Tayson on Whitman and Language Poetry. A profoundly wrong-headed article. (Via Josh (who incidentally is one of most consistently intelligent poetry bloggers out there.) I especially love the contrast between Sharon Olds and Leslie Scalapino, in which the young poet siimply takes the latter's emotional coolness at face value. And when he quotes Jorie Graham; that's priceless. The poetry that he seems to dislike, that found in most literary magazines today, owes more to Graham than to Scalapino or Bernstein. Isn't it Graham who dilutes Ashbery to just the right consistency to be acceptable in the MFA programs? I see much more second-rate Ashbery/Graham imitations than second-rate Clark Coolidge imitations. The period style of today owes very little to LP.