Many of the poems that are chosen to appear in Poetry magazine, arguably the most eminent poetry periodical published in North America, frighten me. Really, it's not the poems themselves that frighten me. Most of them are not good enough to frighten or delight anyone. The merit they are assigned frightens me. These poems are praised for their rejection of the Significant, for their portrayals of late - night waitresses, and for their ambiguity.

They often accomplish nothing but a description of disappointing marital sex, or a description of a drunk outside of a pawnshop. But they aren't even good descriptions. A lack of philosophical content is thoroughly alright if the description itself is beautifully stated and stunningly accurate. But they are overblown, tired, in a style that mistakes its content to be profound; they use slang awkwardly, like parents trying to be cool. When a person finishes reading one, a person shudders. Is that false climax of a brilliant conclusion all that human thought is capable of at this stage? This is what my wife looks like when she climbs out of the shower. Oh eureka.