Modern poetry is markedly different from classic poetry. It relies less on meter and rhyme, and focuses more on biographical events and the everyday experiences of people. So why isn’t poetry more ...

Many a critic, determined to speak with clarity and certitude upon the dauntingly ambiguous subject of modern poetry in English—or upon modernism in general, for that matter—has found himself invoking ...

Poets are not the world's most visible celebrities. But an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., puts faces to verse, and... For Modern American Poets, A 'Likeness' Could ...

THE WORLD’S BODY—John Crowe Ransom—Scribner ($2.75). There is no primer of modern poetry. Readers who are intimidated by its obscurity soon find that most prose explanations tend to become almost as ...

Strolling around Disneyland this summer, re-acquainting myself with Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Mister Toad, Simba, and so on, the following reflection occurred to me: that these strange imagined ...

MID-CENTURY AMERICAN POETS (300 pp )—Edited by John Ciardi—Tv/ayne ($4). Anthologist Ciardi, a Harvard professor and minor poet, 33, asked 15 “younger poets” (several are in their 403) to contribute a ...