I definitely wish to distinguish American poetry from British or other English language poetry. – Diane Wakoski
Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of ones geographic landscape, sometimes out of ones cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins. – Diane Wakoski
From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not. – Diane Wakoski
I think one of the things that language poets are very involved with is getting away from conventional ideas of beauty, because those ideas contain a certain attitude toward women, certain attitudes toward sex, certain attitudes toward race, etc. – Diane Wakoski