A history of American poetry / Richard Gray

1. The American Poem :- The United States the Greatest Poem ; The Poem is You ; The Breaking of the New Wood ; Forging the Uncreated Conscience of the Nation -- 2. Beginnings :- In My Beginning is My End ; The word and the Word: Colonial Poetry ; Towards the Secular: Colonial Poetry ; Writing Revolution: The Poetry of the Emergent Republic ; Across the Great Divide: Poetry of the South and the North ; To Sing the Nation: American Poetic Voices 69 To Sing of Freedom: African American Voices ; Looking Before and After: Poetic Voices of Region and Nation -- 3. The Turn to the Modern: Imagism, Objectivism, and Some Major Innovators ; The Revolution is Accomplished ; The Significance of Imagism ; From Imagism to Objectivism or Dream ; From Imagism to the Redemption of History ; From Imagism to Contact and Community ; From Imagism to Discovery of the Imagination -- 4. In Search of a Past: The Fugitive Movement and the Major Traditionalists :- The Precious, the Incommunicable Past ; The Significance of the Fugitives ; Traditionalism and the South ; Traditionalism Outside the South ; Traditionalism, Skepticism, and Tragedy ; Traditionalism, Quiet Desperation, and Belief ; Traditionalism, Inhumanism, and Prophecy -- 5. The Traditions of Whitman: Other Poets from Between the Wars ; Make this America for Us! ; Whitman and American Populism ; Whitman and American Radicalism ; Whitman, American Identity, and African American Poetry ; Whitman and American Individualism ; Whitman and American Experimentalism ; Whitman and American Mysticism -- 6. Formalists and Confessionals: American Poetry since World War II :- A Sad Heart at the Supermarket ; From the Mythological Eye to the Lonely "I": A Progress of American Poetry since the War ; Varieties of the Personal: The Self as Dream, Landscape, or Confession ; From Formalism to Freedom: A Progress of American Poetic Techniques since the War ; The Imagination of Commitment: A Progress of American Poetic Themes since the War ; The Uses of Formalism ; The Confessional "I" as Primitive ; The Confessional "I" as Historian ; The Confessional "I" as Martyr ; The Confessional "I" as Prophet ; New Formalists, New Confessionals -- 7. Beats, Prophets, and Aesthetes: American Poetry since World War II :- Who Am I? ; Rediscovering the American Voice: The Black Mountain Poets ; Restoring the American Vision: The San Francisco Poets ; Recreating American Rhythms: The Beat Poets ; Resurrecting the American Rebel: African American Poetry ; Reinventing the American Self: The New York Poets ; And the Beat Goes On: American Poetry and Virtual Reality -- 8. The Languages of American Poetry and the Language of Crisis: American Poetry into the Twenty-First Century :- What is the Language of American Literature? ; The Actuality of Words: The Language Poets ; The Necessity of Audience: The New Formalists ; Remapping the Nation: Chicano/a and Latino/a Poetry ; Improvising America: Asian American Poetry ; New and Ancient Songs: The Return of the Native American ; Legends of the Fall: American Poetry and Crisis -- Epilogue: What Is an American? The Problem of Literary Nationality -- Index