Neither Us nor Them: Poetry Anthologies, Canon Building and the Silencing of William Bronk by David Clippinger

Neither Us nor Them: Poetry Anthologies, Canon Building and the Silencing of William Bronk by David Clippinger

The twentieth century witnessed the proliferation of the poetry anthology, and perhaps none was so instrumental in reshaping the poetry canon than Donald Allen’s New American Poetry, which introduced many readers to the Beat writers, the Black Mountain School, as well as New York City poets. Allen’s anthology was organized around a concept of poetry communities, and was one of the first to foreground group “identity” as a canonical practice. As most readers of Donald Allen’s groundbreaking anthology are aware, William Bronk is not included in the cast of poets assembled within The New American Poetry. But what might be surprising to many is that Bronk was invited by Allen to contribute to the anthology and he was the final person to be cut from the final manuscript. Neither Us Nor Them uses William Bronk’s poetry and letters as a window to survey the construction of The New American Poetry anthology—as well as an opportunity to explore the generation of poetry communities as vital to the canon making process. The case of William Bronk is, therefore, illuminating both in terms of the late 1950s/early 1960s poetry scene as well as in the canonical debates that have occurred since then and rendered materially at the level of the anthology.

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