I realize that I’m a little late to the game, considering that the New Yorker has been out all week now, but for those of you who haven’t actually had time to read it yet, I’m going to highly recommend that you flip towards the back and dig into Dana Goodyear‘s article about the effect of a $200 million bequest on the Poetry Foundation. I’ve taken a cursory glance at this issue in the distant past, but Goodyear has done an amazing job of collating reactions from those who are either pleased or appalled by what the Foundation has done with its money, including a high-profile website. Although the reaction from the Foundation suggests that the article is a hit piece which accuses them of settling for mediocre verse in pursuit of popularity, Goodyear gives serious consideration to the Foundation’s point of view and allows readers to make up their own minds on the subject.
For supplementary research, feel free to read “American Poetry in the New Century,” the essay by Foundation head John Barr that’s worked many poets into a lather by declaring that “poetry needs to find its public again.”