. . . Lots of funny contemporary twists on this artifact/communication dilemma. The vogue of the "informal", the "talk poem", the poem which parlays documents & news items as a way to "get it across", the vogue of the poet as a function of a bohemian clique, of poetry as "performance" - all these postmodernist reactions against the modernist aesthetic artifact reveal one glaring Achilles' heel : the lack of anything in particular to communicate. Thus a dressed-down, informal, performance clubhouse party poetry becomes its own kind of artifact or fashion statement.

But if they had a theme, if they had something to say, they would look more carefully at the "formal" elements of style, the "prose virtues", etc.