As the prominent picture of Bob Dylan among the poets gracing the cover of each of the five volumes of this encyclopedia suggest, the rubric here is inclusivity. The preface indicates that the words “America” and “poetry” are “slippery slopes” when “we live in the ‘America's’” and poetry could be denoted by poetries at a time when the term “poetry” is challenged by many new forms. Perhaps inevitably a project as ambitious in scope as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and Poetry must be inclusive and exclusive simultaneously.
The 900 plus entries in the encyclopedia are arranged alphabetically: entries for poets provide biographical details, a critical examination of their poetry and a bibliography of primary and selected secondary sources that provide substantial suggestions of follow‐up material. Entries for “topics” give details about historical and literary context, followed by some examples of primary and secondary reading material. Aside from the five “poets” depicted on the cover of each volume the encyclopedia is without illustrations, which is a shame when the project itself is something of a triumph in terms of gathering together such a gamut of American poets and poetry related information in one place. Other than Haralson (1998‐2001) and the Academy of American Poets' (2006) web site there seem to be few comprehensive reference sources for contemporary American poetry.
Each volume contains identical front material: an alphabetical List of Entries, a List of Poets subdivided into Pre‐Twentieth‐Century Poets and Twentieth and Twenty‐First Century Poets, a List of Topics, Topical Entries Grouped by Subtopics and the Preface. The first volume also provides an excellent Introduction to the scope and contents of the encyclopedia, starting with an indication of the difficulties in identifying a poet who could claim the undisputed title as the first American poet. Depending where the line is drawn we might choose from Cherokee John Rollin Ridge “the first Native American to publish a book of poetry in English” (V.1, p. xxxi) in 1868, or the perhaps more familiar Anne Bradstreet whose 1650 volume The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America inspired John Berryman's 1953 Homage to Mistress Bradstreet.
The diversification of American poetry is tracked through these various and debated “beginnings” through to the more familiar early nineteenth century names such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell, to the mid‐nineteenth century “American Renaissance” where Walt Whitman makes his appearance. The Introduction reminds us that Whitman might be credited with the “poetics of process” (V.1, p. xxxii), often regarded as being central to American poetry ever since. Emily Dickinson is positioned as a contrasting poet to Whitman's expansiveness. The Encyclopedia's self‐described “top heavy” (V.1. p. xxxiii) weighting towards the twentieth century results largely from poetic modernism making “the twentieth century … the American century for poetry” (V.1, p. xxxiii). It is here we meet the names readers will be most familiar with: Ezra Pound (who also graces the covers of each volume), T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, H.D. and William Carlos Williams, to name a few.
The 1950s are described as the point where “matters become cloudy” (V.1, p. xxxiv) and tracing a “line” through a development of American poetry becomes even more difficult than before. This diversification is described as a divide into “open form” poetics, valuing spontaneity, and attempts to explore the personal. The cultural changes in America and much of the West in the 1960s and 1970s were reflected in poetry, where new themes and concerns emerged. History, gender and race, as well as poetics, begin to be important considerations in how poetry is understood. It is in this aspect of inclusiveness and plurality that the Encyclopedia comes into its own, celebrating plurality by representing many very different schools of practice and individual voices side by side without creating a hierarchy.
The Topical Entries Grouped by Subtopics list at the beginning of each volume demonstrates this inclusiveness. The seven subtopics allow for around 120 topics to be grouped as: American Poetics, Ethnic, Cultural, and Political Influences, Genres, Movements, and Schools, Poetry, Art and Music, Publications, Religion and Poetry and The Study and Promotion of Poetry. Genres, Movements, and Schools is by far the largest grouping, embracing 58 headings from the Agrarian School, Digital Poetry, Ecopoetics, Feminist Poetics, Language Poetry, Performance Poetry and ending on Vorticism. The smallest Sub‐Topic is Poetry, Art and Music with just the topics of Blues and Jazz listed. Ethnic, Cultural, and Political Influences incorporates African American Poetry, the Black Arts Movement, East European Poetry, Gay and Lesbian Poetry and Yiddish Poetry among many others. The entries under these headings are not tokenistic illustrations of types of poetry but rather seek to provide some context for what is understood by these terms. Individual poets who might work across these “categories” have their own entries.
As a British reviewer it is intriguing to see how an American encyclopedia of American poets and poetry traces the relationship between “American” and “British” poets. Not surprisingly the encyclopedia includes T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath, both American‐born poets that are included as “staple” contributors to anthologies of “English Poetry”. Perhaps more surprisingly is the inclusion of Eavan Boland, Paul Muldoon and Glyn Maxwell, to name a few, who may have geographically moved from England and Ireland to America but in the UK are broadly considered to be English and Irish poets. Their inclusion in an encyclopedia of American poets and poetry is suggestive not only of the importance of these poets to American as well as “British” poetry but also the arbitrariness of trying to summarise a poet's oeuvre as demonstrably English, Irish or American.
Michael Donaghy is another poet who appears to transcend the convenience of national boundaries; born in America, he moved to London and most of his oeuvre was published in the UK. The encyclopedia describes Conjure (2000) as Donaghy's final book but in fact Safest (2005) appeared posthumously and too late for inclusion in this encyclopedia. This example shows some of the limitations of print‐based encyclopedia and perhaps raises awareness of the caution that the reader might exercise when looking for definitive information. The entry on Donaghy's work is incomplete without the inclusion of Safest, a collection that shows new pathways the poet was beginning to explore and indicates the perhaps prophetic qualities of his art.
Volume Five concludes the Encyclopedia with a Bibliography, an Index, About the Editors & Contributors and About the Advisory Board. It should be noted that the majority of contributors are American academics working in American universities, although a substantial handful are from other countries. Details of all contributors are provided. Similarly the editor, associate editors and advisory board are American professors. It might perhaps be noted that the highly respected poet Charles Bernstein and influential literary critic Marjorie Perloff were both part of the advisory board for this work, lending credibility to the project from inside and outside the academic community.
The five page bibliography is divided into sub‐sections: Anthologies of Poetry, Anthologies of Essays by Poets on Poetry, Critical Studies and Reference Works. It is perhaps disappointing that the bibliography suggests anthologies of poets rather than the individual collections of the poets themselves as this shifts the emphasis towards the type of canon formation that is inherent in compiling anthologies of poetry. The bibliography's emphasis is clearly with literary criticism, suggesting that this reference work might be most suitable for libraries serving post‐compulsory education establishments and maybe universities where there is some demand for an introductory work to American poetry. Public libraries looking for a comprehensive resource about contemporary English language poetry and American poetry specifically also need look no further.
