Poetry in the 1950s was under the heavy influence of T. S. Eliot’s often misinterpreted idea of poetry being an escape from self and the Modernist focus on objectivity. Similar to this, and perhaps an even more pervasive influence, was the ideas of the New Critics and their idea of a poem as a perfectible object; specifically the poetry of John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren was highly influential at this time. Their focus on the formal aspects of poetry and their celebration of the short, ironic lyric led to a rise in formalist poetry and a preference for the short lyric. When the Beat poets came to prominence in this time they were damned as sloppy libertines, and at best only a passing fad fueled by media attention.
This conflict was framed by two rival anthologies. Three champions of formalist poetry, Louis Simpson, Donald Hall, and Robert Pack, were putting together an anthology of young poets called New Poets of England and America. Allen Ginsberg, believing at the time the Beat poets would be accepted by the literary establishment, brought Simpson, his old Columbia classmate, a packet of poetry including Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Robert Duncan, Ed Dorn, Robert Creeley, Philip Lamantia, Denise Levertov, Michael McClure, and Charles Olsen in hopes that they would be included in this new anthology (Ginsberg was a relentless promoter of the work of his friends and the work of those he admired). Simpson rejected all of them. The introduction for the anthology was written by formalist hero Robert Frost. The anthology included poetry by Robert Bly, Donald Justice, James Merrill, W. S. Merwin, Howard Nemerov, Adrienne Rich, Richard Wilbur, and James Wright. There is not a strict demarcation here between conservative and avant-garde poetry. The anthology also included poets associated with what is considered a movement parallel to the Beat Generation, The Angry Young Men, poets such as Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, and Thom Gunn. However, it did set a trend for who would become poets acceptable to academia and the literary establishment. For example, Robert Lowell and W. D. Snodgrass would be seminal in the creation of what later became known as Confessional poetry, which helped finally overturn the strict focus on objectivity (Lowell, according to some accounts, was inspired to write more personal poetry by Ginsberg and the Beats).
Donald Allen of Grove Press accepted many of the manuscripts Ginsberg gave him for his rival anthology The New American Poets: 1945−1960. Poets in that anthology included John Ashbery, Paul Blackburn, Ray Bremser, Gregory Corso, Robert Creeley, Ed Dorn, Kirby Doyle, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, Jack Kerouac, Kenneth Koch, Philip Lamantia, Denise Levertov, Michael McClure, Frank O’Hara, Charles Olson, Joel Oppenheimer, Peter Orlovsky, James Schuyler, Gary Snyder, Jack Spicer, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, John Wieners, and Jonathan Williams. Don Allen framed the debate as “Open Form” (his anthology) vs. “Closed Form” (the other anthology). Though seeing it as a rivalry is overly simplistic (for example, many from New Poets of England and America were not strict formalists or have moved away from formalism), the development of poetry in the later half of the twentieth century is framed in these two anthologies.
These poets have had arguably equal impact on literature, and it can be said Beat literature has changed the establishment so that academia is more open to more radical forms of literature. For example, of the poets listed in this section, ten from New Poets of England and America and nine from The New American Poetry have been included in the Norton Anthology of American Literature. But Jack Kerouac, despite his impact on American culture and his status as an American icon, has never been included in Norton. Also, three poets from New Poets of England and America have served as Poets Laureate of the U.S.