As Gioia asks, how did Kool Herc, the father of hip-hop, change the very nature of poetry without an English degree? There is only one conclusion, he asserts: today’s poets do not need a degree. They write while they work as baristas, bookstore clerks, or in law, medicine, and business. Social media is the great equalizer: an online journal requires virtually nothing but someone’s time. Gioia exults that this new Bohemia of poets, existing outside the academic economy, is a vigorous alternative culture. “They have diversified, democratized and localized American poetry,” he crows.