wwnorton:

Jeffrey Brown interviewed Paul Hoover about Postmodern American Poetry, a new Norton anthology, for the PBS News Hour. In the clip here, Hoover describes the work of the Flarfists and reads a short piece of Sharon Mesmer’s “I Want to Make Love to You on Mission Accomplished Day.” 

Listen to the whole interview.

Man, I wish I read more poetry for leisure. As pretentious as it sounds, I thoroughly enjoy reading and—no lie—analyzing poetry, but I just can’t do it on my own without gaining some insight from other poetry-minded folks. It’s ok though. I know I’m a dumb ass. Anyway, in literature classes, I would always look forward to the sections on meter, rhyme, rhythm, & then all the brave innovations that broke away from those rules because poems felt to me like real, enigmatic works of art. I mean, none of this is to discredit the artistic canon of novels & all the other grandiose works of fiction & non-fiction, but something felt special about poetry. Maybe I’ll never discover what distinguishes it from the other literary traditions. So yeah, I’ll secretly want this anthology yet only under the circumstance that I’m a member of some kind of poetry book club of sorts because, realistically, I would never read this kind of anthology on my own. I dunno, do poetry book clubs even exist? I guess a guy can dream.

Listen to the rest of the interview, by the way. It’s not too long, and Paul Hoover reads a couple of other poems in the process.

Tumblr, do you think of me as upper-middle-class?

(Source : pbs.org)