American poetry
Verse from stateside
Poetry written by Americans or associated with American literary traditions.
The term encompasses work from colonial verse through contemporary forms, including distinctly American movements like the Beats and the New York School.
She specialized in American poetry of the Harlem Renaissance.
The category raises questions about what qualifies—citizenship, subject matter, or sensibility.
Poetry without fixed structure
- sonnetFourteen-line metered poem
- elegyPoem lamenting the departed
- odeLaudatory verse form
- balladNarrative poem or song
lyric · narrative · epic · villanelle · couplet · pastoral · sequence · long poem
Favoring contemporary approaches
- imagismPrecise imagery in writing
- confessionalBooth for admitting sins
- Harlem RenaissanceBlack arts explosion, 1920s
- transcendentalismIntuition-based idealist philosophy
objectivism · postmodernism · conceptualism · spoken word · Nuyorican
Allen Ginsberg · Sylvia Plath · E.E. Cummings · T.S. Eliot · Ezra Pound · Amanda Gorman
Device that measures usage
- cadenceRhythmic pulse or pattern
- rhythmPatterned stress and silence
- stressPressure, mental or vocal
- iambicVerse rhythm type
pentameter · scansion · foot · beat · accent · prosody · trochaic · anapestic
Rule by the people
- individualismDoctrine of personal independence
- natureInherent quality or disposition
- identityWho someone is
- freedomAbsence of constraint
race · immigration · wilderness · urbanization · war · protest · spirituality · multiculturalism
free verse
Poetry without fixed structure
ballad · lyric · narrative · epic · villanelle · couplet · pastoral · sequence · long poem · cycle
modernism
Favoring contemporary approaches
- imagismPrecise imagery in writing
- confessionalBooth for admitting sins
- Harlem RenaissanceBlack arts explosion, 1920s
transcendentalism · objectivism · postmodernism · conceptualism · spoken word · Nuyorican
Walt Whitman
Maya Angelou · Allen Ginsberg · Sylvia Plath · E.E. Cummings · T.S. Eliot · Ezra Pound · Amanda Gorman
meter
Device that measures usage
iambic · pentameter · scansion · foot · beat · accent · prosody · trochaic · anapestic · dactylic
democracy
Rule by the people
- individualismDoctrine of personal independence
- natureInherent quality or disposition
- identityWho someone is
freedom · race · immigration · wilderness · urbanization · war · protest · spirituality · multiculturalism · diaspora
- American LiteratureThe Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Moby Dick
- poetrypoem, poems, verse, verses, rhyme
- literary movementsRomanticism, Realism, Modernism, Surrealism, Symbolism
American poetryAmerican fiction
Prose from the States
American novels · American drama · American journalism · prose · novels
American poetryBritish poetry
Verse from the UK
English poetry · French poetry · German poetry · Japanese poetry · Chinese poetry
American, poetry, America, Americans, Americanism, Americanize, Americanization, poet, poets