America Has Never Loved Poetry More

Poetry is no longer something we curl up to with a cup of tea. Instead, we take it in through earbuds. And America has never loved it more. One hears a certain baleful cry regularly in writerly circles that Americans don’t care about poetry anymore. A widely read Atlantic piece by Dana Gioia in 1992 was a signature statement. Granted, that was a while ago now, but times don’t seem to have changed much in the wake of Charles Wright’s anointment last week as America’s poet laureate kept the lamentation going.