Ron Charles, for The Washington Post, takes a looks at an article by Mark Edmundson, called "Poetry Slam" in the upcoming issue of Harper's magazine. Link

In response, poet Seth Abramson writes an article on why he thinks contemporary poetry is so good. Link

What's interesting to me is that Edmundson is an English professor at the University of Virginia, which is the home of Virginia Quarterly Review (better known as VQR), which is a very well-respected literary magazine that has had some very notable contributors, including the founders of modern poetry.

Abramson claims that:

Because there are exponentially more poets writing or committed to writing accomplished poetry today than has ever been the case in the history of the United States, either as a percentage of total population or as an absolute number.

I have no way of verifying that, but it seems to me if nothing else, that poetry is at least gaining ground amongst people of a particular age.