Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Poets Since World War II

American poets from 1945-1980 wrote with their own authority and grace, with the patronage of universities and the support of university presses giving more visibility to American poetry than it enjoyed earlier in the century. Rarely, for example, were poets forced to leave America to find an audience. An art capable of embodying and conveying the sense of personal existence has been the true search…of the poets since 1945, writes poet James Dickey in this DLB volumes foreword. They…have discovered what their own right relationship with the poetic form must be and so have, in a very valuable sense, created themselves. Dickey and 132 poets from this time period are covered in this volume.33 entries include A.R. Ammons, John Ashbery, Elizabeth Bishop, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Dickey, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowel, James Merrill, Howard Nemerov, Charles Olson, Adrienne Rich, Theodore Roethke, Richard Wilbur and Louis Zukofsky.