American Poetry in an Age of Constriction
Anis Shivani is currently finishing a novel, Intrusion, and a new collection, Anatolia and Other Stories, both dealing with multicultural and postcolonial themes, as well as a book called American Fiction in Decline: Publishing in an Age of Plenty. He has also recently completed his first poetry collection, Treasonous Times
Contemporary American poetry suffers from an excess of self- involvement, which prevents adequate engagement with public life. Leading poets such as Jorie Graham, Sharon Olds, Louise Glück, Philip Levene and Billy Collins are argued to be overrated writers who don’t venture beyond the marketing niches each has established among the critical and reviewing public. Graham plays pseudo-philosophical language games, Olds engages in a medieval fascination with the body’s determinist processes, Glück articulates the various stages of grief for the post-feminist woman, Levine claims to be tribune of the working class, and Collins is happy playing trivial imaginative tricks. Anything other than the artificial anti-poetry of the academic poets would pose a mortal challenge to the gatekeepers of the poetry world.