The article offers to look at contemporary poetry from the viewpoint of an ‘ordinary reader,’ uninvolved in the literary process and unaffiliated with the notional ‘establishment.’ The author uses his position as a bystander, on the one hand, and a training that enables expert assessment (the author teaches Russian language and literature and holds a master’s degree in cognitive research), on the other, to examine the processes behind presentday literary awards and criticism of poetry. According to Smirnov, modern poetry and modern criticism both have disintegrated into separate segments within a common literary field. The continuous erosion of language norms and dilution of criteria have pushed contemporary art, and poetry in particular, away from the rules of the classical ontology. Thus, a text cannot be identified as pertaining to ‘poetry’ by such key characteristics as rhyme, rhythm, or use of figurative language. In this situation, the author pins his hopes on the institution of criticism: unless it engages in self-reflection in order to recognise the circumstances and phenomena behind its failures, constructive changes remain unlikely.