The New American Poetry: 1945 to Present

The New American Poetry 1945:1960.In 1960 Donald Allen published his seminal anthology This book foregrounded the most innovative and vibrant directions in avant-garde American poetry, impulses that guide innovation in the art till this day. In this program we will study those movements: The Black Mountain Poets, including Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and Denise Levertov; the Beats: The New York School, including Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest, and John Ashbery: the San Francisco and the Berkeley Renaissance, including Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer; and Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement. We will also study the works of the living inheritors of these avant-garde traditions - poets such as Nathaniel Mackey, Alice Notley, Anne Waldman, Rodrigo Toscano, Joseph Donahue and Eleni Sikelianos. An important part of the Black Mountain aesthetic, the idea of the mythopoetic, will be foregrounded in this program, as will that movement's emphasis on translation and cosmopolitanism: unclassifiable poets such as Etal Adnan (Arabic influenced), Zhang Er (Chinese language), and Arkadi Dragomoschenko (Russian language)  will be considered in this light. The poetry of Ezra Pound will also be studied as background to it all. The program also features a film series, with a weekly screening of films that have influenced or been influenced by the New American poetry, from Maya Deren to Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Student work will involve both critical writing and creative exercises. This program is designed as an Advanced Level class.