I would add Hayden and Brooks to the list Giménez Smith offers, as I would countless others (Sonia Sanchez, June Jordan, Juan Felipe Herrera, &c—I’m assuming CGS’s “poets of privilege” means poets in the academy).
This is, perhaps, the response Greatness requires. A response that is resistant to its corporeal time. I would add Hayden and Brooks to the list Giménez Smith offers, as I would countless others (Sonia Sanchez, June Jordan, Juan Felipe Herrera, &c—I’m assuming CGS’s “poets of privilege” means poets in the academy). I would tell Hayden, don’t worry, even in those narrow, overspecialized definitions, your place is not guaranteed. It’s tenuous. It is, as Brooks wrote, “Definitionless in this strict atmosphere.”