Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Of the three editorialists in the April issue, how odd that Dana Gioia—of Can Poetry Matter? fame—turns out to be the most optimistic about the health of contemporary poetry. He alone seems to realize that the reports of poetry's death have been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, he alone seems happy about it.

Christian Wiman wonders if human (or at least American) consciousness is changing. He begins by sighing heavily over National Poetry Month—and, by implication, over thousands of readings, conferences, and festivals each year, books of poetry on bestseller lists, poetry all over the television, the radio, the internet, as if all these were somehow bad things, the desperate "marketing" ploys of a waning art whose audience is no larger than the sum of its practitioners. (Anyone who has given or attended readings in recent years knows how false this "only poets read poetry" charge is.) Still, [Wiman] seems honestly concerned about poetry's continued substance and value.

Not so August Kleinzahler, whose rant is as tired and clichéd as it is overheated. After taking swipes at the usual villains— MFA programs, Garrison Keillor's unfortunate reading voice, and, yes, National Poetry Month—Kleinzahler proclaims (presumably with a straight face) that he has never seen "the situation of poetry in this country more dire or desperate." For a useful corrective to such nonsense, Kleinzahler should read Donald Hall's "Death to the Death of Poetry," in which Hall rightly points out that poetry is always dying, always going to hell. As Hall reminds us, most of the poetry of any age is awful: "When, at any historical moment, you write an article claiming that poetry is now in terrible shape, you are always right. Therefore, you are always fatuous." Likewise, there will always be those who need to feel beleaguered, who like to think they occupy the last bastion of artistic standards. For these people, poetry is never what it used to be.