[New-Poetry] Re: mo natterin' bout po no matterin'

[David Graham]

On 9/4/06 11:15 AM, "Chris Lott" <chris.lott at gmail.com> wrote:

> And David G-- in your estimation is there EVER any variation on
> quality over time when it comes to poetry? Granted, the cries that
> poetry is dead are constant, but doesn't it seem like some years--
> even decades-- are much more fulfilling than others? It almost defies
> logic to think otherwise-- imagine the amazing balance where every
> poet who exits the scene is balanced by one coming in of exactly the
> same quality, skill, and passion. But I guess it could happen... or
> you could be exceedingly good at finding the bright side :)
> 
> c

1.  Yes, I'm pretty good at finding a bright side.  Look at my own so-called
career!

2.  Sure, there are fallow periods. Hard to discern them accurately except
historically, of course.  Barr's right about the Georgian poets, for the
most part.  But he is more sure that we live in a new Georgian era than I
am, and in any event, it's not a judgment that he or I will live to make.

After all, Swinburne did not think that he would be mostly forgotten, did
he?  and his many fans likely didn't think that they lived in a particularly
unrich era of poetry.

We just don't know.  Seems to me that we can say that the recurrent eulogies
for poetry's demise have proven premature so far.  Often hilariously so.
Donald Hall or someone like that has some fun in an essay quoting someone's
Poetry-Is-Dead diatribe from early in the 20th century, and then drily
noting who was alive & writing at the time: you know, forgotten mediocrities
like Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot.

====================================================
David Graham
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