Writer discusses Norton Anthology

Professor, writer and critic Jahan Ramazani gave the Writing Seminars' annual Percy G. Turnbull Memorial Poetry Lecture on Tuesday.

The lecture, entitled "Remapping Modern and Contemporary Poetry," focused on the challenges of editing a poetry anthology.

Ramazani, a distinguished professor of English at the University of Virginia, focused his lecture on his experience editing the Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.

The anthology is widely considered one of the most comprehensive and diverse collections of modern poetry, and includes work ranging from Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes and Gertrude Stein.

The editors said in the preface that "the most acute rendering of an era's sensibility is its poetry."

Ramazani added, "Anthologies cannot be limitlessly inclusive."

The process of editing an anthology, Ramazani said, involves "including and expunging" work.

With only 195 poems allowed in the anthology, the process was daunting.

"There was a need for hierarchical proportion of space," Ramazani said.

"I did not want to trivialize the influence of the few" who had the greatest influence by trying to include everyone.

He added, "The powerful influence of a few poets transformed expression."

Ramazani then elaborated on the selection process.

According to Ramazani, he based his selection in the anthology on quality, which he defined as "creative daring, verbal dexterity, formal skill, social significance and emotional richness."

It was also important, Ramizani commented, to include "work from a wide range of artists."

Another obstacle that Ramazani faced while editing the anthology was the tremendous costs and regulations of copyrighted works.

"The permission fees cannot outstrip the profit," Ramazani said, adding that he also encountered licensing problems.

"The T.S. Eliot estate has a seven poem limit," which didn't reflect his influence, he said.

Ultimately the anthology was allowed to include eight of Eliot's works, still falling short of what Ramazani would have liked to include.

According to Ramazani, one of the biggest challenges of being an editor is creating a narrative to the anthology.

"An anthology looks like a ramble, but it is a grand narrative, and the challenge is stitching together various poets," Ramazani said.

The Norton anthology also includes a mix of poetry, biography and criticism.

Ultimately, Ramazani claimed, the challenge for the editor of an anthology is to "challenge the sensibilities" of the reader and to understand that "what is left out is almost as important as what is left in. It is the art of compression."

Writing seminars poetry professor Dave Smith referred to Ramazani as a "superstar" within his field.

Ramazani, now a William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia, earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, earned a Rhodes fellowship and spent two years at Oxford, and received his doctorate from Yale University.

Ramazani is the author of three books on modern and contemporary poetry.

One of Ramazani's works was ranked a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He edited the Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, and is now co-editing the Norton Anthology of English Literature.

Ramazani has also received fellowships from both the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and National Endowment for Humanities.

The Turnbull Poetry Lecture was established 1889 in honor of Percy Turnbull.

The series has since brought renowned voices in poetry to the Hopkins campus.

Past speakers have included T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden and Robert Frost.

The award was established, Smith said, in order to "bring people here to light us up."