“Cane” by Jean Toomer is considered a modernist classic, compared favorably and critically to the works of William Faulkner.
What Made 1922 a Literary Watershed Year?
In 1922, everything changed in literature, as James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” brought modernism to fiction and poetry.
“The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens” by Paul Mariani
In “The Whole Harmonium,” biographer and poet Paul Mariani tells the story of Wallace Stevens, poet, philosopher, insurance executive, and family man.
Poets and Poems: Hart Crane, “The Bridge” and Me
Reading “The Bridge” by Hart Crane is an exploration into the love for the literature of Realism and Modernism – and the reasons for that love.
Poets and Poems: Thomas Merton and “In the Dark Before Dawn”
Thomas Merton continues to exert a significant pull on the imagination, the intellect, and the conscience.
Poetry: The Teachers Who Teach Us
The teachers we have in middle school and high school can have a profound influence on how we understand and appreciate poetry throughout our lives.
Poet Focus: Marianne Moore
For all of her modernist associations, Marianne Moore’s poetry didn’t exactly fit the category. There’s a richness, almost a lushness, in many of her poems that’s absent from the moderns. She ranged over history and literature — Rome and Greece, Britain and Ireland, and America — as well as music and the natural world.