The Difference Is Spreading

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Since its inception in 2012, the online introduction to modern poetry known as ModPo has engaged tens of thousands of readers, listeners, teachers, and poets, focusing on a modern American tradition from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson to today's innovative verse. In The Difference is Spreading, ModPo's Al Filreis and Anna Strong Safford turn the spotlight on the poets themselves by inviting fifty of them to choose a text by another poet and write a thousand-word essay on it. The diverse approaches confirm that there are countless ways for poets to engage with each other's work. A thorough reading of the fifty anthologized poems and their corresponding responses highlights the significance of community, socio-aesthetic networks, and the expressions of respect owed to innovative colleagues and predecessors. Through these curated selections, Filreis and Safford convey their belief that the most challenging and dynamic poems are those that invite reader participation in meaning-making. Poetry thrives in the interaction between reader and poet, where the reader, whether experienced or novice, is encouraged to engage in interpretive work—without which poetry remains inert.