Discussing the work of more than 60 poets from the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the Caribbean, from Sujata Bhatt to M. Philip NourbeSe and from John Ashbery to Eliot Weinberger, Nerys Williams guides students through the key ideas and movements in the study of poetry today. With reference to original manifestos and web-based experiments, as well as the role of information culture in shaping and distributing poetry globally this book engages with the full vitality of the contemporary poetry scene.Key Features* Wide topic range - from performance to politics, from lyric expression to ecopoetics and from multilingual poetries to electronic writing - enables provocative thematic links to be made * Discussion of global Englishes, dialects and idiolects aimed at those studying poetry on postcolonial literature and contemporary poetics courses* Contemporary relevance: relates poetry to reporting on global conflict, including the impact of the Iraq War* Student resources include a chronology, web resources, a glossary, questions for discussion and a guide to further reading.