1 Introduction 1Mary McAleer Balkun, Jeffrey Gray, and Paul Jaussen Section 1: Poetry before "American Poetry" 5 2 Worldmaking and Ambition in History Poems by Early American Women: The Examples of Anne Bradstreet and Sarah Wentworth Morton 7Tamara Harvey 3 Before Poetry: Revival Verse and Sermonic Address in Eighteenth-Century America 18Wendy Raphael Roberts 4 The Inca in the Nineteenth-Century US Poetic Imaginary 28Adam Bradford 5 African American Spirituals and Their Legacy 39Lauri Scheyer Section 2: Poetry and The Transcendent 51 6 Death and Mourning in American Poetry from the Puritans to the Modernists 53Wendy Martin and Camille Meder 7 Artificers of the World: Transcendentalism and Its Poetic Legacies 68Bruce Ronda 8 "Do Not Be Content with an Imaginary God": Modern Poetry, Spirituality, and the Problem of Belief 82Norman Finkelstein 9 Enduring Epiphany: The Politics of Revelation in Contemporary Poetry 95Nikki Skillman Section 3: Experimentalisms, Early and Late 107 10 The New in Hindsight: Modernist Poetry and Poetics in the Classroom 109Bob Perelman 11 Philosophy, Poetry, and the Principle of Charity 120Johanna Winant 12 "Making a Way": The Black Mountain Review and Mid-Twentieth Century Communities 133Joshua Hoeynck 13 Causes, Movements, Theory: Between Language Poetry and New Narrative 146Kaplan Harris 14 Radical Mimesis: Conceptual Dialectics and the African Diaspora 157Tyrone Williams 15 Wearables and Modernist Poetry’s Prototypes 166Margaret Konkol 16 Reading the Unreadable in Modern American Poetry 184Steven Gould Axelrod Section 4: Poetry and Identity 19917 The Black Quatrain and America's Racialized Poetics 201Ben Glaser 18 Queer Poetics: Voices of the Subaltern in American Poetry 216Daniel Enrique Pérez 19 Trans Poetry and Poetics 230Trace Peterson Section 5: Transnational Poetry 243 20 Ezhi-aawechigaazhangwaa: Indigenous American Comparisons 245Margaret Noodin 21 Trans-Pacific Poetics: Eastern Influences on American Poetry in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 257Susan M Schultz 22 "Audience Distant Relative": Fugitive Transnationality and Poetic Form 269Mayumo Inoue 23 "A Little Room in a House Set Aflame": American Poetry and Globalization in the Twenty-First Century 283Walt Hunter 24 Rethinking Transnationalism in American Poetry 294Sarah Dowling Section 6: Poetry and the Arts 303 25 "Sketch of a Man on a Platform": The Modern Feminist Portrait Poem 305Andrew Epstein 26 Poetry in the Public Square 320Stephen Cushman 27 Life as New Media: Bioart, Biopoetry, and the Xenotext Experiment 332Avery Slater 28 "Compared to What": Past and Future Paths in Rap Poetics 344Andrew DuBois 29 American Poetry Goes to the Movies 354Susan Cooke Weeber Section 7: Nature and After 367 30 Reading God's Book of the World 369Robert Daly 31 "Sharing with the Ants": American Ecopoetry from Lydia Sigourney to Ross Gay 379Christoph Irmscher 32 Post-Natural Modernism 390Mark C Long 33 Rethinking the Anthropocene: Contemporary Ecopoetics and Epochal Imaginings 402Margaret Ronda Section 8: Poetry of Engagement 415 34 American War Poetry 417Cary Nelson 35 Lynch Fragments 431Aldon Lynn Nielsen 36 Indigenous Docupoetry: "'Last Indian War' in Verse" 442Kimberly Blaeser 37 "It's Been a While": Latinx Poetries and the Empire of Borders 455Michael Dowdy 38 The Politics of American Poetry in the Twenty-First Century 469David Lau Index 484

A COMPANION TO AMERICAN POETRY A Companion to American Poetry brings together original essays by both established scholars and emerging critical voices to explore the latest topics and debates in American poetry and its study. Highlighting the diverse nature of poetic practice and scholarship, this comprehensive volume addresses a broad range of individual poets, movements, genres, and concepts from the seventeenth century to the present day. Organized thematically, the Companion's thirty-seven chapters address a variety of emerging trends in American poetry, providing historical context and new perspectives on topics such as poetics and identity, poetry and the arts, early and late experimentalisms, poetry and the transcendent, transnational poetics, poetry of engagement, poetry in cinema and popular music, Queer and Trans poetics, poetry and politics in the 21st century, and African American, Asian American, Latinx, and Indigenous poetries. Both a nuanced survey of American poetry and a catalyst for future scholarship, A Companion to American Poetry is essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic researchers and scholars, and general readers with interest in current trends in American poetry.

"This impressive Companion to American Poetry presents cutting-edge work by distinguished senior scholars and exciting emerging ones. Collectively, its thematically organized essays—on topics ranging from transnationalism to Trans poetry, from African American spirituals to rethinking the Anthropocene—brilliantly display poetry’s intellectual depth, formal variety, emotional power, and diverse social engagements."—Lynn Keller, Martha Meier Renk Bascom Professor of Poetry Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison