Appreciating Contemporary Poetry

“Poetry, as a genre in the U.S., remains paradoxically flexible—carrying expectations, habitual moves, and taboos, for sure, but also within these boundaries the expectation that they continue to be violated, expanded, collapsed. This extreme adaptability gives poetry plenty of chances to remain relevant in today’s contemporary culture, where memes and high-speed Internet rule the roost. And poetry’s patience (or obliviousness, you could call it)—the degree to which it is exceedingly insulated (unlike the art world, say, or fiction) from an economic and cultural sphere increasingly dominated by finance capital and advertising—gives it a chance to play a vital cultural role in an era of pressing ecological and economic crisis.”