sexuality,
ardent feminist in the 1980s,
and physical exertion. Dickey’s novel
embody strong emotions.
Deliverance (1970), set in a south-
Rich’s special genius is the
ern wilderness river canyon,
metaphor, as in her extraordinary
explores the struggle for survival
work “Diving Into the Wreck”
and the dark side of male bonding.
(1973), evoking a woman’s search
When filmed with the poet himself
for identity in terms of diving down
playing a southern sheriff, the novel
to a wrecked ship. Rich’s poem
and film increased his renown.
“The Roofwalker” (1961), dedicated
Photo © UPI/The Bettmann
While Selected Poems
(l998)
Archive
to poet Denise Levertov, imagines
85
poetry writing, for women, as a dangerous craft.
Olson’s theory of “projective verse,” which insist-Like men building a roof, she feels “exposed, larg-ed on an open form based on the spontaneity of
er than life, / and due to break my neck.”
the breath pause in speech and the typewriter line in writing.
EXPERIMENTAL POETRY
Robert Creeley (1926-2005), who writes with a
he force behind Robert Lowell’s mature
terse, minimalist style, was one of the major Black achievement and much of contemporary
Mountain poets. In “The Warning” (1955), Creeley
Tpoetry lies in the experimentation begun in imagines the violent, loving imagination: the 1950s by a number of poets. They may be divided into five loose schools, identified by Donald
For love — I would
Allen in The New American Poetry, 1945-1960
split open your head and put
(1960), the first anthology to present the work of a candle in
poets who were previously neglected by the criti-
behind the eyes.
cal and academic communities.
Inspired by jazz and abstract expressionist
Love is dead in us
painting, most of the experimental writers are a
if we forget
generation younger than Lowell. They have tended
the virtues of an amulet
to be bohemian, counterculture intellectuals who
and quick surprise
disassociated themselves from universities and
outspokenly criticized “bourgeois” American
The San Francisco School
society. Their poetry is daring, original, and someThe work of the San Francisco School owes
times shocking. In its search for new values, it
much to Eastern philosophy and religion, as well as claims affinity with the archaic world of myth, leg-to Japanese and Chinese poetry. This is not sur-
end, and traditional societies such as those of the prising because the influence of the Orient has
American Indian. The forms are looser, more
always been strong in the U.S. West. The land
spontaneous, organic; they arise from the subject
around San Francisco — the Sierra Nevada
matter and the feeling of the poet as the poem is
Mountains and the jagged seacoast — is lovely and
written, and from the natural pauses of the spo-
majestic, and poets from that area tend to have a
ken language. As Allen Ginsberg noted in
deep feeling for nature. Many of their poems are
“Improvised Poetics,” “first thought best
set in the mountains or take place on backpacking
thought.”
trips. The poetry looks to nature instead of literary tradition as a source of inspiration.
The Black Mountain School
San Francisco poets include Jack Spicer,
The Black Mountain School centered around
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Duncan, Phil
Black Mountain College, an experimental liberal
Whalen, Lew Welch, Gary Snyder, Kenneth
arts college in Asheville, North Carolina, where
Rexroth, Joanne Kyger, and Diane diPrima. Many
poets Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Robert
of these poets identify with working people. Their Creeley taught in the early 1950s. Ed Dorn, Joel
poetry is often simple, accessible, and optimistic.
Oppenheimer, and Jonathan Williams studied
At its best, as seen in the work of Gary Snyder
there, and Paul Blackburn, Larry Eigner, and
(1930- ), San Francisco poetry evokes the delicate Denise Levertov published work in the school’s
balance of the individual and the cosmos. In
magazines Origin and Black Mountain Review.
Snyder’s “Above Pate Valley” (1955), the poet
The Black Mountain School is linked with Charles
describes working on a trail crew in the moun-
86
tains and finding obsidian arrow-
California. The charismatic Allen
head flakes from vanished Indian
Ginsberg (1926-1997) became the
tribes:
group’s chief spokesperson. The
son of a poet father and an eccentric
On a hill snowed all but summer,
mother committed to Communism,
A land of fat summer deer,
Ginsberg attended Columbia
They came to camp. On their
University, where he became fast
Own trails. I followed my own
friends with fellow students
Trail here. Picked up the
Kerouac (1922-1969) and William
cold-drill,
Burroughs (1914-1997), whose vio-
Pick, singlejack, and sack
lent, nightmarish novels about the
Of dynamite.
underworld of heroin addiction
Ten thousand years.
include The Naked Lunch (1959).
These three were the nucleus of the
Beat Poets
Beat movement.
The San Franciso School blends
Other figures included publisher
into the next grouping — the Beat
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919- ),
poets, who emerged in the 1950s.
whose bookstore, City Lights, estab-
The term beat variously suggests
lished in San Francisco’s North
musical downbeats, as in jazz; angel-
Beach in l951, became a gathering
ical beatitude or blessedness; and
place. One of the best educated of
“beat up” — tired or hurt. The
the mid-20th century poets (he
Beats (beatniks) were inspired by
received a doctorate from the
jazz, Eastern religion, and the wan-
Sorbonne), Ferlinghetti’s thought-
dering life. These were all depicted
ful, humorous, political poetry
in the famous novel by Jack Kerouac
included A Coney Island of the Mind
On the Road, a sensation when it
(1958); Endless Life (1981) is the
was published in l957. An account of
title of his selected poems.
a 1947 cross-country car trip, the
Gregory Corso (1930-2001), a petty
novel was written in three hectic
criminal whose talent was nurtured
weeks on a single roll of paper in
by the Beats, is remembered for vol-
ALLEN GINSBERG
what Kerouac called “spontaneous
umes of humorous poems, such as
bop prose.” The wild, improvisation-
the often-anthologized “Marriage.” A
al style, hipster-mystic characters,
gifted poet, translator, and original
and rejection of authority and con-
critic, as seen in his insightful
vention fired the imaginations of
American Poetry in the Twentieth
young readers and helped usher in
Century (1971), Kenneth Rexroth
the freewheeling counterculture of
(1905-1982) played the role of elder
the 1960s.
statesman to the anti-tradition. A
Most of the important Beats
labor organizer from Indiana, he saw
migrated to San Francisco from
the Beats as a West Coast alternative
America’s East Coast, gaining their
to the East Coast literary establish-
initial national recognition in Photo © The Bettmann Archive ment. He encouraged the Beats with 87
his example and influence.
and Kenneth Koch — met while they
Beat poetry is oral, repetitive, and
were undergraduates at Harvard
immensely effective in readings,
University. They are quintessentially
largely because it developed out of
urban, cool, nonreligious, witty with a
poetry readings in underground
poignant, pastel sophistication.
clubs. Some might correctly see it as
Their poems are fast moving, full of
a great-grandparent of the rap music
urban detail, incongruity, and an
that became prevalent in the 1990s.
almost palpable sense of suspended
Beat poetry was the most anti-estab-
belief.
lishment form of literature in the
New York City is the fine arts cen-
United States, but beneath its shock-
ter of America and the birthplace of
ing words lies a love of country. The
abstract expressionism, a major
poetry is a cry of pain and rage at what
inspiration of this poetry. Most of the
the poets see as the loss of America’s
poets worked as art reviewers or
innocence and the tragic waste of its
museum curators, or collaborated
human and material resources.
with painters. Perhaps because of
Poems like Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
their feeling for abstract art, which
(1956) revolutionized traditional
distrusts figurative shapes and obvi-
poetry.
ous meanings, their work is often
difficult to comprehend, as in the
I saw the best minds of my
later work of John Ashbery (1927- ),
generation destroyed by
perhaps the most critically
madness, starving hysterical
esteemed poet of the late 20th
naked,
century.
dragging themselves through the
Ashbery’s fluid poems record
negro streets at dawn
thoughts and emotions as they wash
looking for an angry fix,
over the mind too swiftly for direct
angelheaded hipsters burning
articulation. His profound, long
for the ancient heavenly
poem, Self-Portrait in a Convex
connection to the starry
Mirror (1975), which won three
dynamo in the
major prizes, glides from thought to
JOHN ASHBERY
machinery of night.