The Introduction to “The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry,” written by Rita Dove and criticized by Helen Vendler in a response entitled “Are These the Poems to Remember,” listed names of black and white poets which Rita Dove sensed they were important to list to which Helen Vendler didn’t quite share the same beliefs, henceforth the criticism by Helen Vendler. The introduction speaks of time during American industrialization, such as World War 1, World War 2, The Civil War, the Great Depression, etc. and how the art poetry during these times gave hope and/or changed perspectives and views, also how these times changed poetry. She also jumps back and forth between the 19^th century and the 20^th century speaking of past poets, their works, their writing styles, and achievements.

                She begins sections in her introduction with a line from a poem then displays who wrote the quote. For instance, she began one of the sections by quoting Delmore Schwartz, a poet, Caucasian, from Brooklyn, New York who won the Bollingen Prize. His quote makes the statement, “The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.” This statement by itself could have more than one meaning. It could mean everyone is so hungry, metaphorically, to get “theirs” or what they want during a time of suffrage for the Americans. Or, secondly, it could mean a hunger struggle or people battling against their own hunger. After penning this quote, Dove gives us the names of poets who served in the Second World War in the army, navy and air force such as, Kenneth Koch, Robert Bly, and James Dickey, to proclaim these poets to have been “conscientious objectors.” A conscientious objector is a person who, for reasons of conscience, objects to following a particular requirement, especially serving in the armed forces (google dictionary). In other words, it is an individual who refuses to serve on the grounds of religion, conscience, and freedom of thought.

Dove remembered these poets because the aftermath “opened American consciousness” to concepts such as, absurdism (the belief of human existence being meaningless) and nihilism (the belief of life being meaningless). This, in my opinion, is written down by Dove to explain how poets began to develop their own style of writing because of the opened consciousness during this time of despair and hope. Coming to a breakthrough of no longer being held back or “indebted to the old British school of articulate reasoned oratory and less beholden to social, ethnic, or regional confines…” She then jumps to metaphorical characteristics and traits to describe the new and “fresh” style of other writers such as Langston Hughes, claiming he moved from the “decorous pronouncements of his Harlem Renaissance poems” to his poems now being infused with a jazz and bebop rhythm. Dove then compares Margaret Walker’s poem For My People to a black sermon and stating her achievement as the first African American poet to win the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Obviously, she was also the first African American female poet to win the prize as well. Soon after, Dove pens about another African American female poet who won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and the first huge recognition of a nonwhite poet, with her second book entitled Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks. Dove declares, Gwendolyn Brooks not only won a Prize for her second book, but Gwendolyn’s first book, “confirmed that black women can express themselves in poems as richly innovative as the best male poets of any race.”

There were events happening in the African American community surrounding the 1950’s time period. Other than Gwendolyn Brooks winning the Pulitzer Prize, Supreme Court case justices ruled racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional with the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court case on May 17, 1954. A year later, on September 6, 1955, the funeral of Emmett Till took place in Mississippi, the state where he was killed. It was during this 1950 time period Dove suggests African American influences were increasingly permeating mainstream life and art. I am suggesting this means, the African American culture influenced the mainstream of poetry. In other words, the influence of African American culture was penetrating the American culture of life and art and changing it. Jazz and blues went North, scat singing evolved into bebop and the “musical innovation and improvisation loosened screws on other traditions as well…” Possibly, also in my own opinion, influencing the writing style in Howl written by Allen Ginsberg which Dove describes the personal style stood as an “unabashed antiestablishment stance and confessional rawness” ultimatum. The African American culture around this time seemed to have their own style of writing and a bit of confessional rawness because of the voice they were then trying to have. In Dove’s words the Black Arts movement was “a necessary explosion.” Dove goes on to elaborate, the Black Arts Movement was hitting targets they did not aim for. White students were wearing dashikis and crooning to Marvin Gaye. Could this have been the start of culture appropriation? This success inspired feminist poets, Native Americans, Hispanics, gays, and Asian Americans to use their neglected voices. Though the Black Arts movement was making an influence on other cultures, Dove states there was a lack of African Americans in poetry establishments. Though how could this be if African Americans made an impact with their art and style and rhythm in their poetic pieces? Are black poets in 20^th century appreciated as an influence in poetry, or are they only appreciated in the black community for influencing and new black aesthetic, or way of writing?