Two Anthologies Institutionalizing Innovative American Poetry: Ron Silliman’s In the American Tree and Douglas Messerli’s «Language» Poetries

Abstract

Dos antologías de poesía innovadora americana publicadas en los años ochenta del siglo XX, In the American Tree (1986) y «Language» Poetries: An Anthology (1987), confirmaron una ruptura de esta poesía con el Modernismo y una ligazón de carácter multidisciplinar que les confiere un carácter singular por sus relaciones con el marxismo, el formalismo ruso, la poesía zaum, el postestructuralismo, la desconstrucción, Gertrude Stein, la Escuela de Frankfurt, Louis Zukofsky, Wittgenstein o el postmodernismo. En este ensayo presento el escenario histórico y aquellas prácticas que siguieron los editores de ambas antologías para compilar a los diferentes colaboradores. Estas dos antologías se han convertido en referentes obligados para todos aquellos que se acercan a esta poesía innovadora, siendo respaldada tanto por la academia como por la iniciativa editorial privada.

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.