Poetry in the 1990s

In a celebrated and notorious essay titled "Can Poetry Matter?" which was first published in 1991 in the Atlantic Monthly and later published in book format, poet and critic Dana Gioia argued that although there was an unprecedented amount of poetry being published each year, poetry had become irrelevant to mainstream American life. He wrote, "American poetry now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of artistic and intellectual life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group." The group Gioia identified was located almost entirely within colleges and universities. It consisted of professors of English and teachers of creative writing and their graduate students, as well as editors, publishers, and administrators. Poetry had become a profession, Gioia argued, with its own career track and system of recognition and rewards. Poets no longer wrote for the general...