Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Juster
I mean "survive" in the sense that Auden survives but Delmore Schwartz doesn't.
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With Michael's definition in mind, I would say any poet who is able to cross into the popular domain the way Auden did and Schwartz didn't (see the Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden, 2004). Most of the non-reading public these days would know Auden from the movie
Four Weddings and a Funeral. I've been teaching college students for twenty years and there would be no difference between Auden and Schwartz if they were writing a research paper on twentieth century poets, which probably says more about my teaching, I'm sorry to say. In any case, I would say someone like a
Sherman Alexie who is popular even if you've never read his poetry, which I don't. I often tell my students that
A.E. Stallings is my favorite living poet but I don't think her work will "survive" unless it takes off into the public's imagination and not just in the minds and on the bookshelves of lovers of poetry. For the poet to survive, his or her work has to achieve mainstream stature. That doesn't usually happen by the poetry alone. These days anyway.
Best,
Greg