What happened to the sixties?

Whenever there has been social upheaval, there has been a movement of art that parallels the ugly in the world.

You can open up your anthologies from English class (go on, go ahead; I know you have one somewhere) and trace the lines between history and writing. They match up pretty well, don't they? In front of me I have an anthology of American Writing since 1945 (one of those brightly colored Norton dealies.) You know where the poems stop? The mid-1980's - the time of the Cold War.

The book was published in 2003.

Where have all the poems gone?

No, I mean the good poems. Not poems that sound like they were ripped straight out of a 13 year old girl's angsty diary; those are a cliche dime a dozen.

When I am teaching English Lit. to freshman, what will I be teaching them from now? Still Billy Collins? Still Cathy Song? Will our records of this years election be merely news archives and youtube videos? For centuries we have known the souls of the people of history through their art.

What will we have to show for ourselves?

Write write write.

Show me what you've got.