Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
is the title of a 1992 anthology of such works edited by James Thomas, Denise
Thomas, and Tom Hazuka. The abbreviated nature of these stories makes them
particularly well suited for the Internet.
American poetry in this period is produced by a more diverse group of poets
in terms of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and sexuality than in earlier times. The-
matically it has been described as “postconfessional”—that is, nonautobiographi-
cal—but it continues the emphasis on individual experience and expression of the
confessional poetry of previous decades. Major figures, including Lorde, Mark
Doty, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Robert Pinsky, Sharon Olds, Cathy Song, and
Natasha Trethewey, employ the personal in poems that exhibit varying degrees of
movement toward larger themes and various levels of accessibility and difficulty.
Their styles resist traditional classifications: Agha Shahid Ali uses the ghazal, an
ancient Persian form; Reed, Michael S. Harper, and Yusef Komunyakaa echo the
rhythms of jazz and blues; and American Indian oratory can be heard in the work
of Joy Harjo, Simon J. Ortiz, and Louise Erdrich.
Like the short story, poetry has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the
contemporary period as poets have attempted to make their work more acces-
sible and relevant and to promote social and environmental justice. Poets have
protested U.S. military actions and advocated peace during the Vietnam War and
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and they have expressed hope and patriotism in
poems commissioned for presidential inaugurations—Angelou’s “On the Pulse of
Morning” for Bill Clinton in 1993, Miller Williams’s “Of History and Hope” for
Clinton in 1997, and Elizabeth Alexander’s “Praise Song for the Day” for Barack
Obama in 2009. Several poets laureate have worked to “promote poetry”—a
responsibility of the position—by making it an everyday presence and pleasure in
American life. The anthology Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003), edited
by Billy Collins, provides a poem for each day of the school year. Pinsky, another
poet laureate, founded the “Favorite Poem Project,” in which eighteen thousand
Americans of all ages submitted their favorite poems. Other efforts to make
poetry more available to the general public include audio and video recordings
and a proliferation of websites maintained by professional organizations. Open
readings, poetry “slams,” and community writing groups and workshops orga-
nized by bookstores, coffee shops, and public libraries have also helped to move
poetry out of academic institutions and into everyday life.
Drama since 1970 has benefited from the birth of Off Broadway in the 1950s
and Off Off Broadway and the expansion of regional theaters in the 1960s. Freed
from the expense of production on Broadway and the pressure it exacts to produce
commercially successful plays, these venues allowed for more experimentation in
both form and content, including fuller representation of previously marginalized
groups, and led to greater breadth in American theatrical offerings. Broadway vet-
erans from the previous era continued to see new works into production after 1970.
Neil Simon, who had a string of commercially successful plays in the 1960s such
as Barefoot in the Park (1963) and The Odd Couple (1965), made a comeback in the
1980s with his autobiographical trilogy Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), Biloxi Blues
(1985), and Broadway Bound (1986). Edward Albee, whose Broadway career began
in 1960 with The Zoo Story and included Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962),