American Poetry and Culture, 1945–1980

“Robert von Hallberg has written a thoughtful, energetic, and discriminating refutation of the quaint proposition ‘Poetry is dead.’ In doing so, he has explored some of the best of the most recent poetry… It is the most serious treatment of our recent poetry available.”—Tom D’Evelyn, The Christian Science Monitor

“This is a wide-ranging and unusually interesting book.”—Lachlan Mackinnon, The Times Literary Supplement

“Here is excellent critical writing on an unusual and imaginative selection of poets, including James Merrill, Robert Lowell, and Edward Dorn. Von Hallberg’s discussion of these writers is especially insightful.”—L. Berk, Choice

“This is a bold and original book. It will enrage, it will provoke; at all events it should not be missed.”—Donald Davie

“Far the best account yet written of the post–World War II poetry scene in America.”—Jerome McGann