Been reading piles and piles of poetry manuscripts, and noticing an interesting trend in what I assume are books by younger poets--very young poets, like under 25. The piles are anonymous, but after a certain age one can kind of smell youth. The trend is toward a quite direct mode of speech, plainspeech, and within that a lot of expression of anxiety about being involved in "poetry world." Programs, conferences, teaching, publishing. Lines like (I'm making these up) "I hate being a poet./ Poets stink./ Who judges these contests?/ I just want to fry potatoes without fear." I think everyone's reading Chelsey Minnis?
Born and raised in New York City, Rebecca Wolff earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poetry...
Read Full Biography