Is the Golden Age of American Poetry Now?

In his essay concerning the question above, Seth Abramson answers in the affirmative. While his essay could be read as an example of chronocentrism--particularly by those who let its title dictate content and tone--I would have to agree, if only to the extent that there are more opportunities for writers today than ever before, whether it be through academia and the communities it fosters, or through social media; even if it's only corroborated by mere numbers and statistics. However, I can't help read this essay as a kind of customary staple for all eras, ages, and generations; i.e., I think every period is confronted by the same dilemma--living in a time unlike any other that came before and thus bearing an inevitable anxiety over the present in relation to the future, and to posterity--and so I can imagine a paper like this being written multiple times throughout history, which essentially catalogues the moments leading up to a so-called pinnacle point in time. But I digress: perhaps I'm focusing too much on the peripheral rather than the foci/loci of what Abramson is really exploring and discussing.

What is important to keep in mind, I think, is that Abramson is not so much/necessarily asserting that the Golden Age of American poetry is qualitatively now (but maybe quantitatively now); instead, he's responding, however tangentially, to allegations that the Dark Age of American poetry is now; which he does more directly in an article written in response to another published earlier that day. Despite the struggle I had acquiescing to Abramson's vague and, perhaps, vestigially litigious style of writing, I can't help but appreciate and admire his (h)op(e)timism when regarding the present and an ever-daunting future in a time so resplendent in its editorial cynicism. For me, these imbued sentiments have been confluently affirmed by reading Michael Robbins's Alien vs. Predator, a contemporary avant-garde, whatever the fuck that means, poetry collection that both defies and praises, thus reifying a non-Du Boisian kind of double consciousness, or cognitive dissonance, which struggles to reconcile the ostensible decadence with the ostensible splendor of the modern world, while balance-beaming between antagonism and complicity, and seeking something that isn't necessarily wholeness, all of which has been occurring for at least a century in response to various external stimuli.

Alright, anyway, let's get back to the essay. Apart from the MFA-praise (okay, I'm convinced: perhaps they're not as bad as David Foster Wallace made them out to be [or maybe there's a difference between fiction and poetry programs, neither of which, as Abramson points out, are standardized and thus must vary from one to another]), I'm intrigued by the section concerning itself with "Conceptual writing" and Goldsmith's "peak language" theory; but by intrigued, I mean I don't understand what the hell he's talking about. Topically, or superficially, it seems to be aligned with Language poetics, but I have the feeling--the fear of misunderstanding--that they're designedly antipodal. Either way, from what I've read and researched about them, I find their (mis)appropriation of language to be somewhat vulgar and/or offensive; not that I'm a purist by any means, but it seems antithetical to what poetry has always, more or less, been about: self-expression, communication, & c. In that sense, they seem to have taken their Oedipal complex--i.e., as a historically traditional movement/reaction between generations--to an extreme for the sake of extremity, however misguided as omnidirectional and nondirectional, both (if that makes sense).

I was also intrigued by the part that alludes to the Sophists--i.e., this idea of language, persuasion, attention, and their respective autonomies (and that concept of subject-in-itself)--as it pertains to something I previously considered in one of my digressions, along with what little I remember from Greek philosophy, and that is the possible correspondence between this antago-complicit dance and the relativistic Sophists--as opposed to the universalities of Socrates (despite his "I know that I know nothing" bullshit)--but other than that, I really don't see where the Sophists fit in. Ugh, there were a lot of moments like this while reading and re-reading this essay; times when I would, at once, agree with what Abramson is saying and then, upon further investigation, see that maybe I was projecting my own ideas in a blend with his. And so, while I tend to agree with certain sentiments--including those from other things he's written--I think some of his connections, diagnoses, and predictions are off; but then again, he's read way more contemporary poetry than me.