Carol Muske-Dukes, a former poet laureate of California, discusses the role poetry plays in modern life at the Paris Review. She considers whether people think poetry is relevant or accessible, as well as how we approach it differently today than we have in the past:
The reality is that we live in an age that works against poetry. Poetry is an act of attention and we’re in a time where having an attention deficit is the norm. We’re bombarded with images and information, but images and information are not knowledge—and they’re certainly not poetry.
