Anne Bradstreet Now: Modern Poets Respond

In 1650, the puritan poet Anne Bradstreet became the first person from British North America to publish a book of poems. The Tenth Muse made her famous, and for almost four centuries, Bradstreet has been canonized, anthologized, studied, and taught. She's remarkable in many ways--partly for her early forms of feminism; partly for her modes of spiritual devotion; partly for the power embedded in her elegies, her love lyrics, her meditations, and her autobiography. Yet while many praise her, others note her failures. She was both far-seeing and near-sighted, a foundational figure for American literature in ways both good and bad, still provoking readers three centuries after she died.

Anne Bradstreet Now re-envisions Anne Bradstreet through the powerful writings of some of the most prominent poets in America today. This collection presents the voices of contemporary writers--writers who have won the biggest prizes possible in American letters--to reflect in poetry and prose on Bradstreet's influence, legacy, and lasting significance. In their own poems and essays, these writers direct our attention to diverse contexts in which Bradstreet's work must be understood and re-understood; to the innovations and implications of her writing; and to the ways her work continues to resonate, stun, frustrate, and inspire.