Golias and Mandolin--thank you for sharing those.
Tom--a good question. You are right that we should be able to tell the good from bad at close quarters. I suppose what I mean by perspective is this--there are so many new books of poetry coming out, and so many journals, and so many poets, it is impossible to even keep up with it. I periodically read a fine poem on Poetry Daily or in one of the magazines, and I try to make a mental note of the author, but I don't always follow up on it. (And for those interested primarily in formal poetry--some of the best formal poetry is published in mainstream journals--so it isn't enough to limit oneself to the formal ones.) I try to buy any book that gives a glimmer of hope, but there are limits. Anthologies, particularly of movements, often tend to look foolish in later years--it is often the poet who isn't included, or who gets only a page or two, that towers in later generations. So I guess what I'm saying is that I feel that there are fine poets writing today, but that it is as like as not that I am ignorant of them. (Having said that, some younger poets to keep an eye out for are Kate Light and Greg Williamson.)
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