Chronicles the evolution of the position of consultant in poetry (in 1989, officially titled Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry) at the Library of Congress from the 1930s to the present. Poets highlighted include Howard Nemerov, Alan Tate, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Hayden, Joseph Brodsky, Rita Dove, and Stanley Kunitz. A sidebar discusses…

The protest poetry of Claude McKay, a leading writer of the Harlem Renaissance, is couched in the Western sonnet form. How the poetic form supports or conflicts with the messages of African-American pride and contempt for racism is examined. (SLD)

Intended to impart the basic ways a poem is constructed, this concise handbook is a prose guide to writing poetry. The handbook talks about meter and rhyme, form and diction, sound and sense, iambs and trochees, couplets and sonnets, and how and why this should matter to any person writing or reading poetry. Interspersing history and analysis with…

Presents suggestions for ensuring the survival and spread of African American art forms through wide dissemination and use in schools. Emphasizes poetry as one of many aspects of Black creative endeavors. Discusses the effects of the creative fervor of young Black poets of the 1960s on older, more renowned poets. (MK)

The works of four Native American poets, E. Pauline Johnson, Alexander Posey, John Rollin Ridge, and Gertrude Bonnin, are discussed with reference to the late 19th-century federal assimilation policies which were designed to absorb Native Americans into the mainstream of American life. (AN)

Discusses the reclusive life of Emily Dickinson, recounting the discovery of Dickinson's poems after her death. Concentrates on the problems Dickinson's sister encountered in securing an editor. Contends that Dickinson's poems were distorted by editors and critics, and includes the original version of "Because I Could Not Stop for…

Presented is a collection of poems from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries that have asked questions about the social consequences of science and technology. Discussed are the beliefs of poets toward scientific knowledge and advances in technology. (KR)

Cultural freedom involves the ability to recognize and participate imaginatively in the exploration of one's own environment for the sake of one's self and one's people and the ability to transcend that environment and speak to all people. Australian artists, writers, poets, music, and oral literature are discussed. (RM)

Discusses fu, a flowery form of rhetorical writing developed in China during the Han Dynasty. Provides historical background and criticisms of the genre. Emphasizes the feminine principle of fu rhetoric with its resort to pleasure, ornamentation, and flattery. Argues that what is considered love poetry was actually political allegory. (DK)