The Wadsworth Themes American Literature Series, 1945-Present, Theme 17: Race and Ethnicity in the Melting Pot
Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, and biographer. He is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. Among his books are THE LAST STATION (Holt, 1990), BENJAMIN'S CROSSING (Holt, 1997), THE ART OF SUBTRACTION: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (Braziller, 2005), and WHY POETRY MATTERS (Yale, 2008). He has written biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, and William Faulkner. He has edited numerous books, including THE OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE (Oxford, 2004) and THE WADSWORTH ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY (Wadsworth, 2006).Henry Hart is the Mildred and J.B. Hickman Professor of Humanities in the English Department at The College of William and Mary. He has published numerous critical books on modern poets, including THE POETRY OF GEOFFREY HILL (SIU Press, 1986), SEAMUS HEANEY: POET OF CONTRARY PROGRESSIONS (Syracuse UP, 1991), ROBERT LOWELL AND THE SUBLIME (Syracuse UP, 1995), and THE JAMES DICKEY READER (Touchstone, 1999). His biography, JAMES DICKEY: THE WORLD AS LIE (St. Martins, 2000), was runner-up for a Southern Book Critics' Circle Award. He has also published three books of poetry: THE GHOST SHIP (Blue Moon Books,1990), THE ROOSTER MASK (University of Illinois Press, 1998), and BACKGROUND RADIATION (Salt, 2007). He serves as managing editor of VERSE, a poetry magazine he helped found in 1984. His essays and poems have appeared in journals such as THE NEW YORKER, POETRY, THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, DENVER QUARTERLY, THE GETTYSBURG REVIEW, THE GEORGIA REVIEW, THE KENYON REVIEW, and TWENTIETH CENTURY LITERATURE.