"Stalking the Typical Poem" by Jan Schreiber

I stumbled upon this essay in the Contemporary Poetry Review, by Jan Schreiber.  He articulates some problems and possible ways of looking at them that everybody wrestles with who thinks about contemporary American poetry.  I would add the attribute “absurd” or “absurdist” to his list of commonalities among a certain "type" of contemporary American poem, though this is possibly what he means by "fantastical":

• unmetered and unrhymed
• focused on a particular event
• details are slightly fantastical but not incomprehensible
• invites metaphoric or symbolic interpretation
• can be reduced to a simple, unsurprising observation
• ends inconclusively

He's quick to acknowledge that there are more types than the one described by these attributes. 

 

Poets deploy strategies for making language, the material which they “work,” visible.  Which to me is the chief virtue of poetry.  Poetry may be distinguished as the only verbal art in which language is approached in this way, as opposed to an instrument with which to manage/shape material (i.e., content).  Incomprehensibility is certainly one of those strategies, and can be a force in encouraging readers to attend to the language of the poem, what's being done to/with it, its effect upon the ear, and the limits of its elasticity.  To me, this is a noble undertaking and keeps language alive.  It's certainly why I continue to read poetry.