Whitman's Curse: Contemporary Poetry as Solipsism

By Adam Sedia

Contemporary poetry is plagued by several characteristic vices: obscurity, banality, nihilism—each a topic for examination in its own right. But its most glaring and even characteristic vice is an omnipresent solipsism—a narcissistic navel-gazing by which the poet elevates superficial autobiographical detail to the level of a poetic subject, with no gre…