From William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg to Miguel Algarín and Wanda Coleman, this groundbreaking book explores the ways in which contemporary poets have engaged with America’s changing urban experience since 1945. City Poems and American Urban Crisis brings post-war American poetry into conversation with developments in city planning, activism, and urban theory to demonstrate that taking city poetry seriously as a mode of analysis and critique can enhance our attempts to produce more just and equitable urban futures.Poets covered include: Miguel Algarín, Gwendolyn Brooks, Wanda Coleman, Allen Ginsberg, Lewis MacAdams, Charles Olson, George Oppen, and William Carlos Williams.
Nate Mickelson is Assistant Professor of English and City Seminar Coordinator at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, City University of New York, USA.
AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations Introduction: City Poems and American Urban Crisis1. Writing Around Williams: Paterson and Experimental Urban Poetics2. Community and Crisis in Los Angeles Poetry3. The “Curious” Languages of New York: George Oppen and Critical Urban Theory4. Reading “Bronzeville”: Poetics of Neighborhood I5. Organizing “El Barrio” and the “Loisaida”: Poetics of Neighborhood II6. Poetry and Progressive PlanningReferencesIndex
A refreshing text which uses poetry about the city as an entry point to engage the imagination in understanding cities and also imagining what they could be … Nate Mickelson has created an inspiring text that can help empower readers and their communities … a worthwhile read for planners, poets, community activists and anyone wishing to be inspired to create the existing and future worlds in their mind.