One of the cornerstones.A friend and I constructed a first draft of this list as a means of passing time, when returning from the MLA Conference in Los Angeles, more than a month ago. We originally called it "The Twenty Most Important Works of American Poetry (+5)" and I posted it as a 'note' on Facebook, in order to elicit some (heated) criticism. It was also (hotly) debated at DC Poetry Happy Hours (at The Reef) and via several (volcanic) email exchanges with people who reside without the District. Good points were made about (1) some of the works (i.e., we had foolishly listed the wrong collection for T.S. Eliot) and about (2) the title -- that, in the end, we could not necessarily be arbiters of "most important", since "importance" means different things to different people, but instead could put forward the list as a set of "relevant guideposts" for anyone who might wish to comment on the broad sweep of American poetry. Perhaps we were thinking as teachers; perhaps, we reasoned, these works should be read by students of ours who aspire to study American poetry or enter the "po' bidness" themselves. The list is not perfect, and I welcome a continuation of commentary and (broasted) debate. Please remember that we chose "works" as opposed to poets, but that said, the major poets do, more or less, seem to be here, on this list. Without further ado, and in A-B-C order, the relevant 'Mericans is:
John Ashbery // SELF PORTRAIT IN A CONVEX MIRROR (1975)
Amiri Baraka // PREFACE TO A TWENTY VOLUME SUICIDE NOTE (1961)
Ted Berrigan // THE SONNETS (1964)
Robert Creeley // FOR LOVE (1962)
Emily Dickinson // COLLECTED POEMS (written ca. 1858 until ca. 1886?; first collected 1955)
T.S. Eliot // THE WASTE LAND (1922)
Robert Frost // NORTH OF BOSTON (1914)
Allen Ginsberg // HOWL AND OTHER POEMS (1956)
Lyn Hejinian // MY LIFE (1980)
Langston Hughes // MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED (1951)
The Last Poets // THE LAST POETS (recording, 1970)
Frank O'Hara // LUNCH POEMS (1964)
George Oppen // OF BEING NUMEROUS (1968)
Sylvia Plath // ARIEL (1965)
Edgar Allen Poe // COMPLETE POEMS (written between 1827 and his death? 1849?)
Ezra Pound // THE CANTOS (1917-1969, unfinished)
Gertrude Stein // TENDER BUTTONS (1914)
Wallace Stevens // IDEAS OF ORDER (1936)
Walt Whitman // LEAVES OF GRASS (1855)
William Carlos Williams // SPRING AND ALL (1923)
(+ 5)
H.D. // TRILOGY (1946)
Jack Kerouac // MEXICO CITY BLUES (1959)
Lorine Niedecker // LORINE NIEDECKER: COLLECTED WORKS (Written before 1970; published 2002)
Charles Olson // THE MAXIMUS POEMS (written 1940s to 1970; unfinished; first published 1983.)
Jack Spicer // THE COLLECTED POETRY OF JACK SPICER (Published 2008.)