High and low culture come together in all Post Modern art, and

“High and low culture come together in all Postmodern art, and American poetry is not excluded from this.” Thus speaks Diane Wakoski, unveiling a truth about the shifting landscape of art in our age. Her words remind us that in the world after modernity, the boundaries that once separated the refined from the ordinary, the sacred from the popular, have dissolved. Where once poetry was chained to ivory towers, it now drinks equally from the chalice of the classical and the cup of the common.

The meaning of this saying lies in the recognition that Postmodern art thrives on collision. In it, the sonata may stand beside the rock song, the myth of Achilles may appear alongside a television commercial, and the poet may weave references to both Dante and comic books in the same breath. To some, this seems like corruption, but to Wakoski it is a new vitality: the union of high and low culture into a living form that speaks to the fullness of human experience. American poetry, she reminds us, has embraced this blend, refusing to separate the sacred from the everyday.

Consider the Beat poets, such as Allen Ginsberg, who mixed Biblical cadences with jazz rhythms and street slang. In his poem Howl, he cried out with the intensity of ancient prophets, yet filled his lines with the raw speech of city streets and the imagery of neon lights. Here, high culture—the prophetic voice—was fused with low culture—the language of the outsider. This fusion made his poetry electric, resonant with both scholarship and rebellion. It was not exclusion but inclusion that gave it power.

The origin of such blending is rooted in the very soil of America. This land was always a meeting ground: immigrants brought with them Shakespeare and Homer, but also folk songs and tall tales. In this mixture, American art found its character. When Postmodernism arrived, it merely heightened what was already true—that the nation’s poetry could not be confined to elite traditions alone. It would carry Whitman’s sweeping democratic voice, Dickinson’s crystalline inwardness, and the blues shouted on a street corner, all as one chorus.

The lesson for us is profound: greatness does not lie in purity, but in mixture. Just as the blacksmith tempers steel by blending elements, so the poet tempers meaning by uniting the noble and the common. To despise low culture is to cut oneself off from the pulse of the people; to despise high culture is to sever oneself from the depths of history. The true artist draws from both, creating works that are rich with resonance, accessible to many yet layered with meaning for those who seek it.

History also shows us the example of Shakespeare, centuries before Postmodernism. He wrote for queens and kings, but his plays were filled with bawdy jokes for the groundlings who stood in the pit. He mixed Roman history with English humor, divine themes with human folly. In this way, he foreshadowed the very principle Wakoski describes: that art endures not by serving one audience, but by uniting the lofty with the humble.

The practical teaching is this: do not fear the blending of worlds. When you create, speak both to the heights of thought and the depths of daily life. If you write, let your lines carry the wisdom of philosophers and the laughter of children. If you teach, draw from the classics, but also from the stories of the street. If you live, honor both the cathedral and the marketplace. For in this union lies the richness of a life that is whole.

Thus, Wakoski’s insight is not merely about art—it is about existence. High and low culture are not enemies but companions, two wings of the same bird. And in their harmony, whether in American poetry or in our own lives, we discover the full measure of what it means to be human.