Introduction To American Poetry

Poetry of the United States
American Literature

Introduction
The poetry of the United States naturally arose first during its beginnings as theConstitutionally-unified thirteen colonies (although prior to this, a strong oral tradition often likened to poetry existed among Native American societies). Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists' work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American style began to emerge. By the later part of that century, when Walt Whitman waswinning an enthusiastic audience abroad, poets from the United States had begun to take their place at the forefront of the English-language vanguard.
This position was sustained into the 20th century by young poets ,mainly by those in Europe, who looked to their American contemporaries and predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write. Toward the end of the millennium,consideration of American poetry had diversified, as scholars placed an increased emphasis on poetry by women, African Americans, Hispanics, Chicanos and other sub cultural groupings. Poetry, and creative writing in general, also tended to become more professionalized with the growth of creative writing programs in the English studies departments of campuses across the country.

Poetry in theColonies

One of the first recorded poets of the British colonies was Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672), who remains one of the earliest known women poets who wrote in English. The poems she published during her lifetime address religious and political themes. She also wrote tender evocations of home and family life. Edward Taylor (1645–1729) wrote poems expounding Puritan virtues in a highly metaphysicalstyle that can be seen as typical of the early colonial period.(17th century)
This narrow focus on the Puritan ethic was, understandably, the dominant note of most of the poetry written in the colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries.
The 18th century saw an increasing emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets. This trend is most evident in the works of PhilipFreneau (1752–1832), who is also notable for the unusually sympathetic attitude to Native Americans shown in his writings.
On the whole, the development of poetry in the American colonies mirrored the development of the colonies themselves. The early poetry was dominated by the need to preserve the integrity of the Puritan ideals that created the settlement in the first place. As the colonists grew inconfidence, the poetry they wrote increasingly reflected their drive towards independence.

Postcolonial Poetry

The first significant poet of the independent United States was William Cullen Bryant whose great contribution was to write poems on the grandeur of prairies and forests. Other notable poets to emerge in the early and middle 19th century include Ralph Waldo Emerson , Edgar AllanPoe, Henry David Thoreau , James Russell Lowell , and Sidney Lanier. As might be expected, the works of these writers are united by a common search for a distinctive American voice to distinguish them from their British counterparts. To this end, they explored the landscape and traditions of their native country as materials for their poetry.
Another factor that distinguished these poets fromtheir British contemporaries was the influence of the transcendentalism of the poet/philosophers Emerson and Thoreau. Transcendentalism was the distinctly American strain of English Romanticism that began with William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Emerson, arguably one of the founders of transcendentalism, had visited England as a young man to meet these two English poets.
Edgar Allan...