anthologies

Can political fiction matter? Stephen Elliott, the editor of Politically Inspired, an anthology published by MacAdam/Cage in 2003, and its follow-up, Stumbling and Raging: More Politically Inspired Fiction, published by MacAdam/Cage this month, casts his vote in the “definitely yes” column.

The release of three anthologies of creative nonfiction (or literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or whatever you choose to call it) proves that while difficult to label, there’s little challenge finding representative work for the so-called fourth genre.

While it's safe to say the twenty-first century has so far not been a great time for American diplomacy, a handful of new poetry anthologies, from Norton, Dalkey Archive Press, North Atlantic Books, and Graywolf Press, offer proof that American poetic diplomacy might be entering a new golden age.

By presenting seventy-three poets, all of whom the editors believe constitute what Charles Bernstein famously called "official verse culture" as well as its unofficial, avant-garde counterpart, the new anthology American Hybrid strives to showcase the diversity of contemporary American poetry while also revealing the unusual affinities within it.

Anthologies compiled annually by editors who scan diverse sources and publish the poems they deem "the best," are quickly gaining popularity worldwide. The latest of these is an online publication called Best New Zealand Poems.