Language Poetries (note the plural)

“LANGUAGE” POETRIES

by Douglas Messerli

In a decade in which so many poets and critics have expressed dismay over an ever-shrinking audience for contemporary poetry and have decried what they see as a decline in the cultural and political vitality of poetry and poetics, we have also witnessed something else: an almost meteoric rise in the publications and readership of the poets associated with what has come to be called “Language” writing, and an equal rise in the critical attention paid to them. Since 1976 [until the date of this essay, 1987], poets associated in one way or another with this group have published over 150 books of poetry and criticism—demonstrating a resourcefulness and energetic rethinking of the nature of poetry both in social and aesthetic terms. Such an output would be astonishing in any literary period, but is nearly miraculous in light of the doomsayers’ predictions of the death of poetry as we know it

I heartily recommend this essay. It includes great anecdotes about the SF group and their sense of superiority. Read the entire essay here.