American Poetry Since 1950 (poetry anthology)

American Poetry Since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders
AuthorEliot Weinberger
SubjectPoetry
Published1993
PublisherMarsilio Publishers

American Poetry Since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders is a 1993 poetry anthology edited by Eliot Weinberger. First published by Marsilio Publishers, it joined two other collections which appeared at that time: From the Other Side of the Century: A New American Poetry, 1960-1990 (1994; edited by Douglas Messerli) and Postmodern American Poetry, a 1994 poetry anthology edited by Paul Hoover. These three anthologies were perhaps seeking to be for their time what Donald Allen's anthology, The New American Poetry (Grove Press, 1960), was for the 1960s.

"In the case of these anthologists [Weinberger, Messerli, and Hoover], it is a nostalgia predicated on a “recuperation” of New American poetic dissidents, but the logic is flawed because they’ve come too late to get in on the fruits of first acclaim. All aspire to huddle with Donald Allen . . . "
Jed Rasula[1]

Weinberger chooses thirty-five "innovators and outsiders," all of them from the U.S.. As in the two Donald Allen anthologies of The New American Poetry, no poets from other English-speaking countries are included. Weinberger's two principles of inclusion are (1) only poems first published in book form since 1950 and (2) no poets born after World War II.

  1. ^ Neither Us nor Them: Poetry Anthologies, Canon Building, and the Silencing of William Bronk