The poetry of the United States began as a literary art during the
colonial era. Unsurprisingly, most of the early poetry written in the
colonies and fledgling republic used contemporary British models of
poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century a
distinctive American idiom began to emerge. By the later part of that
century, when Walt Whitman was winning an enthusiastic audience
abroad, American poets had begun to take their place at the forefront
of the English-language avant garde. By the 1960s, the young poets of
the British Poetry Revival looked to their American contemporaries and
predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write.
Toward the end of the millennium, consideration of American poetry had
diversified, as scholars placed an increased emphasis on poetry by
women, Afro-Americans, Hispano-Americans and other subcultural
groupings.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_of_the_United_States
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1819:
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded Singapore, a new trading post for
the British East India Company.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Stamford_Raffles)
1820:
Sponsored by the American Colonization Society, the first African
American immigrants established a settlement in present-day Liberia.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Liberia)
1922:
France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed
the Washington Naval Treaty to limit naval armaments.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty)
1952:
The Duchess of Edinburgh ascended to the British throne while visiting
Kenya. She then came down from a treehouse as Queen Elizabeth II.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_II_of_the_United_Kingdom)
1959:
Jack Kilby filed the patent for the first integrated circuit.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/integrated_circuit)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left
or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a
left or right. There is only an up or down— up to a man's age-old
dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and
order— or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of
their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our
freedom for security have embarked on this downward course." -- Ronald
Reagan
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan)