American Epic Poems of the 20th Century

(New Directions, 1996 reprint) Begun in 1917, the complete Cantos were published in 1970. Pound’s time traveling polyglot history of the universe is the birth of modernism.

(University of California Press, 1995 reissue) Olson creates a myth out of the U.S., gives voice to the land of Gloucester. When it was out of print, a tragedy—kudos to UC for printing The Maximus Poems again.

((New Directions, 1995 reprint) While the Cantos’ beat is universe, history as literature, and Maximus is mythologizing America and open field, the Good Doctor never has to leave New Jersey to get the epic to sing. Newspaper clippings, found poems, et al....

(Liveright Publishing, 1992 reprint) Crane’s lyrics pull you beyond sense, into the singing cables and the deadly seduction of the bridge. Shorter than most epics, and somehow both dense and flying.

(Lost Roads, 2000) As we’ve said before, this is the epic of the last half of the 20th century. What else can you say about a 400-page book that is not only a single poem but a single sentence? Seeing through the eyes of a mindreading poet-type Ozark kid who hangs out across the race line is like discovering a new language.

(Black Sparrow Press, 1978 & 1979) Subtitled “Recitative,” this extraordinary work by the great Objectivist poet comprises two volumes of straightforward narratives of crimes and punishments from U.S. court records—damning and brilliant.

(Viking Penguin, 1996) Rejoice! The ugly device of punctuating with quotation marks easily gives way to a myth that is Dante from Beatrice’s perspective. No. From a modern U.S. woman’s perspective, a view of the nature of nature as seen from a giant snake that may be a subway. An astonishing, invigorating book.

(Noonday Press, 1997) A lost treasure of surrealism, recently back in print.

(Vintage Books, 1991) Jingling rhymes and high wit in this tale of California dreamers. Seth takes on a cross-section of the Bay Area, and archly dissects the scene.