I love how this poem implicates both reader and speaker in the othering. Also the selection of locations for the "piles of chicken flesh" supports the idea that this is about more than bird flu (and that perhaps the flesh only appears to be that of chickens).

"And no birds sing" is Keats.

That comment is a joke, right?

Pimone and Andrew were both my professors when I got my MFA at UW. They're both really smart, they're super knowledgeable about poetry and criticism, movements and sub-movements, styles of verse etc. And I think neither one of them is a very good poet.

Let me explain, I'm not going to do a typical rant, slog style about it sucks because it sucks. I've read books by both of them and I love poetry (after all I went into debt to go to school for it).

The problems with Feld and Triplett's work is endemic to contemporary poetry in general and one of the reasons why it's so completely irrelevant to even high culture. That is, it imposes on itself a sobriety, a stiff architecture of importance that drains the poem from being something interesting and vital into a procedural exercise. It's kind of like modern jazz. In general, most modern jazz groups are very boring. They have a pattern and they studiously follow it and the listener studiously appreciates it because it's jazz, the great American tradition. But even if the music (or the poems) is highly competent and proficient and is an "intelligent" and "original" work, its method is still bound to a stultifying intellectual hagiography.

I remember Andrew Feld once said in a class that the truest poets would be an poet/academic/critic/because they would have the intelligence to be aware of their literary tradition and that would give the work more integrity. "Like you?" is what I sarcastically thought.

That speaks to the elitism that underlines Triplett's and Feld's work. Their work reflects their belief that their approach and position is infallible. It's art inside a mausoleum, embalmed of uncertainty.

This is why no one cares about poetry. Contemporary art, a similarly hermetic media is much more popular, not simply for the communal experience of gallery-going, but because it wisely understands the value of a wise-ass and the sense in giving people free booze.

@Hosono. Couldn't agree more about the elitism here; however, I disagree with the notion that no one cares about poetry. We had more than 120 people at "Cheap Wine and Poetry" last night yucking it up over four great local poets and writers. No one may care about this type of poetry--the high art, academic-y stuff--but good poetry is alive and well in the world; just come to CW&P, grab a drink and have a seat. We offer the same experience as art shows with less hipsters and less talk of the effects of post-modernism.

@5

100% agree

@Brian
No one cares about poetry except for poets and chicken-headed girls easily impressed. I'm one so I know (uh, the former).

Also, two easy indications this poem falls into the highbrow/elite/garbage pile:

use of both "frisson" and "cthonic" in the SAME poem