The Wesleyan Tradition: Four Decades of American Poetry

Wesleyan's characteristic independence in scooping up unfound poets and publishing them well--and in sustaining the ongoing publication of established writers like David Ignatow and James Tate--is shown to advantage in this anthology of work drawn from books issued over 34 years. James Wright, Donald Justice, James Dickey, Philip Levine, Ignatow and John Haines appear with 24 others in part one; Tate, Charles Wright and William Harmon, among others, in the ``second decade''; Elizabeth Spires, Heather McHugh, Garrett Hongo, Brenda Hillman, Yusef Komunyakaa et al., in part three; and Maria Flook, Joy Harjo and 11 more in part four, the last and most recent decade represented. Assembling such different writers could impose uneasy choices on a reader, if the quality weren't as high as the range is broad. Happily, no drastic choices are needed, but, as with all anthologies, readers are likely to linger more over some pages, return to others later and search out additional books by some of the writers. The fables of Russell Edson, witty and compressed, draw us into a gnarled and interesting place; the lyricism of Agha Shahid Ali wafts in, out; Gregory Orr's intensely personal drama tugs. A boon of the good anthology is a refusal to be summarized, and this one makes the refusal persuasively. (Dec.)