Critic Burt (English, Harvard Univ.) here analyzes 60 contemporary poems. His critique is not only accessible to most all readers, but it also shows his depth of knowledge and love of American poetry. His essays are very good at finding the meaning of the work while placing each poem in context within the landscape of poetry. The poets selected for this book are a solid representation of the direction that the genre has taken in the early 21st century, ranging from Robert Creeley and Rita Dove to Claudia Rankine and Gabby Bess. With these selections, Burt shows that he is keeping up with the trends and that there is no standard definition of modern American verse. Instead, there are sometimes competing, sometimes complementary, diverse versions and viewpoints. By placing them all together in one anthology, equal respect is given to each of the featured pieces, highlighting even lesser-known writers or those working on the outer fringes of traditional American poetry. VERDICT This book is for anyone interested in the state of American poetry today--academic and general readers alike will find it engaging. For public libraries and libraries with special poetry collections.-Jeremy Spencer, Univ. of California, Davis, Law Lib. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Poet and critic Burt's (Belmont) ambitious anthology of recent poems by American authors, from 1981 to 2015, creates a coherent body of work out of the vast landscape of recent American poetry. Burt's 60 selections are eclectic, mingling instantly recognizable names (John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich) with newer talents (Lucia Perillo, Claudia Rankine.) His short reflections don't offer close reading so much as thorough contextual grounding, lingering more on biography, traditions, influences, criticism, and social critique than on form, scansion, and imagery. Burt's many ways of looking at a poem will inspire new students and accomplished poets, especially as many of his meditations circle the question of what poetry does, or should do: making readers pay attention, ask questions, and experience new things. Burt's formidable breadth of knowledge about the practice of poetry, from Virgil up to 2015, allows him to make nimble connections among authors and establish an ars poetica for current American lyric poetry, an impressive feat given the diverse selection just within this book, in which "the recondite and the demotic, the accessible and the challenging, mingle." (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Poet, critic, and scholar Stephen Burt (Harvard) offers here a unique book that is both an anthology of contemporary US poetry and a work of elegant criticism. He selected 60 poems (all written since 1980) by 60 poets (some recognizable to general, informed readers and many not) and for each provides a brief sensitive, close reading along with helpful background context. One learns how each poem fits into a body of work that is itself situated within the larger culture of contemporary poetry. Some readers might wonder about the omission of any number of poets, including some luminaries and poets laureate. In his rich, informative introduction, Burt explains that his selection does not imagine any hierarchy of US contemporary poetry--quite the contrary. He is most interested in trends and tendencies, and the book is most valuable in demonstrating the variety, diversity, and vibrancy of contemporary American poetry. Each essay is a tribute to the poem being discussed and to the art of poetry itself. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. --Barry Wallenstein, CUNY City College