The Poem Is You : 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them

The variety of contemporary American poetry leaves many readers overwhelmed. Critic, scholar, and poet Stephanie Burt sets out to help. Beginning in the early 1980s, where critical consensus ends, she presents 60 poems, each with an original essay explaining how the poem works, why it matters, and how it speaks to other parts of art and culture.

A delightful and provocative journey across four decades of contemporary American poetry with Stephanie Burt, “the leading poetry critic of her generation” (New York Times), as our surefooted guide. Contemporary American poetry has plenty to offer. Yet its difficulty—and sheer variety—leaves many readers puzzled or overwhelmed. Beginning with poems written in the early 1980s, critic and poet Stephanie Burt canvasses American poetry from the urgency of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen to the pathos of Louise Glück, the limitless energy of Juan Felipe Herrera, and the erotic provocations of D. A. Powell. Burt presents a wide range of poems, each accompanied by an original essay explaining how it works, why it matters, and how it speaks to art and culture more broadly. Included here are classics (by Ashbery, Komunyakaa, Hass) and less-famous poems by very famous poets (Glück, Kay Ryan); verse from prizewinning authors near the start of their careers and by others not yet well known. The Poem Is You is crafted especially for those readers who don’t know where to start with contemporary American poetry, describing what these writers have fashioned for one another, and what they can give us today.