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The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry

jahan ramazani richard ellmann robert o/clair

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A new edition of the acclaimed anthology―the most comprehensive collection of twentieth-century poetry in English available. "The most acute rendering of an era's sensibility is its poetry," wrote the editors in their preface to the first edition. Thirty years later, this thorough and sensitive revision freshly renders the remarkable range of styles, subjects, and voices in English-language poetry, from Walt Whitman and Thomas Hardy in the late nineteenth century to Carol Ann Duffy and Sherman Alexie in the twenty-first century.

With 195 poets and 1,596 poems, The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry richly represents the major figures―Yeats, Frost, Stevens, Williams, Hughes, Olson, Bishop, Larkin, Plath, Rich, Heaney, and Walcott, among others. It also gives full voice to postcolonial and transnational poets, ethnic American poetries, experimental traditions, and the long poem. Each volume concludes with a Poetics section that provides essential contexts for reading the poems.

With substantially new introductions, headnotes, annotations, and bibliographies by the award-winning scholar and teacher Jahan Ramazani, this anthology is indispensable for all who love poetry. Two volumes, slipcased.

1136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2003

This edition

Format
1136 pages, Paperback
Published
April 17, 2003 by W. W. Norton \u0026 Company
ISBN
9780393324297
ASIN
039332429X
Language
English

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jahan ramazani

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Rating(3.8 / 5.0, 22 votes)
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22 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
_Bella_04
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I'm not usually taken with Norton anthologies. They have too many footnotes and the biographical information they provide tends to be on the boring side. But I love this anthology. My only qualm with it is that it features William Carlos Williams, but does not include his poem "This is Just to Say." However, I can't think of another anthology that has both "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas and Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric." It's an excellent mix of the old and the new.
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
kingw0rm
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The text for 20th Century American Poetry at UR. Physically, my Volume One is not looking too well: B+ = beating up book.

Volume Two wasn't discussed until the last week or two of class but I've read a number of these poets, as suggested by Tomaz. Trying to devour it during this summer.

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MangaEnjoyer
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Anthologies are mostly worthless (unless edited by Rothenberg and in a few other cases). I chose this one for my poetry lit course mostly for the price of a new edition and availability of used editions, but also because it includes decent selections of Loy, Riding, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Duncan, Brathwaite, Lorde, Hejinian, and Susan Howe, to go along with the predictable standards. Also, I like the prose excerpts at the back. I'd like to use something more daring, such as Revolution of the Word or volume one of Poems for the Millennium, but for an intro class I'm going to ease in with this one. I tried the Oxford and other anthologies in my intro to creative writing classes, but they all seem more politically-motivated than this one--as far as the less daring, large-print run anthologies go.
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afwcal
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Fantastic collection of poetry and essays from the modern and contemporary eras.
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misatoast
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I'm not actually "finished" with this, but I keep it handy and flip through it regularly and I love it.
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Zincubus
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I haven't looked that hard but the contempory poetry hasn't interested me at all. But the modern collection is good for those who are trying to travel light while retaining access to a variety of poetic voices.
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