Culture January 1, 1

Poets find themselves unnerved every April during National Poetry Month when the noise of consumerism fades a decibel and the media spotlight falls on them. “Too bad for you, beautiful singer,” Peter Gizzi laments in his new book, The Outernationale (Wesleyan University Press, $23). How do poets write in a culture enamored of both media spectacle (the Super Bowl, American Idol, a televised war) and unmediated individual expression—YouTube, MySpace, and blogs?