Every age calls forth new poets who create new forms, and our age is no exception. Like the Dodge Festival, contemporary poetry reading is a stage on which fresh voices take up the democratic conversation. Readings are returning poetry to the people. They recall those public gatherings in early America in which citizens assembled on commons to read their broadsheets and discuss the news of the day. The poets in this book seemed to be yearning for, and working toward, this sense of community.
Connection is crucial to being a poet.
As for the showmanship, Quincy Troupe reminds us that poetry begins as song. It was performance. Troupe and other African-American poets still invoke the tradition of the griot, the roving troubadour who sang his poetry to villagers. Poetry creates an experience that the audience lives. Because Americans come from so many places, the poets of our time are infusing powerful new energy and idioms into our language.