Postmodern Poetry: POETS AND THEIR WORK

Susan Howe by Charles Bernstein

One of the preeminent poets of her generation, Susan Howe is known for innovative verse that crosses genres and disciplines in its theoretical underpinnings and approach to history. Layered and allusive, her work draws on early American history and primary documents, weaving quotation and image into poems that often revise standard typography. Howe’s interest in the visual possibilities of language can be traced back to her initial interest in painting: Howe earned a degree from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in 1961, and enjoyed some success with gallery shows in New York. In addition to painting, Howe studied acting in Dublin. From an artistic, intellectual family, Howe’s mother Mary Manning was an actress and her father a law professor at Harvard; Howe’s sister Fanny Howe is also an acclaimed poet.

Ancient Mesopotamia

Simon Peter Meets Jesus

Mercutio, Romeo & Queen Mab

The Road to Damascus - Saul Takes his Journey

Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti laments changing San Francisco

As poet, playwright, publisher, and activist, Lawrence Ferlinghetti helped to spark the San Francisco literary renaissance of the 1950s and the subsequent “Beat” movement. Like the Beats, Ferlinghetti felt strongly that art should be accessible to all people, not just a handful of highly educated intellectuals. His career has been marked by its constant challenge of the status quo; his poetry engages readers, defies popular political movements, and reflects the influence of American idiom and modern jazz. In Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Poet-at-Large, Larry Smith noted that the author “writes truly memorable poetry, poems that lodge themselves in the consciousness of the reader and generate awareness and change. And his writing sings, with the sad and comic music of the streets.”

The Richard Brautigan Library Project

Brautigan's work, perhaps due in part to his association with West Coast youth movements, generated a multitude of critical comment. Robert Novak wrote in Dictionary of Literary Biography that "Brautigan is commonly seen as the bridge between the Beat Movement of the 1950s and the youth revolution of the 1960s." A so-called guru of the sixties counterculture, Brautigan wrote of nature, life, and emotion; his unique imagination provided the unusual settings for his themes. Critics frequently compared his work to that of such writers as Thoreau, Hemingway, Barthelme, and Twain. Considered one of the primary writers of the "New Fiction," Brautigan at first experienced difficulty in finding a publisher; thus his early work appeared in small presses during the 1960s. College audiences of that decade clamored for his "new visions"; Trout Fishing in America achieved such popularity that several communes across the country adopted it as their name. In 1969, writer Kurt Vonnegut noticed Brautigan's West Coast success and introduced his work to Delacorte Press, who then reprinted Trout Fishing in America, In Watermelon Sugar, and The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster. Delacorte's handling of Brautigan's early work helped expose his writing to a national audience. Considered by most critics to be his best novel, Trout Fishing in America (written in 1961 but not published until 1967) established Brautigan as a major force in the mainstream literary scene.

Springhill Coal Mine Disaster Nova Scotia Canada 1956