“Don’t Call Me an American; I’m a New Yorker”: Abstract Expressionism in the Contemporary American Metapoetry of the New York School Grace Elora Vail _________________ The New York School is made up of poets who drew from abstract expressionist art and themes, recognizable through poets such as Barbara Guest, Frank […]
“Don’t Call Me an American; I’m a New Yorker” ________________ Abstract Expressionism in the Contemporary American Meta Poetry of the New York School The New York School is made up of poets who drew from abstract expressionist art and themes, recognizable through poets such as Guest, O’Hara, Schuyler, Koch, Ashbery – those who used […]
Timothy Yu’s introduction discusses the complexities of defining our particular era of contemporary American poetry, acknowledging the difficulty of describing something that has not yet finished. He sees the study of contemporary poetry as an opportunity, where critics can “reevaluate, rewrite, and revise… frameworks that often highlighted certain developments in poetry (and history) at the […]
I have been reading Rupi Kaur’s poetry since the fad started in 2014. Whether it was because I was a freshman in college and everything was exciting, or because I never really liked poetry but found hers accessible, I continued to find myself buying her books and really connecting with them. So when I saw […]
I will start this by saying there is no way I can relate to the feelings represented in Ross Gay’s “Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM”. I am a cisgender white woman who grew up in a privileged area, went to a wonderful well-funded school, and have never had to experience an event […]
I understand where VZ was coming from when he said we would hate the language poets we’re focusing on this week. I don’t necessarily hate the writing style, but it is very disjointed and frustrating to follow compared to the structures that make up formalist poetry. However, the more I read this week the more […]
The poems of the Black Arts Movement seem to be a stark contrast from last week’s confessional poetry. More specific and based on personal experiences during a certain time period, I found these poems to be more grounded or “concrete”. I decided to do a close reading of one of Gwendolyn Brooks poems, choosing “We […]
Before taking this class, when I thought of contemporary American poetry, Sylvia Plath was one of, if not the first, poet to come to mind as embodying the genre. It has always saddened me that as celebrated as she is, she struggled so much in her life, and that comes through both in her poetry […]
I enjoyed reading the poems of the New York School this week, particularly the handful we were assigned by Kenneth Koch. Initially I was intrigued because of the setting – I am from New York and found it funny to read the bios about the poets who were writing/living/visiting the places I grew up in […]
When exploring the poems for this week, I became intrigued with Larry Eigner, initially because of his seemingly simplistic poems and then because of his life story. I reread the poems we were assigned a few times and [Out of the wind and leaves] particularly stuck with me. I started researching Eigner’s life and […]