American War Poetry spans the history of the nation. Beginning with the Colonial Wars of the eighteenth-century and ending with the Gulf Wars, this original and significant anthology presents four centuries of American men and women-soldiers, nurses, reporters, and embattled civilians-writing about war. American War Poetry opens with a ballad by a freed African American slave commenting on a skirmish with Indians in a Massachusetts meadow. Poems on the American Revolution follow, as well as poems on "minor" conflicts like the Mexican War and the Spanish-American Wars. This compact anthology has generous selections on the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnamese-American War, but it also includes an unusually large offering on American participation in the Spanish Civil War. Another section covers four hundred years of conflict with Native Americans, ending with poems by contemporary Indians who respond passionately and directly to their difficult history. The collection also reaches into current reaction to American involvement in Latin America, Bosnia, and the Gulf Wars. Showing the depth of feeling and the range of thinking with which Americans have confronted war, American War Poetry expands our sense of what poetry is made to do. While the birth of a national identity is documented in early poems, the anthology also conveys the growing sophistication of a uniquely American style. Although early war poems show that the first justification for war was purely defensive, as American global ambitions matured, American writers moved increasingly to deplore a homegrown imperialism and its terrible costs. While many familiar poems of patriotic ardor have been chosen, other poems show a steady interest in antiwar themes. Lorrie Goldensohn provides a brief biography for each poet and places each poem in its proper literary and historical context. Comprehensive and compelling, American War Poetry not only documents the birth and development of a national style of expression but shows the force of poetry working on the historical moment, making it come vitally alive.

"Dismantling Glory" presents the most personal and powerful words ever written about the horrors of battle, by the very soldiers who put their lives on the line. Focusing on American and English poetry from World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War, Lorrie Goldensohn, a poet and pacifist, affirms that by and large, twentieth-century war poetry is fundamentally antiwar. She examines the changing nature of the war lyric and takes on the literary thinking of two countries separated by their common language.

World War I poets such as Wilfred Owen emphasized the role of soldier as victim. By World War II, however, English and American poets, influenced by the leftist politics of W. H. Auden, tended to indict the whole of society, not just its leaders, for militarism. During the Vietnam War, soldier poets accepted themselves as both victims and perpetrators of war's misdeeds, writing a nontraditional, more personally candid war poetry.

The book not only discusses the poetry of trench warfare but also shows how the lives of civilians -- women and children in particular -- entered a global war poetry dominated by air power, invasion, and occupation. Goldensohn argues that World War II blurred the boundaries between battleground and home front, thus bringing women and civilians into war discourse as never before. She discusses the interplay of fascination and disapproval in the texts of twentieth-century war and notes the way in which homage to war hero and victim contends with revulsion at war's horror and waste.

In addition to placing the war lyric in literary and historical context, the book discusses in detail individual poets such as Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden, Keith Douglas, Randall Jarrell, and a group of poets from the Vietnam War, including W. D. Ehrhart, Bruce Weigl, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Huddle, and Doug Anderson.

"Dismantling Glory" is an original and compelling look at the way twentieth-century war poetry posited new relations between masculinity and war, changed and complicated the representation of war, and expanded the scope of antiwar thinking.

"American War Poetry" spans the history of the nation. Beginning with the Colonial Wars of the eighteenth-century and ending with the Gulf Wars, this original and significant anthology presents four centuries of American men and women-soldiers, nurses, reporters, and embattled civilians-writing about war.
"American War Poetry" opens with a ballad by a freed African American slave commenting on a skirmish with Indians in a Massachusetts meadow. Poems on the American Revolution follow, as well as poems on "minor" conflicts like the Mexican War and the Spanish-American Wars. This compact anthology has generous selections on the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnamese-American War, but it also includes an unusually large offering on American participation in the Spanish Civil War. Another section covers four hundred years of conflict with Native Americans, ending with poems by contemporary Indians who respond passionately and directly to their difficult history. The collection also reaches into current reaction to American involvement in Latin America, Bosnia, and the Gulf Wars.
Showing the depth of feeling and the range of thinking with which Americans have confronted war, "American War Poetry" expands our sense of what poetry is made to do. While the birth of a national identity is documented in early poems, the anthology also conveys the growing sophistication of a uniquely American style. Although early war poems show that the first justification for war was purely defensive, as American global ambitions matured, American writers moved increasingly to deplore a homegrown imperialism and its terrible costs. While many familiar poems of patrioticardor have been chosen, other poems show a steady interest in antiwar themes.
Lorrie Goldensohn provides a brief biography for each poet and places each poem in its proper literary and historical context. Comprehensive and compelling, "American War Poetry" not only documents the birth and development of a national style of expression but shows the force of poetry working on the historical moment, making it come vitally alive.

Elizabeth Bishop: A Biography of a Poetry is a fascinating account of one of the most influential and beloved poets of the past fifty years. Writing a clean, spare poetry of elegance, lucidity, and great charm, Bishop appears to offer small insight into her private life, wryly remarking that confessional poets 'overdo the morbidity.'

"Dismantling Glory" presents the most personal and powerful words ever written about the horrors of battle, by the very soldiers who put their lives on the line. Focusing on American and English poetry from World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War, Lorrie Goldensohn, a poet and pacifist, affirms that by and large, twentieth-century war poetry is fundamentally antiwar. She examines the changing nature of the war lyric and takes on the literary thinking of two countries separated by their common language.

World War I poets such as Wilfred Owen emphasized the role of soldier as victim. By World War II, however, English and American poets, influenced by the leftist politics of W. H. Auden, tended to indict the whole of society, not just its leaders, for militarism. During the Vietnam War, soldier poets accepted themselves as both victims and perpetrators of war's misdeeds, writing a nontraditional, more personally candid war poetry.

The book not only discusses the poetry of trench warfare but also shows how the lives of civilians -- women and children in particular -- entered a global war poetry dominated by air power, invasion, and occupation. Goldensohn argues that World War II blurred the boundaries between battleground and home front, thus bringing women and civilians into war discourse as never before. She discusses the interplay of fascination and disapproval in the texts of twentieth-century war and notes the way in which homage to war hero and victim contends with revulsion at war's horror and waste.

In addition to placing the war lyric in literary and historical context, the book discusses in detail individual poets such as Wilfred Owen, W. H. Auden, Keith Douglas, Randall Jarrell, and a group of poets from the Vietnam War, including W. D. Ehrhart, Bruce Weigl, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Huddle, and Doug Anderson.

"Dismantling Glory" is an original and compelling look at the way twentieth-century war poetry posited new relations between masculinity and war, changed and complicated the representation of war, and expanded the scope of antiwar thinking.

This book offers original inroads to understanding the life and works of the celebrated novelist and poet. In ""The Way We Read James Dickey"" editors William B. Thesing and Theda Wrede have assembled an outstanding collection of current critical responses to the works of the acclaimed novelist, poet, and teacher, including essays by Dickey's former colleagues at the University of South Carolina and a piece by his most famous student, novelist Pat Conroy. The volume breaks new ground in the application of innovative critical approaches and restores Dickey to his rightful place in the literary canon as a remarkable writer who crafted some of the best poetry and fiction of the twentieth century. A decade after Dickey's death and thirty-five years after the release of the film version of his famous novel Deliverance, Dickey remains a controversial figure in the American literary landscape. He was an intellectual maverick who was often ahead of his time, and yet he responded intensely, almost obsessively, to his own changing times. Thesing and Wrede argue that, although he appeared to conform to poetic conventions, his writing was a visionary reinterpretation and extension of preexisting traditions. This tension between a poet's intellectual precursors and the radical innovation of his work is the inspiration behind the fresh approaches taken by the contributors in this volume, just as it energized Dickey's own endeavors. The essays offer original insights through emerging scholarly perspectives as well as through established methods of critique. The contributors address a range of themes in Dickey's works, including gender, religion, humanity's relationship to nature, and the writer's cultural context. This landmark reappraisal of Dickey's legacy offers readers a coherent forum that addresses why his writings remain relevant today, thus restoring and revaluing the rising significance of Dickey's literary achievement for twenty-first-century audiences.