This Concise Companion gives readers a rich sense of how the poetry produced in the United States during the twentieth century is connected to the country’s intellectual life.

Written by prominent specialists in the field, the volume helps readers to appreciate the poetry by situating it within overlapping historical and cultural contexts, including: war; feminism and the female poet; ''queer cities''; the influence of the New York art world; African-American poetry and blues; poetries of immigration and migration; communism and anti-communism; and philosophy and theory. Each chapter ranges across the entire century, comparing poets from one part of the century to those of another; and each one balances documentary coverage of context with sharp commentary upon specific poems.

The Companion forms an ideal introduction to twentieth-century American poetry for students, while its new syntheses will make it of interest to scholars as well.