From Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and John Berryman to Allen Ginsburg, John Ashbery, and Frank O'Hara, here are the iconic poets of the past half-century, men and women who have used and reshaped the American language in all its vigorous, daring, tender, and intimate depth and breadth.
Dazzling in its range, exhilarating in its immediacy and grace, this collection gathers together, from every region of the country and from the past forty years, the poems that continue to shape our imaginations. From Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich, to Robert Haas and Louise Gl ck, this anthology takes the full measure of our poetry's daring energies and its tender understandings.

Other poets include:
Sylvia Plath
James Merrill
Amy clampitt
Jorie Graham
W. S. Merwin
Charles Simic
Allen Ginsberg
Frank O'Hara
Anne Sexton
Robert Creeley
Sharon Olds
Mary Oliver
Robert Pinsky
Mark Strand
Denise Levertov
Richard Wilbur
May Swenson
Michael Palmer
Mark Doty
Yusef Komunyakaa