“Andrew Epstein’s Cambridge Introduction to American Poetry since 1945 offers a lively, readable, and admirably even- handed account of the history of contemporary American poetry. Epstein’s book accomplishes what many handbooks of this kind aspire to but rarely achieve: it is accessible enough to be used by undergraduates as a textbook (indeed, I am using it in a course this semester) but still contains a wealth of scholarly references that make it a useful guide to the field for researchers. What makes it productive reading even for scholars already expert in contemporary poetry is the opportunity it offers for reflection on the dominant narratives of the history of poetry since 1945 — and the question of whether those narratives continue to be relevant in the twenty-first century.”

— Timothy Yu, Contemporary Literature