[Michael Juster]

To help me with an essay/book review I have been asked to write, regardless of your own tastes, who do you think are the two poets born in 1945 or later whose work is most likely to survive in 2045?

No more than two--or you won't get your trophy for participation!

[Gregory Palmerino]

Michael,

Excellent question. I think I know what you mean, but would you mind clarifying what you mean by "survive." Do you mean relevant? Studied? Emulated? Anthologized? Revered? Unfortunately, with the Internet, everything is going to survive. Also, a hundred years from a person's death seems like a better timetable, but I don't know what you're writing about.

Thanks,
Greg

[Orwn Acra]

Actually, Gregory, nothing will survive with the Internet.

My answers are Christian Bok, whose Eunoia will be remembered as an exemplar of constrained writing, and A. E. Stallings, who will probably still be alive.

[Michael Juster]

I mean "survive" in the sense that Auden survives but Delmore Schwartz doesn't.

[Lightning Bug]

Well, damn... there goes my top choice.

OOoo... wait this is better:

I was going to say Marion Shore, but you said born after '45... .

[Ian Hoffman]

You're basically asking, "Who do you think are the most important poets born from 1945 till now?" Since those are the ones whose work, like Auden's, should survive.

That's hard to call. They probably aren't formalists.

I hope Paul Muldoon makes it.

Maybe I'd put Charles Bernstein on that list. He's an experimentalist who makes work I actually like.

[Julie Steiner]

Based on the canonization campaign that seems to be ramping up for him in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., I'd say Mattie Stepanek may well be one of them.

Perhaps I have a heart of stone, but I think his case demonstrates that the longevity of someone's work is not always evidence of its literary merit.

(See the first four poems here to render your own verdict.)

[Quincy Lehr]

It is a tedious question that indicates a continued level of unhealthiness. Why so few? We put no such restrictions on 1960s rock bands, Romantic composers, bebop jazzers, or post-Impressionist painters. Indeed, in most things the aim of fandom leans toward promotion rather than demotion. I always kick myself for leaving things out in those "favorite twelve album" exercises on Facebook, and that even with limiting myself sub rosa to post-1960 pop music. Do two, and only two poets stand above the others among a billion or so English-speakers over the past seventy-one years? Doubtful. And it just isn't how we actually read books. Or it isn't how I read them.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Based on the canonization campaign that seems to be ramping up for him in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., I'd say Mattie Stepanek may well be one of them.

Yikes. Kate sang at his funeral, and it was like a three ring circus: Oprah, Jimmy Carter, national news, the whole scene. But that was a decade ago. Haven't heard anything lately from the Archdiocese on the subject, and that's local news for us?

Best,

Bill

[Gail White]

I was going to vote for A. E. Stallings (b. 1968) as well, so that makes 2 for her.