| A little while ago in Ithaca, New York, the university townwhere I live, two good bookstores decided to merge and relocate.With some fanfare, after inevitable delays, the new store opened.I headed straight for the poetry section. It was impressive: an alcovewith tall bookcases on facing walls. There were easily twice asmany shelves as at either of the former locations. There was onlyone problem. Something was wrong with the lighting system,making it difficult to read the titles on the spines of the books. That seems an apt metaphor for the condition of contemporarypoetry. There s plenty of it, and plenty of it is good, but it seemsto be located in an unlit alcove where bookstore patrons fear totread. Everyone who loves poetry must sometimes wonder whetherit will languish for lack of a light bulb. An optimist, of course,would phrase that differently. An optimist would say: Our poetsoperate in the dark, like sure-footed jewel thieves. The wonder isthat the incandescence around them is so bright. The Best American Poetry is a publishing experiment conductedin the spirit of a wager. The experiment is to see whether a singleannual volume can accurately reflect the diversity of Americanpoetry--can reflect it with enthusiasm but also with the need tomake critical discriminations--and honor excellence regardless ofwhat form it takes, or what idiom it favors, or from which regionof the country it comes. The wager is over the question ofpoetry saudience. Everyone complains that poetry doesn t have one. Webet the opposite--that there are more than enough readers aroundwho would seriously like to know what the poets in America areup to these days. |
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