[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Originally Posted by Quincy Lehr

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.

My reason for disliking "postmodern" poetry is less related to some of its tools and approaches, per se, than about the fact that these can so easily hide the mediocrity and badness of a poem.

And even then, my dislike has most to do w/ the way that such poetry can be defended in a knee-jerk, all-inclusive manner—which seems to be less about the poetry itself than about so many thousands of poets and would-be-poets defending their right to have their poems judged with a default thumbs-up.

I suppose my response is Nietzschean, in the sense that "the herd" will defend anything whatsoever as long their defense insures their own selfish, grasping efforts will be appreciated—indeed, their defense is less about the poems of others being defended (they couldn't care less about those) and more about their own present and future efforts.

Of course, the same can be said about any school of poetry. But "postmodern" poetry has the added advantage (so-called) of being able to hide or mask mediocrity and badness. In fact, in some ways the very concepts of mediocrity and badness seem exiled from that school.