Where Does Literature Flow Into The Mainstream?

” ‘The real culture of America,’ ” Lawrence Ferlinghetti said after announcing the finalists for the 2006 National Book Awards, ” ‘is not corporate monoculture and television. It’s the writers, teachers, universities, libraries and librarians. That’s the mainstream culture of America.’ It’s hard to say what’s more unexpected: to hear Ferlinghetti invoke the mainstream or to see him take part in an event like this. … Still, the issue he raises — that of the mainstream and literature’s place within it, of why this stuff matters — is one readers and writers have no choice but to take on.”