📖 Overview
Cole Swensen and David St. John are poets and editors who collaborated on "American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry," published in 2009. The anthology represents their joint effort to identify and showcase contemporary American poetry that combines experimental and traditional approaches.
Swensen is a translator, poet, and professor who has published numerous poetry collections and translations from French. She teaches at Brown University and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts.
St. John is a poet and professor at the University of Southern California who has published over a dozen poetry collections. He has received the James Wright Prize and other honors for his work.
Their anthology emerged from their observation that much contemporary American poetry defies categorization as purely experimental or mainstream. They coined the term "hybrid" to describe poetry that incorporates elements from both traditions, featuring work by 74 poets who blend formal innovation with accessibility.