A Culture of Riches

Recently I have been around allot of poets, and during a recent dinner with my friend Brian Clements his family local Chicago poets Simone Muench and Mark Tardi I realized through the conversation that the problem with poetry is that most serious poets come at the artform from a mentality of poverty.

With this I mean that because serious poetry can be such a small incestious world many poets think that another's success is an impediment to their success. We as poets do not celebrate enough the successes of our friends and our adversaries. What I mean by this is the following. I am friends with allot of poets with whom I share aesthetic
sensabilities. I love the work of Jen Hofer, Catherine Daly, Peter Gizzi, Mark Tardi, kari edwards, Kerri Sonnenberg, Charles Bernstein and many other experimentos. But sometimes when you are around poets with whom you share everything it becomes a bit like when right wingers listen to Rush Limbaugh, there is no challenge and no growth we are in an echo chamber and sometimes other tones are worthwhile.

I like to be around poets with whom I do not share Aesthetic simpatico. My friend Brian Clements for example is a challenge to my sense of poetry, Simone Muench someone for whom I have the utmost respect but for whom I do not agree with Aesthetically is good to challenge what has motivated my poetics. This kind of challenge helps us to grow as poets.

What we need to do as poets is celebrate serious poetry and celebrate successes by opening up doors, to paraphrase Al Smith in the political season the only cure for the ills of poetry is more poetry.