Resources for Teachers
Bennett, Paula, Karen L. Kilcup, and Philipp Schweighauser. Teaching nineteenth-century American poetry . . New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2007. A Good Overview of the challenges in teaching 19th century poetry, especially contrasting the Gilded Age with the American Renaissance.
Bloom, Harold. Robert Lowell. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. Provides chronological critical essays which convey the shifting opinions towards Lowell—from his initial elevated position to his reassassment as a major—not preeminent—figure.
Ellmann, Richard, Robert Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, vol.2 . New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003. Extensive collection of later 20th century works and instructive historical background information.
Jackson-Ford, Karen. ""The Sonnets of Satin-Legs Brooks"." Contemporary Literature, 2007: 345-373. Critical analyis of the reason for Brooks' shift from formalist to anti-formalist poet in the late 1960s; this provides valuable insights to her poetic philosophy.
Lowney, John. History, Memory, and the Literary Left: Modern American, 1935-1968. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006. This work indicates the change in political poetry in the wake of the Great Depression through to the Great Society and its deflating effect on activist poetry.
Marzano, Robert, Debra J. Pickering. Building Academic Vocabulary: Teacher's Manual. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. An excellent resource for planning instruction of terms and terminology.
Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Continuity of American Poetry. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1987. Pearce provides a compelling thesis as to the arc of American Poetry and focuses on seminal poets and their impact.
Vendler, Helen. The given and the made: strategies of poetic redefinition. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1995. Interesting insights as to the division between the inner and the public views and lives of poets.
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