A classic and epochal anthology of the poetry of the early avant-garde, from the fabled to the forgotten
Jerome Rothenberg has raised the anthology to an art form. His most recent publication, Poems for the Millennium (University of California Press, 1995) reevaluates Modernism from a global perspective. Shaking the Pumpkin (1972) and America a Prophecy (1973) diversified the canon long before "multi-culturalism." And his 1974 Revolution of the Word remains an unparalleled collection of American avant-garde writing from between the wars. Nearly 25 years after its first publication, this long out-of-print collection is still xeroxed for college courses because it contains works that are otherwise unavailable (by Else von Freytag-Loringhoven, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, et al.), and because it places some of the most popular writers of the century-e.e cummings, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein-in their original context: the anarchistic experimentation of early Modernism.
Jerome Rothenberg has raised the anthology to an art form. Poems for the Millenium (U. of California, 1995/7) reevaluated modernism from a global perspective. America a Prophecy diversified the canon long before "multiculturalism". And his 1973 Revolution of the Word remains the unparalleled collection of American avant garde writing from between the wars. Out of print for 20 years, it is routinely xeroxed for college courses both because it contains works that are otherwise unavailable, and because it places some of the most popular writers of the century -- e.e cummings, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein -- in their original context. A classic and influential publication that deserves to be in every poetry collection.
