Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry, Vol. 2

Reading this volume of Joris/Rothenberg's excellent anthology of experimental poetic movements was a much different experience from reading the first volume, which covered the first half of the century. With the first volume I was thrilled to read so many influential poets and very conscious of how many of them affected the poets who came immediately after. With this volume, I wasn't as taken with as many poets and I found myself at a loss to interpret/feel/make significant-meaning-of many of the poems throughout. Perhaps this has to do with the inability of the editors to "act as distant and objective viewers but as witnesses and even partisans for the works at hand" (the introduction). Certainly there is a lack of distance for many of these works (how, for example, do we process Will Alexander's place in our century's poetic continuum). Joris and Rothenberg were also not shy about including their own work, several times, in several places. It is true, Rothenberg in particular does have a very justified place in this volume, but still, we started with Charles Olson, ending with Rothenberg's Prologomena to a Poetics felt underwhelming. Just my opinion, but Robert Duncan in the finale would have felt more appropriate.

As in the first volume, the commentary was insightful and very necessary. Often, I found the commentary a lot more interesting than the poems themselves. Often. Though I think this has more to do with the state of poetry in the later half of the century than the choices in this anthology. Nothing is as certain as it seemed to be in the early days of writing. Directions, even anti-directions are diffused, intellectual ideas are murky. This is the world we live in and it is impossible to write poetry the way we did in the past.

Still no answer to the greatest mystery running through both volumes, however. I'll have to read volume 3 to see if they enlighten the reader, or else live my life never understanding why on earth they have a problem with the word "and" and insist on using the ampersand in its place. Is this a political thing I missed out on? Are we reclaiming the ampersand much like Prince ("The Artist") thwarted words when renaming himself with a symbol? What's the deal here?

These are hefty volumes of poetry & I definitely recommend them, but not out of order. I think it's important to read volume one before volume two in order to better understand the trajectory of Rothenberg/Joris' project.

Typically I take my time with volumes of poetry. I tend to have one author or anthology going at all times as a kind of marginal supplement to my main reading focus. Indeed, that is how I initially approached this volume. Very quickly, however, I found all my other reading displaced by this intelligent and inspired collection of verse, which spans the most significant pre-World War II movements in poetry.

The selection of poets and the deft commentary by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris are so well accomplished I was actually a little disappointed when I came to the end of this 800 page tome. Fortunately there are two more volumes picking up where this one leaves off.

I really can't recommend this enough to anyone. Really, any reader. Not just poetry geeks. Not only do I think poetry is dangerously undervalued in our current educational structure (I'm looking at you, streamlined science/engineering major) and therefore, should be encouraged at every turn, but even a cursory reading of this anthology will leave the reader with a greater sense of poetry's importance (necessity) in the intellectual development of the world but also its intermingled origins and correspondence with more popular main stream movements. This book is that good. It takes a poet like Gertrude Stein and drops her in the midst of a context that makes works like Tender Buttons not seem so out of reach or discouraging.

Read this book. It will open up entire worlds for you.