The importance of Robbins's takedown of "postmodern" poetry isn't so much that he skewers mediocre poetry but that he points out that these categories and the polemics associated with them have become less about the advancement of poetry (however construed) and more about product placement. The same, really, could be said about every school of American poetry. I'm all in favor of movements and polemics and all the rest--I just want them to have some vitality.
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