The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry is a literary anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Pitt Poetry Series

Pitt Poetry Series

The Pitt Poetry Series, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, is one of the largest and best known lists of contemporary American poetry.-History:...

 (1968-1993), one of the most prominent in the United States.

The book provides lengthy selections--about three hundred lines of verse--of the forty-five poets who were in print with the series in its twenty-fifth anniversary year. During this period, first under the editorship of Paul Zimmer

Paul Zimmer (poet)

-Life:He flunked out of college, and worked in a steel mill.From 1954 to 1955 Zimmer served in the United States Army as a journalist. The Ribs of Death, his first book, was published in 1967....

, and then Ed Ochester

Ed Ochester

Edwin Frank Ochester is an American poet and editor.Born September 15 in Brooklyn, New York, he was educated at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

, 156 books by 102 poets were published.

The collection was edited by Ed Ochester

Ed Ochester

Edwin Frank Ochester is an American poet and editor.Born September 15 in Brooklyn, New York, he was educated at Cornell University, Harvard University, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

 and Peter Oresick

Peter Oresick

Peter Oresick is an American poet and Associate Professor of English at Chatham University, where he directs the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program...

, both of the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

.

Selected Poets in The Pittsburgh Book of Contemporary American Poetry

Claribel Alegría

Claribel Alegría

Clara Isabel Alegría Vides is a Nicaraguan poet, essayist, novelist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. She writes under the pseudonym Claribel Alegría.-Early life:...

 · Maggie Anderson

Maggie Anderson

Maggie Anderson is an American poet and editor with roots in Appalachia.-Life and career:Anderson attended West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1966–68 and earned a bachelor’s degree in English, with high honors, from West Virginia University in 1970. Her M.A. in English in 1973 and an M.S.W. in...

 · Siv Cedering

Siv Cedering

Siv Cedering was an award-winning Swedish-American poet, writer, and artist. She occasionally published as Siv Cedering Fox.-Early life:...

 · Toi Derricotte

Toi Derricotte

Toi Derricotte is an American poet and a professor of writing at University of Pittsburgh.At Wayne State University she earned a B.A. in 1965 and an M.A...

 · Stuart Dybek

Stuart Dybek

-Personal life:Dybek was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Chicago's Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dybek graduated from St. Rita of Cascia High School in 1959...

 · David Huddle

David Huddle

David Ross Huddle is an American writer and professor. His most recent book is Glory River: Poems...

 · Lawrence Joseph

Lawrence Joseph

Lawrence Joseph is an American poet, writer, essayist, critic, lawyer, and professor of law.-Life:Joseph's grandparents, Lebanese Maronite and Syrian Melkite Eastern Catholics, were among the first Arab Americans to emigrate to Detroit, where both Joseph's parents were born...

 · Julia Kasdorf

Julia Kasdorf

-Life:Julia Spicher Kasdorf is the author of three poetry collections--Sleeping Preacher , Eve's Striptease , and Poetry in America --all published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Sleeping Preacher won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and the Great Lakes College’s Association Award for...

 · Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight

Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who became a notable poet in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after Etheridge was arrested for robbery in 1960...

 · Ted Kooser

Ted Kooser

Ted Kooser is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.-Early Life:...

 · Larry Levis

Larry Levis

Larry Patrick Levis was an American poet.-Youth and Education:Larry Levis was born the son of a grape grower; he grew up driving a tractor, picking grapes, and pruning vines of Selma, California, a small fruit-growing town in the San Joaquin Valley...

 · Peter Meinke

Peter Meinke

Peter Meinke is an American poet and author. He has published 17 books of poems and short stories. The Piano Tuner, won the 1986 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. His poetry has received many awards, including 2 NEA Fellowships and 3 prizes from the Poetry Society of America...

 · Carol Muske

Carol Muske-Dukes

Carol Muske-Dukes is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the current poet laureate of California. Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow , chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.-Life:She...

 · Leonard Nathan

Leonard Nathan

Dr. Leonard E. Nathan, was an American poet, critic, and professor emeritus of rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley where he retired in 1991....

 · Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds

-Life:Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco. She was raised as a “hellfire Calvinist”, as she describes it. She says she was by nature "a pagan and a pantheist" and notes "I was in a church where there was both great literary art and bad literary art, the great art being psalms and the bad...

 · Alicia Ostriker

Alicia Ostriker

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Alicia is married to the noted astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker who taught at Princeton University...

 · Richard Shelton

Richard Shelton

Richard Shelton is an English actor and singer, best known to millions for playing the role of Dr Adam Forsythe on British television's daytime Soap Opera Emmerdale on ITV1...

 · Betsy Sholl

Betsy Sholl

Elizabeth "Betsy" Sholl is an American poet and a former poet laureate of Maine. She was appointed by Governor John Baldacci to the position in 2006 and held it until 2011. She is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Rough Cradle...

 · Gary Soto

Gary Soto

Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet.Mexican-American parents Manuel and Angie Soto . In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old...

 · David Wojahn

David Wojahn

David Wojahn is a contemporary American poet who teaches poetry in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, and in the low residency MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts...