THE HATRED OF POETRY

No art has been denounced as often as poetry. It's even bemoaned by poets: I, too, dislike it, wrote Marianne Moore. Many more peopl e agree they hate poetry, Ben Lerner writes, than can agree what poetry is. I, too, dislike it and have largely organized my life ar ound it and do not experience that as a contradiction because poetry and the hatred of poetry are inextricable in ways it is my purp ose to explore.In this inventive and lucid essay, Lerner takes the hatred of poetry as the starting point of his defense of the art. He exam...[Read more]