Good Poems

Dana Gioia has a very sensible and positive review of Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems in the April 2004 issue of Poetry . Gioia admits that he at first reacted sniffily at the title and the editor of this anthology, but he says that over several months of reading the poetry he came to appreciate and approve of Keillor’s work. Keillor’s aesthetics could not be more different from that of the writing schools; instead of density, ambiguity, ambivalence, Keillor says that a good poem is a memorable one, and that a memorable poem is mainly one that tells a memorable story: “A story is easier to remember than a puzzle.” Gioia suggests that Keillor’s collection, which were compiled from poems he had read on NPR’s “Writer’s Almanac,” is of poems that touch a chord with ordinary life, poetry to “read in normal circumstances.” In short, this is poetry that does not see itself elevated above the mass of language but sees itself as embedded in the give and take of ordinary speech.