The Poetry Scene of 1965 and Now According to Ron Silliman

Here's the inimitable Ron Silliman sizing up the poetry scene in 1965 and now. He admits there were fights then as now. But then there were only hundred souls and now there are 20 thousand. Same case with India I guess. Excerpt:

"The poetry scene of 1965 – the year I first saw Ginsberg & when Dylan wrote those lyrics – consisted of a few hundred souls. Today, with at least 20,000 publishing poets, the dynamics of the scene are really quite different. And the debates between kinds of poetry take on a very different flavor if they only involve a few of the practitioners off mud wrestling in a corner."

Here's a man who was around when Allen Ginsberg and Shel Silverstein existed and wrote beat poetry. Heavy genuflection and feet touching required, I guess.