Ancestry
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman are often referred to as the grandparents of America poetry. While they’re by no means alone in forming the voice of American poetics, their impact, like the impact of invaluable America poets of the 1900s, ripple through the language of contemporary poets.
“The dead are in control”
-Amiri Baraka
“Poets are dead people talking about being alive”
-Mary Ruefle [from] 28 Short Lectures at Harvard