Flaubert, Gustave, Sentimental Education, Penguin Classics, 2004.

Ruefle borrows the title for her collection of poetry from Flaubert, who in this 1869 novel satirizes the conventions of bourgeois society.

Perkins, David, A History of Modern Poetry, Vol. 2: Modernism and After, Belknap Press, 2004.

Perkins examines the works of individual poets published up to the twenty-first century as well as important movements such as modernism, beat poetry, and confessional poetry. He notes the distinctiveness and the interconnectedness among the poets in these movements and addresses the critical response to them over the years.

Spiegelman, William, The Didactic Muse: Scenes of Instruction in Contemporary American Poetry, Princeton University Press, 2006.

Spiegelman finds parallels between contemporary American poetry and modernist poetry. His focus is on poets as teachers and how contemporary poets have embraced that role.

———, How Poets See the World: The Art of Description in Contemporary Poetry, Oxford...