Unplanned Cities in Modern American Poetry: Lyrical Challenges to Utopianism

Reveals how five modern American poets challenged prevailing discourses about urbanization through lyrical representations of cities and the diverse people who lived in them.

In early 20th-century America, industrialization and the influx of immigrants and rural migrants into urban centers fostered a certain representation of and distaste for cities and their inhabitants. The dominant discourse was one of containment through utopian planning and violent reshaping, often reflected in both pol...