Studying literature, and reading, reading, reading, all three professors agree, is the key to adding that resonance that connects new writers to the poetic tradition. The applicant pool and the caliber of writing are increasingly competitive. Not necessarily wiser, though. People are more accepting. More good poetry and more bad poetry.
Great poetry is a different story.
Audiences are more diverse, and the standards among those audiences vary greatly. In a sense, M.F.A programs replicate that sense of community. If there is a renaissance of interest in the writing and reading of poetry, Levin, Plumly and Collier agree that it is a return to a basic need for shared experience on a level deeper and more satisfying than the prevalent culture provides. In the United States, perhaps because there was at the outset such rejection of the past, of old identities, by immigrant populations, perhaps because the population was and is so diverse, perhaps because individuality seemed more valuable than cultural identity, the poetic voice has been less cohesive, less familiar. The American poetic tradition perhaps becomes more diffused as it becomes ever more democratic.