Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The 10 best American poems

At the Guardian, Jay Parini named the ten best American poems.

One poem on his list:
"Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

Whitman reinvents American poetry in this peerless self-performance, finding cadences that seem utterly his own yet somehow keyed to the energy and rhythms of a young nation waking to its own voice and vision. He calls to every poet after him, such as Ezra Pound, who notes in "A Pact" that Whitman "broke the new wood."
Read about another poem on the list.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman made Anne Trubek's list of six books that draw visitors to their authors' home towns.

--Marshal Zeringue