News at Eleven: We mistrust our own tastes,

so we rely on the tastemaker.

Burt is not the only young scholar whose reviews introduce new poetry to the masses, but he alone seems to be everywhere. He reviews for Web sites, magazines and major newspapers, including this one. He networks at conferences, on campuses, on Facebook. And he is a passionate booster of poets he loves. Not everyone believes he's a great critic, but few doubt that his opinions help dictate who becomes part of the canon (and thus college syllabuses and high-school classes) in the way that the opinions of Bloom and Vendler and Stanford's Marjorie Perloff (all of whom are around 80 years old) have for the last several decades.

from The New York Times: Poetry's Cross-Dressing Kingmaker

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