Ficlets

Here’s an interesting article in the New York Times about one institution in the world of poetry – the New Yorker – going after another – the Poetry Foundation, which toiled in the genteel poverty as many poet-related things do, until a $200 million bequest came its way in 2001 (the New Yorker article in question here). The Times piece makes the observation that while the New Yorker piece seems to go after the Poetry Foundation for making poetry “a brand-enhancing commodity,” it does the same thing in its own pages – that there’s a decent argument to be made that fundamentally the New Yorker doesn’t take poetry particularly seriously at all.

I don’t have a dog in this particular fight – I regret to say I’m woefully behind on my contemporary poetry reading – but if nothing else it’s a fascinating look at how these two institutions (and the New York Times) are looking at poetry, and promoting it as the two most visible outlets for the medium.

On a separate but vaguely related note, I wonder if anyone’s contributed a poetry Ficlet yet. I think maybe I will. No, it won’t be a limerick.