New Voices In American Poetry: An Anthology by David Allan Evans

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Published in 1973, this collection displays the work of young writers born between 1928 through 1944 (as I recall) and publishing their first work in the 1960s. Most of them had published one, two or three books of poetry and a few had published a novel or a book of short stories. Probably half have now since been forgotten, while a few, like Alice Walker and Charles Simic, went on to establish national reputations. Almost all of them were working as writing teachers at the time of the publication of the anthology. In other words, they were part of the explosion of writing programs across the country, and if their poems did not heavily influence the state of poetry, they played a significant role as teachers.

There are 45 poets in this collection, with no more than a handful of poems for each, in 265 pages. Each poet includes a brief statement about one of the poems. Some of these are interesting, some not so much.



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