‘Context collapse’ is a term used within media studies. It describes a phenomenon that is commonly seen online: something is posted (a joke, for example) with a specific audience in mind; after being made public, it comes into contact with a range of different audiences, some of whom don’t get it, some of whom find it offensive and so on. Context collapses, and with it the possibility of mutual understanding. 

The critic and novelist Ryan Ruby’s new book – which is written in blank verse and contains copious footnotes (also in blank verse) – articulates the fear that a fate of this kind awaits modern poetry. On the face of it, this is an odd anxiety to have. The overwhelming majority of 21st-century English-language poetry has been written and read by the same people: they teach in universities, usually in departments of literature. Surely contexts cannot get more stable than this? Suffice it to say that Ruby has to draw a long bow in order to make his case. He begins at an approximation of the beginning – a bard holding forth around a campfire in Homeric Greece – and presents a history of poetry all the way down to AI offering ‘personalised’ couplets of birthday congratulations.

Despite the confetti of untranslated Greek, German, Arabic, Chinese, Occitan, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish scattered throughout its pages, Context Collapse is no celebration of literary history. Rather, it is the attempt of a youngish, unusually intelligent and politically committed American writer to argue that poetry is best served when