The following is another apparently unpublished review of Poetry I did for Small Press Review, this one earlier than the one I posted yesterday.

Poetry
Volume CXCVII, Number 5, February 2011. 90 pp.
Edited by Christian Wiman
published monthly except bimonthly July/August
444 n. Michigan Avenue, Ste 1850
Chicago IL 60611. $3.75, $35/year.

Critic David Orr has a review in this issue of Poetry that typifies what makes it, in my view, the largest obstacle facing superior American poets.  It is the belief that poetry “has been all but entirely absorbed by institutions of higher education,” as he quotes Mark McGurl as having put it. Only someone oblivious to all the poetry happening outside academia, most notably, visual poetry, language poetry, sound poetry, cyber poetry and mathematical poetry, can believe this.

True, Poetry once let a few so-so specimens of visual poems into an issue and some language poems into another.  But these were token gestures.  The proof of the pudding is that it has never devoted space to articles about either.  Of course, it will fairly soon give language poetry more pages now that many of the chief language poets have become established–chiefly by virtue of being professors.

What’s depressing about this is that Poetry is wealthy, influential, often-appearing and claims to want to represent the full continuum of contemporary poetry, so could do so much to help the impoverished R&D department of the poetry enterprise.

As for what poetry is in this issue, suffice it to say that Carolyn Forche is one of the two poets named on the front cover as a contributor.

Diary Entry

Thursday, 15 December 2011, 7 P.M.  A bad day.  It started with my tennis team losing two of three matches including the one I played in–horribly.  I got just about nothing done until a little while ago, after taking a couple of APCs.  My accomplishment for the day, another blog entry, and a press release for the exhibition.  I have now gotten just about all the work for the exhibition done that I need to.  I just have a couple of pieces I want to get re-framed by a professional. 

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