SOURCE: Bly, Robert, and Wayne Dodd. “Robert Bly: An Interview by Wayne Dodd.” Ohio Review 19, no. 3 (fall 1978): 32-48.

In the following interview, Dodd and Bly discuss the “domestication” and homogenization of contemporary American poetry.

[Dodd:] I see a curious contradiction in contemporary poetry. On the one hand, there is the most incredible amount of poetic activity going on. On the other hand, there is evidence of a real absence of sureness of direction and even purpose. This uncertainty is reflected even in such things as a call recently by a literary magazine for people to comment on what is to be the role of, say, form, or content, in poetry. It seemed to be symptomatic of a deep uncertainty. I wonder what would be a way of trying to make sense of that. Maybe you could talk about, for example, what the generation of poets under thirty-five show...