dana gioia - disappearing ink: poetry at the end of print culture

there's a great essay by dana gioia in a recent issue of the hudson review, entitled "disappearing ink: poetry at the end of print culture." (Volume LVI, Number 1 (Spring 2003)).

here's a brief sample of why it's worth reading:

The decline of print culture has been especially hard on literary poets since it has broken down the elaborate cultural machinery by which they once reached their audience. Traditionally a poet’s readership and reputation was influenced mainly by four interrelated factors—journalistic reviews, serious (usually academic) literary criticism, anthologies, and general press coverage. All four means of reaching the literary reading public have diminished notably in the last few decades. First of all, contemporary poetry occupies a much smaller place in the academy than it did thirty years ago. As literary theory and cultural studies dominate critical discourse, contemporary poetry becomes a marginal field. Attend an academic literary conference these days and you are more likely to hear, as I recently did, papers on the design of the Los Angeles Freeway system as an expression of phallocentric power or gender-coding in breakfast cereal advertising than you are to find examinations of contemporary poetry.

Second, much of the academic commentary on contemporary poetry is written in the professional language of academe rather than a public idiom. This mandarin code may offer certain advantages, but engaging the interest of the serious and intelligent non-specialist is not one of them. Third, the magazines that still review poetry are usually small, expensive, and hard to obtain. Anyone without access to a large university library will not be able to locate most literary journals, and even informed readers do not know of the existence of many leading journals. The traditional print medium has so conspicuously failed in this regard that most new literary journals are now electronic.

Finally, there has been a decline in the quality and seriousness of poetry reviewing itself. The few reviews written in a public idiom whether in literary journals or the general press are increasingly characterized by their blandly uncritical quality. Conscious of how little coverage new verse receives and how small the poetry subculture is, most reviewers avoid negative or skeptical assessments. Savvy readers soon learn to discount this overt puffery. Consequently, the reader seriously interested in following contemporary poetry finds that criticism now comes mainly in four varieties: invisible, incomprehensible, inaccessible, and insincere. Is it any wonder that most aficionados prefer to go to poetry readings and make up their own minds?

gioia does an admirable job of examining the realm of contemporary american poetry, what forms it is taking, and discusses some of the problems surrounding it. what is most remarkable is that gioia has gone about stating the obvious in a way that is well thought out, has a wide scope, and is capable of "engaging the interest of the serious and intelligent non-specialist". poets, academics, and general poetry enthusiasts should take note about what gioia has to say about the state of poetry.

{November 09, 2003 02:59 PM}