About poetry, the great modernist poet Marianne Moore famously groused "I, too, dislike it." Sometimes I know exactly how she feels. Every once in a while, though, a poem comes along that has the feeling of what Moore refered to as the genuine.
Currently on The Cortland Review, you can read an interview by David M. Katz with New Criterion Poetry Prize winner Daniel Brown, who consistently delivers the goods. Here's a bit of what he has to say:
"You know, we're in a period in poetry when subjects tend to be looked down upon. In some circles—maybe the most influential ones—poems are valued for an absence of subject: for capturing, rather, the flitting movement of the mind, or registering the facts of the multifarious world. By their nature, such poems will live, if they do, in the interest of their individual moments. But they risk sweating and straining to make every moment interesting in itself."
In addition to Mr. Brown's thoughtful take on poetry and classical music, there is also a nifty selection of his poems from his prize-winning collection Taking the Occasion and elsewhere.
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