A Wider 'Net

My inability to relate to what Hollander has to say remains. After writing about his poetic generation, Hollander spends follows with a discussion of Wallace Stevens and a bunch of other poets he read growing up. Needless to say, I'm only familiar with a handful - particularly because I've read medieval and early modern stuff so much more than anything after the 19th century. 

Romantics, Medievals, and Renaissance poets are my foundation (roughly in that order), and reading Hollander's chapter here has really shown me that that sort of a base can work. It's something that I just need to find others to relate with about.

Taking a wider view, though, I think the breadth of my reading reflects a greater ease of access. A lot of Hollander's anecdotes about what he read involve getting books from friends and such. I've more often been on the other side of that exchange, but having the internet's definitely had an incredible impact on people's abilities to read a greater variety of anything by anyone. 

This variety definitely leads to what Hollander would consider bad poetry, but I think it also helps to keep it in check. After all, as more people are able to read more, more people are able to read more bad poetry and thus are equipped to avoid it.