PopPoetry Postscript: July 29, 2022

Zola Jesus, Tom Bombadil, and a bunch of dirtbags.

Taco Bell Quarterly @TBQuarterly

Online Exclusive! $2 Crispy Cantina Chicken Taco! Also sometimes I get this bad feeling that the entire lit world runs through a tiny circle of ivy league educated rich kids with MFAs from the same 3 schools and bylines in the same 5 magazines living in the same 13 mile radius.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the above tweet today. My interview with @poetrymeemees also reveals this same frustration with the poetry community as it is (see this week’s off-the-wall rec).

Are we, a niche art form, locked in a death spiral of privilege and so-called prestige? Can increasing our sense of what poets and poetry can be through pop culture help bring the walls down? Can Taco Bell Quarterly? Is there room for the weird, the outsider, the unpublished, the small-town poet? Have we bricked up the entrance to poetry so thoroughly that no one can get in or out anymore?

Am I just hungry?