Two anthologies institutionalizing innovative American poetryRon Silliman's "In the American Tree" and Douglas Messerli's "Language poetries"

Abstract

«Two Anthologies Instituionalizing Innovative American Poetry: Ron Silliman’s In the American Tree and Douglas Messerli’s ‘Language’ Poetries». Ron Silliman’s and Douglas Messerli’s anthologies, In the American Tree (1986) and «Language» Poetries: An Anthology (1987), definitely broke with Modernism and wed American poetry to various poetic approaches and disciplines, like Marxism, Russian Formalism, zaum poetry, post-structuralism, Deconstruction, Gertrude Stein, Frankfurt School, Louis Zukofsky, Wittgenstein, or Postmodernism. My characterization of this historical scenario and communal practices proclaims the value of these anthologies as a consensual vehicle to extend the influence of these poets on diverse contemporary scenes. Both anthologies can thus be considered as decisive referential collections because they definitely helped to widen the public audience and were backed by publishers with academic and commercial weight. Many readers, no doubt, were drawn to difficult issues so characteristic of this kind of poetry.