- Home
- Real Things
Preparing your PDF for download...
There was a problem with your download, please contact the server administrator.
Real Things
An Anthology of Popular Culture in American Poetry
Edited by Jim Elledge and Susan Swartwout
Published by: Indiana University Press
360 Pages, 3 index
Other Retailers:
"What a great premise for an anthology! And it succeeds, both in its celebration of our crazy culture and its fascinating analysis, through the poems, of popular myths that have stood the test of time." —Kliatt
In the past few decades, poetry about and around popular culture has become a very hip contemporary art form. Real Things is a collection of over 150 poems by more than 130 poets who themselves represent the cultural diversity of the United States. With subjects ranging from the influence of Mickey Mouse on child-raising to the relationship of Barbie to sex in America, from the societal effects of the movie Psycho to our fascination with dirty politics and Ralph Kramden, the poems in this anthology question and celebrate the attitudes that our society shares.
A Sampling of the Contents
June Jordan, Mid-Year Report: For Haruko
Jonathan Holden, Why We Bombed Haiphong
Katharyn Howd Machan, No, Superman Was Not the Only One
Rafael Campo, Superman Is Dead
Kathleen de Azevedo, Famous Women—Claudette Colbert
Susan Swartwout, The Gypsy Teaches Her Grandchild Wolfen Ways
Edward Field, The Bride of Frankenstein
William Trowbridge, Kong Breaks a Leg at the William Morris Agency
David Wojahn, Francis Ford Coppola and Anthropologist Interpreter Teaching Gartewienna Tribesmen to Sing "Light My Fire," Philippine Jungle, 1978
Chrystos, Soap Bubbles
Joseph Like, James Dean & the Pig
Frank O'Hara, Four Little Elegies
Sharon Olds, The Death of Marilyn Monroe
Judy Grahn, [I have come to claim / Marilyn Monroe's body]
Dennis Cooper, From "Some Adventures of John Kennedy, Jr."
Jim Elledge, The Man I Love and I Have a Typical Evening the Night Richard M. Nixon Dies
William Trowbridge, Viet Kong
Ai, Blue Suede Shoes
Maureen Seaton, A Story of Stonewall
David Lehman, The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke
Martin Espada, Coca-Cola and Coco Frio
Marge Piercy, Barbie Doll
Daniel Mark Epstein, Mannequins
Rita Dove, After Reading Mickey in the Night Kitchen for the Third Time Before Bed
Maxine Chernoff, Breasts
Julia Alvarez, Against Cinderella
Olga Broumas, Rapunzel
Katharyn Howd Machan, Hazel Tells LaVerne
Robin Becker, Peter Pan in North America
Audre Lorde, The Day They Eulogized Mahalia
Juan Felipe Herrera, Iowa Blues Bar Spiritual
Timothy Liu, Echoes
Jonathan Holden, Liberace
Joy Harjo, We Encounter Nat King Cole as We Invent the Future
Marilyn Hacker, Mythology
Gary Soto, Dizzy Girls in the Sixties
Jan-Mitchell Sherrill, Woodstock
Pedro Pietri, The First Rock and Roll Song of 1970
Maureen Seaton, Blonde Ambition
Pamela Stewart, Punk Pantoum
Paula Gunn Allen, Teaching Poetry at Votech High, Santa Fe, the Week John Lennon Was Shot
Yusef Komunyakaa, Never Land
Angela Jackson, Billie in Silk
Bruce Weigl, Homage to Elvis, Homage to the Fathers
Mary A. Koncel, Come Back, Elvis, Come Back to Holyoke
Connie Deanovich, From "Ephemera Today on All My Children"
Daniel Hoffman, In the Days of Rin-Tin-Tin
klipschutz, Funicello at 50
Dorothy Barresi, When I think About America Sometimes (I Think of Ralph Kramden)
Dennis Cooper, David Cassidy Then
Tim Dlugos, Gilligan's Island
Gary Soto, TV in Black and White
William Carpenter, Ghosts
Carol J. Pierman, The Apparition
Allen Ginsberg, A Supermarket in California
Jennifer M. Pierson, Thrift Shop Ladies
Baron Wormser, Shoplifting
Larry Levis, Whitman
Paul Zimmer, Romance
Mark Doty, Days of 1981
David Baker, 8-Ball at the Twilite
Jim Daniels, Ted's Bar and Grill
William Matthews, A Story Often Told in Bars: The Reader's Digest Version
Robin Becker, Dreaming at the Rexall Drug
Sharon Bryan, Lunch with Girl Scouts
Michael Pettit, Vanna White's Bread Pudding
Thom Tammaro, 'mericn fst fd
Jim Daniels, Short-Order Cook
William Hathaway, Why That's Bob Hope
Charles Bernstein, Of Time and the Line
Albert Goldbarth, The Counterfeit Earth!
Paul Violi, Harold and Imogene
James Tate, The Motorcyclists
Louise Erdrich, The Lady in the Pink Mustang
Mark Wunderlich, Take Good Care of Yourself
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lost Parents
Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Off from Swing Shift
Emily Hiestand, Moon Winx Motel
Martin Espada, Transient Hotel Sky at the Hour of Sleep
Paul Allen, Tattoo #47, "Happy Dragon"
Sandra McPherson, Pornography, Nebraska
Alberto Rios, The Man She Called Honey, and Married
Contributors
Indexes
Among JIM ELLEDGE's ten books are four collections of his poetry, most recently Into the Arms of the Universe which won the 1995 Stonewall competition for gay and lesbian poets; four volumes of literary criticism; and Sweet Nothings: An Anthology of Rock and Roll in American Poetry, also published by Indiana University Press. Professor of English at Illinois State University, he teaches in that department's creative writing program and is director/editor of Thorngate Road, a press.
Susan Swartwout is Assistant Professor of English at Southeast Missouri State University where she teaches creative writing and literature. She also serves on the editorial staff of The Cape Rock and advises the student literary magazine, Journey. Her two collections of poetry are entitled Freaks and Uncommon Ground, and she has poems published in literary journals such as Nebraska Review, The Cape Rock, Mississippi Review, Negative Capability, and Spoon River Poetry Review.
Related Books
