"Dana Gioia offers insightful essays on literature's changing place in contemporary culture in this new collection." "What happens to poetry in a culture that no longer depends on books? Dana Gioia dismisses the standard cliches about poetry's precarious place in a society transformed by electronic media. Looking at both the literary world and popular entertainment, Gioia's original title essay offers an account of how new technologies and innovative forms of oral poetry - rap, slam, spoken work, performance art - are revitalizing the art in unexpected ways."--BOOK JACKET.