Post Modern America
1965-Present Day
B Y: K AT I E E I L E R M A N A N D S I E R A S W O B
Authors
 Rosmarie Waldrop
 Charles Olson
 Robert Duncan
 Nathaniel Mackey
 Frank O’Hara
 Susan Howe
Rosmarie Waldrop
 Rosmarie is the author of more than three dozen books of poetry.
 She spent a year in Paris where she met many French poets.
While these great poets influenced many of her works, she
translated their poems into English where the could be introduced
in America.
 Rosmarie’s honors include: the Rhode Island Governor's Arts
Award, the PEN/Book-of-the-Month-Club Citation for
Translation, a Translation Center Award, and Fellowships from
the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry and Translation.
 Some of her poetry books include: Splitting Image, Blindsight,
and Love like pronouns.
 In her poetry, she wrote about everyday life and allowed people
to reflect and relate to her poetry.
Charles Olson
 Was a second generation American modernist poet
 Most of his works tend to explore social, historical, and
political concerns.
 Charles invented the term “postmodern” in a letter he
sent to his friend, Robert Creeley.
 Some of his major works include: The Kingfishers, Only
the red fox, only the crow, and The Maximus Poems.
Robert Duncan
 He is described as one of the move accomplished, one of the
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most influential of the postwar American poets.
His poems drew on myth, occultism, religion, and innovative
writing practices.
His childhood experiences shape his poems, and he was
encouraged to write by his high school English teacher.
He was an important part of the Black Mountain school of
poetry
Some of his main works are;
Heavenly City Earthly City (1947), The Opening of the Field
(1960), Roots and Branches (1964), A Book of Resemblances
(1966), Bending the Bow (1968), and After a 15-year
publishing hiatus
Nathaniel Mackey
 He was a poet, novelist, editor, and critic.
 He believes music and poetry are closely related.
 “I try to cultivate the music of language, which is not just sounds. It’s
also meaning and implication. It’s also nuance. It’s also a kind of
angular suggestion.”
 He has taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz,
since 1979
 His major works are;
Splay Anthem (2006) and Eroding Witness (1985),Bass
Cathedral (2007)
Frank O’Hara
 Frank was deliriously funny and very moving in his
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poems
He made everyday activities sound better and would make
jokes out of them
He would take conversations he heard and turn them into
funny poems
His life was cut short by a dune buggy accident
Some of his poems include: A Note to Harold Fondren, A
Step Away from Them, and A Wreath for John
Wheelwright
Susan Howe
 Susan is an American poet, scholar, essayist and critic.
 She is closely associated with the Language Poets, which is a
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group of poets who emerged in the late 1960’s.
Her work is often classified as Postmodern because it expands
traditional ideas of genre (fiction, essay, style and poetry).
Many of Howe's books contains poetic echoes of sound, but is
not pinned down by a consistent poetic rhyme scheme.
She is the recipient of the 2011 Bollingen Prize in American
Poetry.
Some of her major works include: Europe of Trusts: Selected
Poems, Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979, and The
Midnight.
Major Works
 As the Dead Prey Upon Us-Charles Olson
 A Little Language-Robert Duncan
 The Round World-Rosmarie Waldrop
 In Favor of One’s Time-Frank O’hara
 Soonest Mended-John Ashbery
As the Dead Pray Upon Us
 This poem uses a variety of stanza patterns.
It really shows Olson’s strategies for writing.
 This work is a projective poem about living,
death, the mind, relationships, history and
politics, war, and conflict.
A Little Language
 This poem was a very distinct one for him. It related
to him in a lot of the ways that all of his poems do,
but really captured the subjects of the postmodern
time period.
 This poem was about religion, pets, animals,
relationships, nature, language and linguistics, and
art and sciences.
The Round World
 In this poem, Rosmarie Waldrop created an illusion
with her spacing and her words. She used spaces to
emphasize the poem and dramatize it.
 In the poem she talks about how the eye’s can see
what is truly there and looking out our own eye may
even be what is best or may be a habit.
In Favor of One’s Time
 In this poem, Frank speaks of the stages of life and
holds an allusion in the bible speaking of Jacob.
 Frank O’hara talks about how we live outside His
garden and how we await to be with him. He thinks
that living isn’t the greatest adventure we have had
or are having, it is when we become with Him. He
explains how we don’t remember the marvelous
memories when we die, but will have more memories
being with Him.
Soonest Mended
 In this poem, John Ashbery talks about the
minorities in America. In his mind, minority refers
to the amount of power held in American society. It
includes people of all different races and ages with
distinct jobs and ways of life. He compares it with
the majority, which include social leaders and the
government.
 Also, he talks about how technology is corrupting
American life and how American’s, by using this
technology, are feeding more and more power into
the “leaders”.
Characteristics:
 This era was an incredibly positive and optimistic time period.
 Began after World War II
 However, there was also fear of:
nuclear war
 no longer any order
 the rise of middle class
 Also, the poetry in this period included much:
 Irony
 Black humor
 Playfulness
 Temporal distortion
 Magic Realism
 Paranoia
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Anticipated Stranger-By John Ashbery
the bruise will stop by later.
For now, the pain pauses in its round,
notes the time of day, the patient’s temperature,
leaves a memo for the surrogate: What the hell did you think
you were doing? I mean . . .
Oh well, less said the better, they all say.
I’ll post this at the desk.
God will find the pattern and break it.
Analysis
 Title-Anticipated Stranger
 Author-John Ashbery
 Style-personal, unclearly narrative, full of allusion
and metaphor, no rhyme scheme
 Devices-Metaphor, allusion, apostrophe
 POV-Nurse
 Both implied and literal meaning
Analysis
 The bruises will come later and the pain comes and
goes because of the medicine that the nurse gives
every once in awhile. The nurse notes the patient’s
temperature and the time to know when she gave the
medicine. She then writes a note to the woman who
may have filled in for her and was mad because she
may have messed something up. The last line “God
will find the pattern and break it” may mean that god
is the one who will decide what happens and what it
happens.