From an English perspective - I've seen Fence too and also Verse (I was in it once) and New American Writing, and what strikes me is not simply the lack of rhythm etc as the avoidance of feeling. A lot of the "poems" felt more like theses than anything that came from the gut or the heart, through the head and out through the teeth (as Scottish poet Douglas Dunn once described to me.)
In the end, a poetry that reflects only one's reading (whether one reads Spivak or Sidney) or is merely theoretical is pretty poor stuff; which doesn't mean you can't be informed by these things, just that there should be an openness to feelings, and also to the unexpected. I love the way that Ashbery can real out free verse then unexpectedly come out with sestinas and pantoums, for instance.
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Steve Waling
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