Forty years ago, when Dylan Thomas read, he spent half the program reciting other poets' work. Hardly a self-effacing man, he was nevertheless humble before his art. Today most readings are celebrations less of poetry than of the author's ego. No wonder the audience for such events usually consists entirely of poets, would-be poets, and friends of the author.

Even if great poetry continues to be written, it has retreated from the center of literary life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, poetry has lost the confi…

Several dozen journals now exist that print only verse. They don't publish literary reviews, just page after page of freshly minted poems. The heart sinks to s…

Most editors run poems and poetry reviews the way a prosperous Montana rancher might keep a few buffalo around - not to eat the endangered creatures but to dis…

If the poem has no obvious destination, there's a chance that we'll be all setting off on an interesting ride.

When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it becau…

One of our universities recently made a survey of the reading habits of the American public; it decided that forty-eight percent of all Americans read, during …