[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.)

[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.

[Susan McLean]

I have read that Wendy Cope was born in 1945, which means she fits your parameters. Though I like many poets quite a lot, she and Alicia Stallings are the only two who fit that time span who pass my electic-shock test, which means that as soon as I first read their work, I felt that an electric shock had hit me, and I had to read everything they had written. (I am borrowing, of course, from Emily Dickinson's definition of poetry).

Predicting the future is foolish, and survival of popularity is chancy. So I will just say that right now I am very impressed with those two. They will have to take their chances with posterity, like everyone else.

Susan

[Julie Steiner]

Sorry, Bill, I was wrong when I said that things are "ramping up". So far as I can tell the Archdiocese has not yet opened an investigation into a Cause for Canonization (although the Mattie J.T. Stepanek Guild is apparently still requesting notarized reflections to assist such a process, should it be formally initiated).

[W.F. Lantry]

One likely candidate: Natasha Trethewey. Others: Mary Szybist, C.D. Wright, Mark Doty, Ai, Juan Felipe Herrera, Kay Ryan, Rita Dove, Carolyn Forché, Mark Jarman.

You could make a whole list, several times as long, especially if you emphasize each as representative of a trend or circle: Catholic poetry, Latino poetry, Poetry of Witness, etc.

Good luck trying to pick two!

Best,

Bill

(just reread the original posts. If I had to pick only two? Carolyn and Juan.)

[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.