Perhaps the increase in those nearly "self-help" poetry groups, poetry centers, poetry tutors, Slam poetry teams, etc., has occured because of a vacuum left by Charles Bukowski- Our last direct & solitary Poetry senator.
Those poetry workshops have sprung-up like wild mushrooms or leprechaun orgies throughout the States. These workshops will advise young poets to polish their styles, circumcise the extra words, & remake the poem...bigger, better, stronger,- Think 6 Million Dollar Man hooks-up with Extreme Makeover. There is certainly a danger, I feel, in this backstage sharing of a poem's ultrasound w/ someone who doesn't know you intimately. This rings the intuitive Hunchback in all of us out of a job, especially in large settings.
Just like Groucho Marx, Bukowski didn't belong to any movement or clubs. He simply brought back the forgotten stereotype of the lonely writer: The hack, the odd-ball, the weirdo, the nut-job, the flake, that guy down the street who keeps to himself. Anyway, at the tail-bone of the day, it's just you & a typewriter.
Then there's the old stuttered adage: Write what you know. That fork-lifts a lot of Sumo-Wrestlers, these days. That's why lamentable poems about American Indian names of suburban American streets & cities, written by white profs, don't float. The truthfulness of the poet's relationship to the poem, in this example, is betrayed once the reader sees Smith or Jones as the last name.
Now, naturally, this isn't the chicken-broth to the stewed comment: Well, what about historical biographers? They're not tug-a-warring w/ their emotions. They're not poets. Poetry is capturing all the blood cells in a body & displaying them for a brief moment. It's the most personal of the Arts. That's why Bukowski was a success. He revealed all of his warts, mistakes, broken-hearts, beer-farts, bruises, burns, pimples...He wrote about his life as it was. William Wordsworth & his fellow Romantics believed that poetry should be written in a tranquil setting- under an oak tree or near a lush pond, definitely past the bites of WNV mosquitoes- after an emotional incident or experience. Bukowski proved there is no tranquil, safe place in Modern America. Bukowski found himself shelved w/ "...pill freaks, alcoholics, whores, ex-prositutes, mad-women..." There was little room for peace; and there was no rest-stop for poetry. Write it when you can, and move to the next poem.
With this behavior, Bukowski had an almost assembly-line foreman's drive to his poetry. Before writing full-time for Black Sparrow Press, he worked several menial jobs. The longest job he held in the collection was for the U.S. Postal Service. For the six or so years he was there, Bukowski parenthesized his work schedule- before & after- like a Houdini straight-jacket, with constant writing.
This is where Bukowski becomes the Lewis & Clark to the average slob. Before Bukowski, most Americans & European poets put a big educational crowbar between themselves & the mass populous. Because the typical citizen didn't have the education, the time, the relatability, to the "one-hit-wonder-poems" of the day, (think Pound & Eliot, especially), they tended to view poetry as the unknown rash the neighbor girl had, & shied away from it. Bukowski had scalped metaphor & skinned loftiness in language. His poems were then dragged to the local bar & propped next to the pickled eggs & beef jerky.
Because of the accessibility in topics: Women, beer, fights, gambling, this created a mudslide of mimics & emulators that continue today.
Along w/ his "Please pet the poetry" attitude, the Bukowski readers were also exposed to his rotten poems next to the gems. I think that having had all the, uh, less attractive poems blendered w/ the better ones showed authentic human effort. You know, Kerouac felt the first thing written down was the truth, and he admitted to little editing. I don't believe him. The reader can tell when Bukowski is hard-up for another cat or beer poem. That's how it goes. They all don't come out easy & looking gorgeous. It's a childbirth, of sorts.