Synopses & Reviews
Unrivaled diversity and ease of use have made THE HEATH ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: VOLUME E: CONTEMPORARY PERIOD (1945 TO THE PRESENT), Seventh Edition, a best-selling text since 1989, when the first edition was published. In presenting a more inclusive canon of American literature, THE HEATH ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE: VOLUME E: CONTEMPORARY PERIOD (1945 TO THE PRESENT), Seventh Edition, continues to balance the traditional, leading names in American literature with lesser-known writers. Available in five volumes for greater flexibility, the seventh edition offers thematic groupings of readings, called "In Focus," to stimulate classroom discussions and showcase the treatment of important topics across the genres.
Review
"The reason I chose to use the Heath Anthology is because it strikes a very good balance between ethnicities, men, women, and canonical and non-canonical authors. I have used it since 2002 for these reasons. The introductions to the sections are also very good for students because the introductions stress the social, economic, and political happenings of the period."
Review
"Volume E adopts an effective blend of authors representative of different colors, cultures, and gender in its selections."
About the Author
Paul Lauter is the Smith Professor of Literature at Trinity College. He has served as president of the American Studies Association and is a major figure in the revision of the American literary canon. Richard Yarborough is Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of California-Los Angeles. His work focuses on African American literature and on the construction of race in U.S. culture. He directs the University Press of New England's Library of Black Literature series. John Alberti teaches at Northern Kentucky University and has a Ph.D. in American literature from UCLA. His main area of research is multicultural American literature and culture. Mary Pat Brady teaches U.S. Literature. She has written extensively on contemporary U.S. Latino literature. Dr. Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation) is associate professor of First Nations Studies and English at the University of British Columbia. In addition to numerous essays on Indigenous literature and cultural history, he is the author of Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History, and the Indigenous fantasy epic, The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles.
Table of Contents
Preface. CONTEMPORARY PERIOD: 1945 TO THE PRESENT. The Late 1940s and 1950s: Victory Culture. Hisaye Yamamoto (1921-2011). Seventeen Syllables. Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). The Fish. The Man-Moth. At the Fishhouses. Filling Station. Theodore Roethke (1908-1963). Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze. Root Cellar. Big Wind. My Papa's Waltz. Elegy. Ralph Ellison (1914-1994). A Party Down at the Square. Flying Home. Brave Words for a Startling Occasion. John Cheever (1912-1982). The Enormous Radio. Saul Bellow (1915-2005). Looking for Mr. Green. Charles Olson (1910-1970). For Sappho, Back. I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You. Maximus, to Himself. Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Bienvenido Santos (1911-1996). Scent of Apples. Tillie Lerner Olsen (1913-2007). O Yes. Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). The Magic Barrel. Arthur Miller (1915-2005). A View from the Bridge. Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000). The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith. The Mother. We Real Cool. A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon. The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till. Ulysses. Mitsuye Yamada (b. 1923). From Camp Notes. James Baldwin (1924-1987). Sonny's Blues. Philip Roth (b. 1933). You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Sings. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983). Suddenly, Last Summer. In Focus: The Beat Movement. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). A Supermarket in California. Howl. America. Jack Kerouac (1922-1969). The Vanishing American Hobo. From Mexico City Blues: 43rd Chorus and 211th Chorus. Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919). I Am Waiting. Dove Sta Amore . . . The Old Italians Dying. Brenda (Bonnie) Frazer (b. 1939). from Troia: Mexican Memoirs. Joyce Johnson (b. 1934). from Door Wide Open. from Minor Characters. Gary Snyder (b. 1930). Riprap. Vapor Trails. Wave. It Was When. Albert Saijo (b. 1926). Bodhisattva Vows. from Trip Trap (with Lew Welch and Jack Kerouac). Your Head. The 1960s: Postmodernism and Other Violent Changes. Robert Lowell, Jr. (1917-1977). Skunk Hour. For Theodore Roethke. For the Union Dead. Near the Ocean. Thomas Pynchon (b. 1937). Entropy. Robert Creeley (1926-2005). Hart Crane. I Know a Man. For Love. Words. America. Frank O'Hara (1926-1966). My Heart. The Day Lady Died. Why I Am Not a Painter. Poem. Robert Hayden (1913-1980). Those Winter Sundays. Summertime and the Living . . . Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday. Anne Sexton (1928-1974). Her Kind. Housewife. Young. Somewhere in Africa. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). For a Fatherless Son. Daddy. Lady Lazarus. Stings. Fever 103°. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007). Harrison Bergeron. John Ashbery (b. 1927). The Instruction Manual. Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape. As You Came from the Holy Land. Edward Albee (b. 1928). The Sandbox. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968). I Have a Dream. Letter from Birmingham Jail. Malcolm X (1925-1965). from The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) (b. 1934). An Agony. As now. Ka 'Ba. Black People: This Is Our Destiny. A Poem Some People Will Have to Understand. Numbers, Letters. Dutchman. Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938). Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Luis Valdez (b. 1940). Los Vendidos. John Barth (b. 1930). Lost in the Funhouse. In Focus: The U.S. War in Vietnam and its Aftermath. Michael Herr (b. 1940). from Dispatches. Tim O'Brien (b. 1946). In the Field. Norman Mailer (1923-2007). from The Armies of the Night. Robert Bly (b. 1926). Counting Small-Boned Bodies. The Teeth Mother Naked at Last. Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947). Tu Do Street. Prisoners. Thanks. Facing It. Fog Galleon. Denise Levertov (1923-1997). Overheard over S.E. Asia. In Thai Binh (Peace) Province. Fragrance of Life, Odor of Death. A Poem at Christmas, 1972, during the Terror-Bombing of North Vietnam. Le Ly Hayslip (b. 1949). from When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. from Chapter 7, A Different View. Ralph Molina (b. ? ). Dos Recuerdos. Paule Marshall (b. 1929). To Da-Duh, in Memoriam. Ernest J. Gaines (b. 1933). The Sky Is Gray. N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) (b. 1934). from The Way to Rainy Mountain. In Focus: Aesthetics and Politics of the 1960s and 1970s--Black, Brown, Yellow, Red. Larry Neal (1937-1981). Some Reflections on the Black Aesthetic. Anonymous. White Male Qualities. Wing Tek Lum (b. 1946). Minority Poem. Ron Tanaka (1944-2007). I Hate My Wife for Her Flat Yellow Face. Combahee River Collective. A Black Feminist Statement. Rita Sánchez (b. 1952). Chicana Writer Breaking Out of the Silence. Vine Deloria (1933-2005). from Custer Died for Your Sins. The 1970s: Decade of Disillusionment. Alice Walker (b. 1944). Laurel. Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995). My Man Bovanne. Rudolfo A. Anaya (b. 1937). from Bless Me, Ultima. Dieciocho. Pedro Pietri (1944-2004). Puerto Rican Obituary. Traffic Violations. Adrienne Rich (b. 1929). Diving into the Wreck. From a Survivor. Power. Not Somewhere Else, but Here. Coast to Coast. Frame. Ishmael Reed (b. 1938). Badman of the Guest Professor. Bitter Chocolate. James Welch (Blackfeet-Gros Ventre) (1940-2003). from Winter in the Blood. Maxine Hong Kingston (b. 1940). No Name Woman. Jessica Hagedorn (b. 1949). The Death of Anna May Wong. Filipino Boogie. Homesick. Donald Barthelme (1931-1989). At the End of the Mechanical Age. Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Power. Never Take Fire from a Woman. The Art of Response. Stations. The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House. Michael S. Harper (b. 1938). Song: I Want a Witness. Nightmare Begins Responsibility. Here Where Coltrane Is. Camp Story. In Focus: The Ojibway Nation. Diane Burns, "Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question." Louise Erdrich, "Dear John Wayne," "The Red Convertible." Dennis Banks, selection from Ojibway Warrior. Gerald Vizenor, "Dennis of Wounded Knee." Winona La Duke, part III ("The Occupation") from Last Standing Woman. Kim Blaeser, "Apprenticed to Justice," "'Native Americans' vs. 'The Poets.'" Jim Northrup, "Veterans Dance." Gordon Henry, "Arthur Boozhoo On the Nature of Magic." The 1980s: Disasters, Divestment, Diversity. Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928). The Shawl. Janice Mirikitani (b. 1942). For My Father. Desert Flowers. Breaking Tradition. Recipe. Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna) (b. 1948). Lullaby. Raymond Carver (1938-1988). What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. Richard Ford (b. 1944). Rock Springs. Philip Levine (b. 1928). Coming Home, Detroit, 1968. The Rats. The Everlasting Sunday. The Simple Truth. The Lesson. Victor Hernández Cruz (b. 1949). urban dream. Mountain Building. Table of Contents. Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo) (b. 1941). from Sand Creek. Garrett Kaoru Hongo (b. 1951). Yellow Light. Off from Swing Shift. Who among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? And Your Soul Shall Dance. The Unreal Dwelling: My Years in Volcano. Gary Soto (b. 1952). Braly Street. The Cellar. Mexicans Begin Jogging. Black Hair. Kearney Park. Sonia Sanchez (b. 1934). to blk/record/buyers. Masks. Just Don't Never Give Up on Love. A Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King. Father and Daughter. Lucille Clifton (1936-2010). the thirty eighth year. i am accused of tending to the past. at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989. reply. in white America. June Jordan (1936-2002). Poem about My Rights. To Free Nelson Mandela. Moving towards Home. Toni Morrison (b. 1931). Recitatif. Nicholasa Mohr (b. 1938). From Rituals of Survival. Helena Maria Viramontes (b. 1954). The Cariboo Cafe. Grace Paley (1922--2007). The Expensive Moment. Wendy Rose (Hopi) (b. 1948). Throat Song: The Rotating Earth. Loo-wit. To the Hopi in Richmond (Santa Fe Indian Village). If I Am Too Brown or Too White for You. Story Keeper. Julia. George C. Wolfe (b. 1952). The Colored Museum. Pat Mora (b. 1942). Border Town: 1938. Unnatural Speech. University Avenue. Judith Ortiz Cofer (b. 1952). Claims. The Woman Who Was Left at the Altar. My Father in the Navy: A Childhood Memory. En Mis Ojos No Hay Dias. Latin Women Pray. Tato Laviera (b. 1951). frio. AmeRican. Latero Story. Gloria Anzaldua (1942-2004). from Borderlands / La Frontera. Ann Beattie (b. 1947). Janus. Joy Harjo (Creek) (b. 1951). The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window. New Orleans. Remember. Vision. Anchorage. Deer Dancer. We Must Call a Meeting. Bobbie Ann Mason (b. 1940). Airwaves. Lorna Dee Cervantes (b. 1954). Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway. Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races. Macho. Bananas. Jamaica Kincaid (b. 1949). from A Small Place. Bharati Mukherjee (b. 1940). A Wife's Story. Carolyn Forche (b. 1950). from The Country between Us. The Colonel. Because One Is Always Forgotten. As Children Together. from The Recording Angel. Elegy. Dorothy Allison (b. 1949). Don't Tell Me You Don't Know. Frank Chin (b. 1940). Railroad Standard Time. John Edgar Wideman (b. 1941). Valaida. The 1990s: New World Disorder. Li-Young Lee (b. 1957). I Ask My Mother to Sing. My Father, in Heaven, Is Reading Out Loud. With Ruins. This Room and Everything in It. Art Spiegelman (b. 1948). Don't Get Around Much Anymore. from Maus II. Gish Jen (b. 1955). In the American Society. Chris Ware (b. 1967). Thrilling Adventure Stories (I Guess). Lawson Fusao Inada (b. 1938). Instructions to All Persons. Two Variations on a Theme by Thelonius Monk as Inspired by Mal Waldron. Introduction: Monk's Prosody. I. Blue Monk (linear). II. Blue Monk (percussive). Kicking the Habit. On Being Asian American. Lynda Barry (b. 1956). Messed Up and Confused. Help You. Family Pictures. It's Cool. She Wanted It, She Wanted It. If You Want to Know Teenagers by Mar Lys. Kimiko Hahn (b. 1955). Strands. Resistance: A Poem on Ikat Cloth. Cuttings. Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952). Ducks. Different Ways to Pray. My Father and the Figtree. Blood. Where the Soft Air Lives. Edwidge Danticat (b. 1969). New York Day Women. Chang-rae Lee (b. 1965). Coming Home Again. Paula Vogel (b. 1951). How I Learned to Drive. Rane Arroyo (1954-2010). My Transvestite Uncle Is Missing. Caribbean Braille. Write What You Know. That Flag. Sandra Cisneros (b. 1954). Mericans. Tepeyac. David Foster Wallace (1962-2008). The Devil Is a Busy Man. In Focus: Prison Literature. Etheridge Knight (1931-1991). The Idea of Ancestry. The Violent Space (or When Your Sister Sleeps Around for Money). Ilu, the Talking Drum. A Poem for Myself (or Blues for a Mississippi Black Boy). Jimmy Santiago Baca (b. 1952). I've Taken Risks. I Put on My Jacket. Commitment. Ghost Reading in Sacramento. Kathy Boudin (b. 1943). The Call. Our Skirt. A Trilogy of Journeys. Leonard Peltier (b. 1944). from Prison Writings. Judee Norton (b. 1949). Norton #59900. R. Dwayne Betts (b. 1977?). Ghazal. Count Time. It Takes the Bus Four Hours to Get There. In the Yard, Facing the Fences. How to Make a Knife in Prison. The 21st Century: 9/11 and Beyond. Alison Bechdel (b. 1960). from Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Jhumpa Lahiri (b. 1967). When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine. Percival Everett (b. 1956). The Appropriation of Cultures (2004). Sherman Alexie (Spokane / Coeur d'Alene) (b. 1966). What You Pawn I Will Redeem. Martin Espada (b. 1957). Jim's Blind Blues. Latin Night at the Pawnshop. Inheritance of Waterfalls and Sharks. The Poet in the Box. Ghazal for Open Hands. Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100. Demetria Martinez (b. 1960). Wanted. Sonogram. The Devil's Workshop. Cold Snap in Tucson. T.C. Boyle (b. 1948). Blinded By the Light. In Focus: the 9/11 Terror Attacks. Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). from The Spirit of Terrorism. Wai Chee Dimock (b. 1953). Planet and America, Set and Subset. Don DeLillo (b. 1936). In the Ruins of the Future. From Falling Man. John Updike (1932-2009). Varieties of Religious Experience. Stephen Dunn (b. 1939). Grudges. Natasha Trethewey (b. 1966). History Lesson. White Lies. Southern Gothic. Incident. Junot Diaz (b. 1968). Fiesta, 1980. Dave Eggers (b. 1970). What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust Jane Trenka (b. 1972?). From The Language of Blood. ZZ Packer (b. 1973). Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Francisco Goldman (b. 1954). The Wave. Manuel Munoz (b. 1972). Bring Brang Brung. IN FOCUS: SPOKEN WORD POETRY. Ishle Yi Park (b. 1977). Samchun in the Grocery Store. Jejudo Dreams. For Totten. Jessica Care Moore. My caged bird don't sing and every Black bird ain't a piece of fried chicken. Alix Olson. Subtle Sister. Willie Perdomo. Notes for a slow jam. Patricia Smith. Asking for a heart attack: for Aretha Franklin. Edwin Torres. Dig on the decade. Saul Stacey Williams. Gypsy Girl. Suheir Hammad. Daddy's Song. Tracie Morris. Project Princess. Edwidge Danticat (b. 1969). New York Day Women.