The New American Poetry 1945–1960

Donald Allen began work on the anthology in 1958. He aimed to showcase the range of avant-garde American poetry appearing in small magazines, independent presses, pamphlets and poetry readings since the Second World War. The project took him two years to complete and required extensive correspondence with poets, editors, and literary agents. The book's principal value was to provide "a forum for the many experimental poets working in the United States". In Allen's view, the poets he spotlighted were "our avant-garde, the true continuers of the modern movement in American poetry", and "inheritors of the innovations set in motion by Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams." Following the anthology's success, Allen planned to publish a revised edition every few years; however, he only produced two such books: New American Writing (Penguin, 1965) and The Postmoderns (Grove, 1965). In 1974, he co-edited with Warren Tallman a companion volume to The New American Poetry titled Poetics of the New American Poetry. ==Reception==

Critics who aligned with the poetry establishment were harsh in their appraisals of The New American Poetry. Cecil Hemley stated in The Hudson Review that the anthology is "a very eccentric version of what has been going on. It represents Mr. Allen's private view, and that is all, and it shows what happens when a narrow, dictatorial taste attempts to assert itself as authoritative. But if one overlooks the pretentious name and the confused preface with its outrageous claims, then one can examine the poetry with a little more dispassion. There are a number of good poems in the book, and it is unfair to damn all the contributors because of Mr. Allen's over-enthusiasm." John Simon was more acerbic, dismissing the "pseudo-poets" in the anthology as lacking in seriousness and artistic merit: Harvey Shapiro wrote one of the first favorable reviews of the book. Titled "Rebellious Mythmakers", it appeared in The New York Times Book Review in August 1960. ==Influence==

Over the decades, The New American Poetry has grown in stature and reputation. Poetry scholar Marjorie Perloff labeled the book "the fountainhead of radical American poetics" and added that "many now-classic poems first became known through Don Allen's anthology". Charles Bernstein said the anthology enabled Americans to "perceive a tradition that was different from the poetry of the 1940s and 1950s put forth by the American Academy in general, and by the New Critics in particular. The effect of this anthology has been staggering, and has helped to shape poetry since its publication." Ron Silliman called it "unquestionably the most influential single anthology of the last century. It's a great book, an epoch-making one in many ways." The New American Poetry was also influential in Canada where "it affected the writing of at least one generation of Canadian poets". It was said to have persuaded many Canadian poets to turn away from British influences and toward American models. Because Allen's search for new poetic voices often involved hunting through "fugitive pamphlets and little magazines", he brought newfound interest in America's non-mainstream publishers, some operating with just a mimeograph machine. Authors Steven Clay and Rodney Phillips said that Allen's book "might well be considered the 'flash point' for the renaissance in literary writing and small press publishing that would flourish within a few short years of its publication", and that "there was no more significant poetry anthology in the second half of the twentieth century". ==Further reading==