Virginia Jackson argues that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Black poetics, in opposition to White poetics, created the conditions for modern American poetry's emergence. This work does not follow a traditional history from the Puritans to the present or view African American poetry as a separate tradition. Instead, it highlights how early Black poets, such as Phillis Wheatley Peters, George Moses Horton, James Monroe Whitfield, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, contributed to what Wheatley Peters termed "the deep design" of American lyric. Jackson also examines the once-popular White poets William Cullen Bryant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, suggesting that Black poetics significantly influenced the trajectory of American poetry over the last two centuries. This book presents a new history and theory of American poetry, illustrating how the concept of poetry evolved from genre-based classifications (like ballads and odes) to a focus on identity-based genres (such as Black, White, male, female, Indigenous). Consequently, the understanding of lyric poetry in America is rooted in the complex paths that have shaped perceptions of identity. This narrative reveals the intricate story of American lyric and its foundational influences.
